Carnival Cruiser Takes on Royal

[heath7767]

Hi all,

 

I'm stuck in bed (more on that later) so I wanted to share some thoughts while they are still fresh on my mind. My family of 5, (husband, me, 3 kiddos from 5-9), cruised the Oasis of the Seas September 2-9. We've taken numerous Carnival cruises and enjoyed all of them, but we snatched a fabulous deal on a Kids Sail Free deal, so we were really excited to give Royal a try.

 

A little about us, we love cruises, and we're able to take advantage of that without paying a fortune thanks to living in West Central Florida. I'm a stay at home mom, and my DH and I work some extra side jobs for our vacation funds, so we try our best to spend our travel dollars wisely. Once we're on a ship, our account is usually pretty close to $0 by the end--after tips of course, and extra tips for our room steward. This trip, we had a $50 credit, and I think our bill was $2.95 at the end for buying a Christmas ornament and a couple of photos. We're not drinkers, and we honestly don't feel like we missed out on anything by not spending since the Oasis has so many wonderful free activities.

 

We woke up early on Sunday morning and made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Canaveral. This trip, we booked with Canaveral Cruise Parking, a pretty new company, for our parking in advance, and I highly recommend them! I booked online a couple of days before we left, and a 10 percent promo code popped up. I believe it was around $60 for parking for the week, plus shuttle service both ways for 5 people.

 

The whole operation was so smooth and efficient. Parking is valet and a nice paved lot with an air conditioned waiting area with bathroom. We arrived at 10:10, and by 10:30, we were on a comfortable shuttle heading to the port. On the way back, we had a number to call, but the shuttle was already waiting for us (and other passengers) when we got through customs. No waiting around in the oppressive heat! They share shuttles with Park Port Canaveral, but their prices were significantly less than them when I booked.

 

Will share our opinions on the trip a little later!

[heath7767]

ROOM:

We had a Promenade View Interior on Deck 7. The confusing thing was it said it was a Central Park view room when I booked it. Now that I have been on the ship, I realize that's impossible, because Central Park is above it! Anyway, not a big deal, but might be for someone who really wanted the Central Park View. My kids loved having the window to see what was going on, and the little window seat made good extra seating. We did get some noise and lights from the Promenade, especially a couple of nights they had parties down there. We always travel with white noise machines, so it didn't really bother us.

 

 

That being said, with 5 people, we really missed that extra 100 feet or so you get with Carnival. Also, the mattresses and pillows were terrible, TERRIBLE, and I am not usually picky about that kind of thing. They all had the egg crate things on them, so I guess they realize they are bad. Hopefully this will be a dry dock change! I did like the bathroom setup with a door better than Carnival's curtain setup. Overall, the room was fine for what we needed, and maybe I'm just more picky about it because I had to spend SOOOO much time in there (yes, I promise I'll get to that!!)

[mdwcruises]

Oh yeah I noticed the same thing about room types. Royal's website is piece of cr@p. Lol

[LuCruise]

Great start so far. We had a promenade room on Allure and loved it (and yeah, promenade is different from central park room). Wondering how you fit 5? Did you put 2 on the sofa bed and you had a pullman? (Ours had both so guessing that is what you did). Looking forward to hearing more and how it compares with Carnival.

[heath7767]

Oh yeah I noticed the same thing about room types. Royal's website is piece of cr@p. Lol

 

Oh yes, I forgot how awful the website is! We're a family of 5, which I wouldn't think is anything too crazy in this day and age. On Carnival's website, I select 5 people, and it shows me which rooms hold 5. I book it online--done.

 

Royal's website won't let you book rooms for 5 at all! You have to call, and that's annoying in itself. However, it gets even worse. They said they can only put 4 people on a reservation. So we had 2 reservation numbers for everything with my poor 5 year old hanging out on a reservation all alone. :) It was a pain when we were trying to do the online checkin and book shows and all that. It is absolutely amazing (in a bad way) that such a huge company that is excellent in other areas could be so truly terrible at making a website.

[heath7767]

Great start so far. We had a promenade room on Allure and loved it (and yeah, promenade is different from central park room). Wondering how you fit 5? Did you put 2 on the sofa bed and you had a pullman? (Ours had both so guessing that is what you did). Looking forward to hearing more and how it compares with Carnival.

