What Keeps you Loyal to a Cruiseline ?

[KLLund]

We are about to take out first cruise on RCL. We have cruised on Orient Lines (Golden Odyssey when they still owned her).. Celebrity (Millenium in Med) ... HAL (Oosterdam's 3rd voyage) .. Princess twice .. Norwegian (totally fun ship) ... and American Queen on the Mississippi ... and I love the experience of trying new ships.

 

When we are booking, I am usually interested in the best deal I can get for where and when I want to go ... So I find it curious that some of you seem to only cruise on RCL.

 

Going on 5/19 .. and it should be a blast.

 

Thanks

[Lynnees]

We book according to where we want to go, price, time of year and size of ship.

 

Until recently, RCL offered all of that. Now we find they are not really meeting our needs anymore.

 

Their prices are higher than others, they have no exotic ports anymore and their ships are getting too big for our taste.

 

At this point in time, we have switched to Princess. As long as they offer what we want, that's probably where we'll stay, but that too is not written in stone.

[HurricaneSally]

I cruise them all, not loyal to any cruise line.

[Murphy]

Good prices, great service, great itineraries. RCCL has the first 2 for me, but I'm running out of interesting itineraries to try unless we head to Europe...

[Howlev34]

We cruised Celebrity and Princess previously. Now we're cruising RCL this year. We had a great time on those other cruises but we don't feel we have to be particularly loyal to any one line. I don't want to make general statements about how corporate America is loyal to us but, obviously, some companies are more people friendly than others. We base our decisions on previous cruisers' posts, itinerary and, of course, price.

[JKSOUTH]

We are about to take out first cruise on RCL. We have cruised on Orient Lines (Golden Odyssey when they still owned her).. Celebrity (Millenium in Med) ... HAL (Oosterdam's 3rd voyage) .. Princess twice .. Norwegian (totally fun ship) ... and American Queen on the Mississippi ... and I love the experience of trying new ships.

 

When we are booking, I am usually interested in the best deal I can get for where and when I want to go ... So I find it curious that some of you seem to only cruise on RCL.

 

Going on 5/19 .. and it should be a blast.

 

Thanks

We started cruiseing about 25 years ago. The first one was the Carla Costa....southern carribean. Then we almost got soured on it when we sailed on the old Emerald Seas.....during spring break! lol then ...we sailed on the oceanic and majestic...The big Read Boat...4 night cruises. 5 of them. We had a great time. We decided to go on princess and enjoyed a 7 night on the Crown princess. Now we were really hooked. We did the Norway. 4 times!!

about 6 years ago we went on Grandure and loved it. The next year we did the panama canal on the Reagle princess. The canal was nice but we did not like the ship. They had added passengers and it was just to crowded. The dining room was very noisey and the food was only soso. Back to RC and the Nordic Empress, Then the SOS and 2 years ago the Mariner. We used to think about where we would like to go but we do not like to fly and we were stuck going out of Fl. Now we will be going on the Mariner again for our 50th wedding ann. We won't even get off the ship....We are RC fans. No need to go on another line.

[Pumbaamd]

RCL has us hooked. With booking on board credits, shareholder credits, the VISA card, and the C&A deals, how can you go wrong?

[Majesty Fan]

I think I am partial to RCI becasue it was the first cruise ship i went some 19 years ago the SOng of Norway. I met my husband on the Majesty he was my waiter! Plus I like the on board benefits that diamond have. We are now at 21 cruises. I may try X. But we like the Voyager lcass with the mini golf and ice rink but wish they were a little smaller we have not tried the Radiance class but we plan to for next year to Hawaii.

Lexi

[dawcruiser]

Price as compared to service and food.

 

We try to book run of the ship cabins. So cabin means very little to us. We don't drink and gamble very little so these don't mean much to us.

 

What we want is an atmosphere we can feel special for 7 to 14 days.

 

Both my wife and I work very hard. My job is extremely stressful. She is a small business owner. We want no problems, no phones. We do demand fun. But the fun part is our responsibilty.

 

Service, which I have never found lacking on any ship, food,which generally is good, I have never found great food on any ship but don't expect it either., are what we look for.

 

If I can sail for under $100.00 per day tips and air included I am happy, which we normally do.

 

Out of all the ships we have been on Costa is our favorite and cost us the least and NCL is our least favorite and cost nearly the most.

