WHY (in your opinion) does Carnival seem to have a low rank among many 'cruise snobs'

[jimbo5544]

I enjoy time on the ship, but not enough that I would ever cruise without ports. That said, many of the ports Carnival stops at would not be places I would want to visit sans-cruise. So it tends to be cruises to those ports that leave me with less satisfying memories when disembarking. Places like Cozumel, Belize City leave me feeling eh. On the other hand cruises to ports like St. Maarten and Skagway are value-added IMO.

 

After seven Caribbean and one Alaska cruise, Alaska is the only itinerary I would repeat, and I get excited just thinking about it. And I remember when we won the free cruise to Alaska I was disappointed it wasn't Caribbean. Alaska turned out to be the biggest positive travel surprise of my life.

 

 

I def agree that having options are a good thing to have. Cannot really argue with Belize, although there are some really good excursions, but it def is not a "take the tender" and go explore when you get off the ship type of place. Understand about Cozumel as well. That said, we have been to Cozumel 13 times on a cruise. Recently we spent sometime over on the Atlantic side (first time was on a private excursion called Cozumel bar hop which take you to 5 bars over on that side). Found a new love in regards to this port.....