 

We loved the Promenade view location, too! It was a quick walk up or down a couple of levels for plenty of food and entertainment options, and it was fun to look out and see what was going on. My kids put their stuffed animals in the window every day so they could look for them. :)

 

And yes, my kids are still young, so that's the setup we had. Our 9 year old took the pullman, and the 5 and 7 year olds on the pullout. Although one could really have even slept on that little window seat, but we didn't try that. Thankfully, our room steward was great and promptly serviced at least twice a day, so we really only had the beds out for sleeping. We didn't hang out in the room in the evenings, so it didn't feel too crowded to us.

[Taylors]

Looking forward to more! We leave on the 30th. We have been on 5 Carnival cruises over the last 10 years and have been really happy with them, although things were better in the "old days". But we got the same kids sale free deal and couldn't beat the price so we jumped on it! We booked 3 weeks out.. so super last minute for us. Our kids are almost 5 and just turned 1. First cruise with the baby, and second with our oldest. So our cruising experience will be much different than years past!

[sparks1093]

We were lucky and snagged a great deal on Anthem (we're empty nesters so don't look for kids sail free any longer:D) so I'm also following along.

[LuCruise]

We loved the Promenade view location, too! It was a quick walk up or down a couple of levels for plenty of food and entertainment options, and it was fun to look out and see what was going on. My kids put their stuffed animals in the window every day so they could look for them. :)

 

And yes, my kids are still young, so that's the setup we had. Our 9 year old took the pullman, and the 5 and 7 year olds on the pullout. Although one could really have even slept on that little window seat, but we didn't try that. Thankfully, our room steward was great and promptly serviced at least twice a day, so we really only had the beds out for sleeping. We didn't hang out in the room in the evenings, so it didn't feel too crowded to us.

 

Ha ha...I know what you mean. We would go on the Promenade and try go guess which one was our room. Very smart with the stuffed animals. The rooms are quite spacious on Oasis class (I assume Oasis is same as Allure) so can see how you can make it work with all of you. Looking forward to hearing more.

[suesnake2002]

I'm guessing you got sick, cold??flu??

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[blarko]

As a loyal Carnival cruiser, I am looking forward to this review. I can’t find any Carnival itineraries over the next year that appeal to me, so am considering other lines for my next cruise.

[HaliMakai]

Following

[JaniceB]

Looking forward to the rest of your review. I am taking my grandkids on the Oasis along with their parents. I have sailed once on Royal but the rest of the family has only sailed on Carnival/ HAL. HAL was when our kids were teenagers.

[Dina7]

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your first cruise on Royal since I have cruised both Carnival & Royal as well.

[Giantfan13]

As a loyal Carnival cruiser, I am looking forward to this review. I can’t find any Carnival itineraries over the next year that appeal to me, so am considering other lines for my next cruise.

 

I am far from a travel agent, but we used to be loyal Carnival cruisers as we felt they had some really great deals. Now we have moved over to RCCL as they have some really fantastic deals.

Ourselves, we are just tired of going to the Caribbean for cruising, we want new and better deals, more exciting ports of call.

We have sailed RCCL Grandeur twice in the past couple of years, great deals out of Baltimore. We did a TA on RCCL last year, booked another this year and another next year. Just for example, we booked an inside on the Rhapsody of the Sea, 14 day TA from Barcelona for about $1200 total, taxes and everything. It was so good, we booked it again for next year. We booked a RCCL cruise to Hawaii for next Sept, again inside, 10 days for $1800 total. Carnival just doesn't come close to any of these deals anymore.

If you like the Caribbean, Carnival has great deals, but after a while, overall, all the islands start looking like each other. Carnival needs to expand a lot, as the cruise market wants newer, and more exciting ports of call. RCCL, NCL all regularly do South America, the Far east, Australia and New Zealand and there are bargains out there.

 

Cheers

Len

[suesnake2002]

Giant fan len, glad you loved rhapsody. We love the staff on that ship. Absolutely the best. Top notch

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[bangzoom6877]

Great review so far, looking forward to more! My husband and I are going on the Anthem in April. My last Royal Caribbean cruise was in 1992, and my husband has never been in Royal Caribbean before. He’s only been on NCL and Carnival. I have been on Carnival many times and I can’t wait to see how other categories compare. I have always found Carnival to have the largest cabins and we always do inside cabins.