Goodbye, Carnival

[umograd83]

My husband and I finally tried a new cruise line. We sailed out of Boston on September 4th on the Norwegian Dawn to Bermuda. We loved it! I really love Freestyle dining. I have been on 13 Carnival cruises and, frankly, I have become bored with the Carnival experience. We put down deposits for two more NCL cruises while we were still on the ship. We will be back on Carnival someday, but not for awhile.

[Tapi]

Good for you that you're venturing out and trying other cruise lines, specially after 13 consecutive cruises on the same exact line!

 

The best piece of advice that I can give you is that, instead of booking 2 more NCL cruises (making it 3 in a row), that you look at what other cruise lines are out there. That "newness" and excitement that you felt on your first NCL cruise will quickly wear off if you repeat the same pattern of sailing exclusively on one cruise line again. Keep it varied and fresh!

 

We haven't done two cruises in a row on the same cruise line in the last 5 years and the experience has been wonderful. And the best part about it is that, when you're ready to sail on Carnival again, that boredom will have dissipated and it will feel like a new experience all over again.

 

For now, enjoy what NCL has to offer, and be open to even more new cruise lines, ships, and destinations!

Edited September 14, 2015 by Tapi

[umograd83]

Actually, we are thinking of cruising with Royal Caribbean next September for our anniversary. :). We have four years to book the two NCL cruises.

[evandbob]

My husband and I finally tried a new cruise line. We sailed out of Boston on September 4th on the Norwegian Dawn to Bermuda. We loved it! I really love Freestyle dining. I have been on 13 Carnival cruises and, frankly, I have become bored with the Carnival experience. We put down deposits for two more NCL cruises while we were still on the ship. We will be back on Carnival someday, but not for awhile.

 

When you can predict what the CD announcements will be, it may indeed be time to move on. You will never know what you are missing if you don't try other lines.

 

On the other hand, other people are fine sailing just one line. Different strokes......Personally, I'm glad I branched out to try NCL, Princess, Celbrity and Disney.

[ladygal4.4]

How much of a price difference did you pay for a comparable cruise? Did you eat in the specialty restaurants- and now much did they cost?

[VickiD59]

I've only cruised three times; two of them were the exact same cruise on Carnival Miracle. We loved it so much the first time - which was understandable as it was our first cruise, that we booked the same ship/itinerary the second time, and I was bored to tears.

Our last cruise was NCL Breakaway, and it was like apples and oranges. There were many times when I preferred Carnival over Norwegian (food especially) but at the end of the day, I really think it was the newest, biggest ship that I loved. Next cruise will more than likely be RCCL Anthem out of NY.

Maybe one day we'll fly somewhere to embark, but if we can sail from our home port of NY on a new ship... that will always be a bonus.

[love my grandkids]

Good to cruise on more than one cruise line. We just started with Princess and in hindsight should have done this some years ago.

[Tutontow]

Good for you that you're venturing out and trying other cruise lines, specially after 13 consecutive cruises on the same exact line!

 

The best piece of advice that I can give you is that, instead of booking 2 more NCL cruises (making it 3 in a row), that you look at what other cruise lines are out there. That "newness" and excitement that you felt on your first NCL cruise will quickly wear off if you repeat the same pattern of sailing exclusively on one cruise line again. Keep it varied and fresh!

 

We haven't done two cruises in a row on the same cruise line in the last 5 years and the experience has been wonderful. And the best part about it is that, when you're ready to sail on Carnival again, that boredom will have dissipated and it will feel like a new experience all over again.

 

For now, enjoy what NCL has to offer, and be open to even more new cruise lines, ships, and destinations!

 

Tapi, I agree with everything you said. I would love to try other cruiselines but I have established a relationship with CCL's players club and the offers they give me and most likely other gamblers is hard to beat.

 

One thing for sure after 35 years as an active gambler, once you have played blackjack in one casino they are basically all the same.

 

For us cruising is just getting away. Hanging out on our balcony. Having people wait on us and of course gambling and drinking.

