Nation of Why Bother?

[mediccruzin]

We felt the same way you do about 10 years ago. Only cruised RCL!

Then the other cruise lines caught on to the success of RCL's new larger ships, and they made changes, and over the last 10 years the other cruise lines have made great strides, and in our opinion, offer a very competitive/similar cruise that you get with RCL.

The NCL Getaway/Breakaway class, The Carnival '2.0' Conquest Class, and Dream Class, the MSC Fantasia Class, all offer terrific cruises, and many times at a much lower cost then RCL.

The result for us is where we used to take 6+ cruises a year on RCL, now we might take one. And the reason is cost, RCL costs more, and the others deliver a similar product now for less.

So in our opinion, if RCL continues with its current business plan, they will attract 'new' cruisers, but will lose a lot of their long time cruisers loyalty.

Happy cruising.

 

I am hearing many of the same arguments on the Carnival boards. Thread there now about them raising the gratuities to $13 pppd. After 4 cruises on Csrnival my family is looking at trying another line for something different.

Since I work public safety and my wife is a teacher we only have about a 5 week window to cruise, at least till we retire in 4 years. The price we will pay for a cruise is about the same no matter what line we choose.

It is kind of refreshing to see the same issues here as over at the Carnivsl board.

[mediccruzin]

Newbie here - who like your son - may not know about what was 'lost'. I've also looked into all-inclusives on land...and they're so EXPENSIVE. To get the food, the activities, and the rooms that I get on-ship is 200% more and lot of them don't even include food (like the Disney packages or Mexican resorts or the buffets in Las Vegas).

 

We did all inclusive lad resorts for about 10 years. If you look and research you can find a AI Vacation for 10 days close to a cruise price, air fare excluded.

[Paulette3028]

This message board has changed over the past several years. A couple years ago, this board was almost nothing but positive threads about RCCL. These days, I agree the complainers have taken over and I admit to being one of them lately. I think most complaints are from veteran RCCL cruisers. We have sailed RCCL many times and watched them take things away year after year. We are nostalgic for some part of our previous cruise experience that is now gone forever. The other thing that changed is cruise prices really hit rock bottom a few years ago. We had a bad economy and continuous bad news coming out weekly on Carnival ship problems. Cruise lines kind of panicked and were all but giving rooms away there for a stretch. Well the economy has picked back up and prices have jumped substantially. Cruise lines are also getting silly with their nickel and dime stuff beyond the cruise price which has many people fed up. NCL just added a $7 room service charge for food ordered to the room. Carnival no longer has a reggae band by the pool. They have some goofy DJ spinning 80s rap hits to the pool crowd instead. RCCL just went past the point of absurdity on their drink prices and their stock will get punished in upcoming financial quarters. Many people will refuse to pay it and will also refuse to buy an inflated drink package. I guarantee per person spending on the ship will decrease in quarters to come over these drink prices. I am so sure of what I just wrote that have sold off my entire portfolio of RCCL shares several weeks ago and that stock has treated me quite well. Those are just a few of the long list of dumb cuts by the cruise lines, but there are still many great things about RCCL and other cruise lines though. Our family is eagerly waiting for our cruise on the Independence in 2.5 weeks that we booked long ago. With that said, we have already decided this will be our last cruise on RCCL for many years to come. We are not loyal to any cruise line and other lines have just passed them by in our opinion. In the end, just enjoy your cruise if you choose to book one. Things you once enjoyed might be gone, but focus on what is there and have fun.

 

Newbie here - who like your son - may not know about what was 'lost'. I've also looked into all-inclusives on land...and they're so EXPENSIVE. To get the food, the activities, and the rooms that I get on-ship is 200% more and lot of them don't even include food (like the Disney packages or Mexican resorts or the buffets in Las Vegas).