 

I have priced other cruiselines and unless I am missing something the savings I get with CCL can't be beat. I have called the other cruiselines and offered to scan and send them my offers from CCL just to show I am a rated player and they replied until you establish your play with us we can't help you.

 

So in my long winded way I am pretty much tied to CCL.

[DebJ14]

Good for you. We like to switch it up to counter the boredom factor.

Last year we did Princess in January, Carnival in April and RCCL over Labor Day.

 

This year we have done Princess in January and MSC Yacht Club in April(favorite cruise to date) and have a Carnival upcoming in November.

 

Next year we will be on NCL in the Haven and Azamara Club Cruises. You will never know what is out there, until you try other lines.

 

We are also cruising more for itinerary now too. Thus the MSC cruise, which was to Bermuda from Fort Lauderdale, the Carnival Breeze last year to Aruba, Curacao, La Romana and Grand Turk, and our upcoming Azamara is to St. Barts, St. John, Virgin Gorda, Nevis and St. Maarten. We are knocking ports off the bucket list.

[umograd83]

It was not much more to cruise on NCL because we drive to Boston from Maine, so we saved on airfare. We did eat at Bamboo, the Asian eatery that they used to charge for. We did not eat at the specialty restaurants that charged extra. What I really liked about the buffet restaurant was that there were four lines and there were hardly any lines for food there. I also like the fact that there were two pools on the lido deck: one was 5.5 to 6 feet deep and the other was 4.5 feet deep. That meant most of the kids were in the shallow pool. I have never seen so many adults in the pool! Including us. There were four hot tubs, two were adults-only and the rules were enforced! We had no trouble finding lounge chairs.

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

There are a half dozen different grocery stores between home and office. Even though some offer loyalty cards I choose to stop at a different one each time. One has the candy bars I love, another the perfect salad dressing, and you can't beat the rotisserie chicken at the third. I think I cruise in exactly the same way and I also mix in land vacations, too. I gave up on loyalty programs a long, long time ago since I really discovered, like coupons, you were trying for extras or savings that weren't all that important in the grand scheme of things.

 

To the OP: good on you for shaking it up a bit. Hopefully you are also trying other ports, and embarkation ports, and cruise lengths. It all goes into making vacation time unique each and every time. And this is coming from someone who goes to the same casino everytime and then cries if someone is sitting at my machine of choice.:)

[Florings]

I always have good intentions of trying other cruise lines, but as soon as I start quoting them out and comparing price and value, Carnival just can't be beat.

 

Someday I will most likely venture away, but for now the vacation value on Carnival keeps me going back to them.

[Tutontow]

I always have good intentions of trying other cruise lines, but as soon as I start quoting them out and comparing price and value, Carnival just can't be beat.

 

Someday I will most likely venture away, but for now the vacation value on Carnival keeps me going back to them.

 

I know what you mean.

[Podna's]

I always have good intentions of trying other cruise lines, but as soon as I start quoting them out and comparing price and value, Carnival just can't be beat.

 

 

 

Someday I will most likely venture away, but for now the vacation value on Carnival keeps me going back to them.

 

 

Same here. Not going anywhere anytime soon. Op, although I'll never for the life of me after 12 Carnival cruises understand what "bored with the Carnival experience" means, I hope you enjoy your NCL vacations. One day I'll eventually venture out and try NCL. I did try RCCL and couldn't come back to Carnival fast enough.

[tlw440]

We have cruised 16 times on Carnival. We tried RCCL once on the Freedom of the Seas after sailing 14 times on Carnival, we had a great cruise but prefer Carnival.

[linbobky]

one more carnival next month and we will stop or really slow down on the cruising. don't get me wrong.:) next month will be number 16 on carnival and we are not excited anymore.

 

we are going to do some road trips, out west, up north or just checking out my good old state of Kentucky.:)

 

yes we love carnival and just might do another one!;)

 

carnival has been fun and we have met some great, great people on board.:)

[Drazil65]

Our cruising days started with RCCL on our honeymoon 15 yrs ago, we loved RCCL for all the right (right for us) reasons and we have been cruising ever since. But we were always open to other lines, why not? We have done 2 so far this year, both Carnival and we are booked and paid for one more the week after Christmas (LOVE cruising right after Christmas as our family gift to ourselves). So we will be looking at a couple of NCL ships for the very near future and possible princess.