 

We have been cruising since 2004, thanks to our friends back in NJ who wanted (we all did) to get together since we had relocated to FL the year before. It was a great time. On that very ship (since our friends had been on several cruises already, but never us) we were told how cruises were this magical experience of luxury. We had a great time overall -- enough to keep doing it, all on Royal since then. The experience is still wonderful and the excitement I feel in the last 24 hrs until boarding in anticipation of the fun/enjoyment that I will have -- I love. Does it matter that the white glove service is no longer, no; do I miss the chocolates on my pillow, no; if we have one or two less towel animals is that a problem, no. What could be a problem is less staff -- but it still has not negatively affected my vacations to the point that I will not go on a cruise on Royal....so far we have not had any reason to look at other cruise lines. Eventually we will, I am sure. It will probably be because of an itinerary that we want to do.

 

We are relatively seasoned cruisers, but we are not 'so seasoned' from the days in the 70's (we got married n 1974) or the 80's (when we had our second child) or even the 90's (when our first entered college) to miss those things in cruising that seem to be so disturbing to people who perceive to have lost them.

 

I love the experience!

[3dog]

I know that D+ cruisers cannot use the Concierge Lounge any longer on some ships, it is for Pinnacle and Suite Guests

 

Slight correction: D+ cruisers can still access the Concierge Lounge, but on some ships there is no longer a Concierge Lounge. On these ships, D+ cruisers only have the DL instead of the DL or CL.

[A2Mich]

Well I will give my opinion on this. We were long time Carnival cruisers who had to take several years off of cruising due to a growing family, and had decided to get back into cruising.

 

We contacted our long time travel agent who had booked all of our previous cruises. We, of course, we're looking at Carnival, because that's where we felt "safe." Our travel agent had just gone through the commission cuts from Carnival and dealing with the bad publicity complaints about Carnival. She was reluctant to book us on a Carnival cruise, but said she would if that's what we really wanted to do. She had been wanting us to try Royal for a long time, but knew that pricing was an issue for us with airfare costs for a larger family. She found us a cruise on Royal Caribbean for about $300 more than a comparable Carnival cruise in a larger cabin with a trade-off. On Carnival, it would be 5 of us in a standard ocean view cabin (one is a baby in a pack and play so would have that thing to work around), or we could book a Family Promenade on Royal. Much larger cabin with a bathtub (which is important with a 20 month old), and with a walk in closet and a view-only not of outside. But the Royal cabin would still be 150 sq ft larger for a total of $300 more for all of us-not each. So, we booked our first Royal Caribbean cruise.

 

And you know what? We were not disappointed. I could tell that there likely had been some cutbacks as even this cruise didn't have quite the same level of overall service as previous Carnival cruises. We had a great time, food was generally very good, excellent in Giovanni's, hit and miss in the Windjammer. We had bought the sofa cards for most of us, as we're not big alcohol drinkers, so preferred to pay for those as we went. We did find their alcohol prices are extremely high--high enough to make you think twice about buying them but can't justify over $400 per person for a week. So we each bought one drink for the week and that was it.

 

We purchased independent tours in St Thomas and St Maarten but felt that RCI's excursion prices weren't exorbitant, but you can definitely do better on your own.

 

The ship was beautiful and clean, with only minor items of disrepair (our cabin had a number of these). But, Freedom isn't a brand new ship , so I don't really look for perfection.

 

Overall we had a great time. It also worked to our advantage that the price on the Royal cruise had dropped thanks to a sale and promo we applied and it ended up on a per person basis, less expensive than what the Carnival cruise was pricing out at at the same time.

 

We had such a good time that we booked a future cruise through the Next Cruise desk for what we feel is a good price. We booked March 2017 for 3 of us in one of the new Panoramic OV cabins (1802) on Freedom for one of her new 8 day Eastern itinerary for $2600 including prepaid gratuities. We will of course, keep checking fares as time goes on.

 

So, this former Carnival cruiser had a great time, and while we don't discount Carnival for any future cruises, they are no longer the first option.