 

We will probably book the Magic out of PC (we are fortunate enough to be able to drive to the east coast ports) for the end of next year but then we were just talking about doing big Northern European run summer of 2017 (right before DS goes into high school) for a couple weeks, back on RCCL most likely. We need to sneak a 7 day NCL trip in there somewhere as well as we average about 2 cruises a year.

 

Mix it up, it does a body good and keeps the spice in life....;)

Edited September 14, 2015 by Drazil65

[rtap23]

I always have good intentions of trying other cruise lines, but as soon as I start quoting them out and comparing price and value, Carnival just can't be beat.

 

Someday I will most likely venture away, but for now the vacation value on Carnival keeps me going back to them.

I agree. We have done 4 other cruise lines but lately we have been looking for value and you are correct about Carnival. We did find a great price on the MSC Divina next July out of Miami that compares in price. Maybe we will give it a try

[SkyMaster]

We've sailed extensively on almost all the major lines, and several that aren't even around anymore. I tend to sail one, over and over, then switch to another, etc. I've done Carnival almost exclusively over the last few years, but am about ready to change again. Used to REALLY like NCL, but changed when they went to "no assigned dining". RCI can be lots of fun, but I'm OLD, and don't like having to pay for all that "stuff" that I don't do. ie; flowrider, zip line, ice rink, etc. etc. Probably will start sailing Princess a lot more, or perhaps Celebrity.

 

"SKY"

[miataman19]

Living in Florida makes it easy to try new lines. Was an NCL, Princess lover. Then decided to try new things. Sometimes you just get tired of the same itineraries and ships. Giving Valor a try with her southern itinerary out of Port Canaveral. She's going into drydock in March. Interested to see what parts of 2.0 they add.

Edited September 14, 2015 by miataman19

[MMastell]

I truly believe you need to cruise a variety of cruise lines in order to form a true opinion and see what others have to offer.

 

I've found that every cruise line will give me the same "basic" cruise experience but each cruise line has different offerings and a different feel to it. It's up to you to like it or not.

 

I have no problem cruising with Carnival. I actually think it's the best bang for the buck of any cruise line but I also enjoy most of the other cruise lines and I've sailed most of them. I'm not a big fan of Royal Caribbean's Mega-Ships but I have had a good time sailing them.

 

Right now I lean more toward NCL and Azamara when making a cruise choice but Carnival is still up there. A year or two from now I'll probably have different "favorites".

 

Take care,

Mike

Edited September 14, 2015 by MMastell

[crusinpsychRN]

Living in Florida makes it easy to try new lines. Was an NCL, Princess lover. Then decided to try new things. Sometimes you just get tired of the same itineraries and ships. Giving Valor a try with her southern itinerary out of Port Canaveral. She's going into drydock in March. Interested to see what parts of 2.0 they add.

 

I've seen all kinds of different times for Valor's dry dock. Do you know the confirmed date?

[OCruisers]

You never know what you might like better if you don't "Sleep Around" from time to time. :D

 

LuLu

[Bunkie103]

Our first cruise was actually booked on NCL Norway before their horrible fire. We were led down the "repairs will be done" path for a while before they finally announced they were scrapping the ship. Booked with Carnival instead and had a wonderful time. Took a while for the NCL fiasco to fade a little. Did several Carnival cruises and then had the opportunity to sail to Canada on Norwegian Majesty out of Philadelphia. Perfect.....not! Horrible! Old, small ship but we have sailed Carnival Fantasy and several of the older ships without a problem. Done with NCL for sure. Have sailed Disney and it's wonderful if you can stand all the kids....we have 7 grandchildren and I miss the casino. Transatlantic on the Cunard Queen Mary 2, very luxurious but snobbish. MIGHT try Princess in the future but for now sticking with Carnival. Different strokes for different folks.

[mizLORInj]

I like variety. Carnival was my first 3 cruises, and since then I've branched out to try a bunch of others. Been back on Carnival too, but 5 other lines as well. All have been fun.