 

Don

[Sea and Me]

We have done Norwegian (our first cruise) Celebrity, RCCL (Grandeur favorite ship) and Princess. We look for places, prices and then cruise line. I guess you would say that we are not loyal to any one cruiseline. Although I will say (and not because I'm on that board) RCCL is at the top of my list!! Going on the Jewel of the Seas 10/31/06 for a 12 day repositioning because of the islands that we shall visit.

[Chuggiebug]

Until recently we booked on price and itinerary. After leaving out of Miami and FLL in the last 4 months, port of departure is the main prioity. Never again we will leave from either of them.

 

We now look at port of departure,, then price, then itinerary.

 

We feel food, service and the ship board experience are equal on RCCL and Carnival.

 

We are looking to book on NCL right now.

 

I hope that we never become narrow minded enough that we are not willing to try a new criuse line, however after experieincing one for ourselves we may decide that it is not right for us.

[Laoghaire]

Hello...We have usually sailed with RCCL/RCI, started 20 years ago. The itineraries were great and the ships wonderful. I certainly wish they would bring back the "old" ports, i.e. Guadaloupe, Dominica, Greneda, Trinadad and Tobago. They were awesome!

Now, it seems we cruise RCI mostly for the "perks" of Diamond cruisers. Have done NCL, HCL, Crystal, and we have booked Celebrity for a 4 nighter out of Seattle. Anxious to see how it compares with RCI.

Happy Sailings!....Helen

[seadancer]

We are starting to leave Rccl because of size of the ships and food quality.Its definitely not what it used to be even 5 years ago.

Customer service and food quality are what matters most to us. Until they come up with some new itenararies and better food we're trying some others for now.

[rubrrick]

My DW and I have cruised on several lines, some of which are out of business today. Our most memorable and best cruise to date was on NCL's Wind in '01 from Vancouver, B.C. to Gin gang, the port city of Beijing.

Our next best was on RCCL's Legend of the Seas, last year to the Canary Islands.

We look for itinerary, service and attitude. Our favorite line is RCCL which includes X. Our next cruise is a B2B transatlantic, and continuing on to the Baltic's. The itinerary on this has some new ports (Baltic's) that we are looking forward to seeing.

 

Rick

[negc]

We give our loyalty to the line or the ship that provides us with a consistently excellent cruise experience. We find RCI provides us with a sufficient variety of ships and itineraries to satisfy us in that regard and our onboard experiences have consistently gotten high ratings. While we are very happy with RCI, that doesn't mean that we are locked into sailing with them and only them. At the end of the month we will be sailing on the Sapphire Princess to the Mexican Riviera and are anxious to see how we like it. Our two previous Princess cruises on the Dawn Princess ended up in a draw, one being excellent, the other being mediocre to put it mildly. We have taken several cruises on Carnival and have decided that the cruise experience they offer does not meet our needs or expectations and we have been disappointed on the NCL cruises that we have taken. Have not yet tried Celebrity and our only HAL cruise was so many years ago that I don't think it would be a consideration should an attractive cruise on an HAL ship come to our attention. We had an opportunity to tour their newest ship, Noordam, recently and were very favorably impressed with the ship and its personnel.

The benefits that we get as Diamond Plus members of RCI's Crown and Anchor Society are a very nice extra, but are not the determining factor when we pick our cruises.

[alexkrn46]

When we were new to cruising, we did not want to make the mistake we have made with airline programs, not sticking with one program. We have stayed with RCCL, and not regretted it, between the CA discounts, the MBNA program and the discount booking on lines I think they have treated us well,

alex

[Cruising89143]

Past guest benefits, good service, friendly crews, clean ships and an overall good cruise experience. I get all of that on RCI so I do not look at any other lines.

[cusyl]

We like the Princess experience. They have been good to us, and I especially appreciate the free internet now that I am Platinum.

[samtig]

We have cruised Carnival & Norwegian & loved them all. Want to try other cruise lines to make sure we're not missing anything! Scheduled on RCI in Dec. We find the food & entertainment to be the biggest differences between ships. All of the Carnival ships we have been on had fabulous food. Norwegian's main dining room food really varies more from ship to ship. Can't wait to try all the cruise lines! As far as entertainment, find Carnival more to our tastes. Great shows that appeal to a wider audience than Norwegian. On Norwegian, good talent but shows a little too "high brow" for our tastes. But...other things make up for this & we will continue to cruise on Norwegian. Just my opinion, of course. Then again, I don't really care which ship I"m on, just so I go!

[Lyncruiser]

Past cruiser program. We're Diamond on RCCCL now.

[TonyaJune]

We love the perks we receive from C & A (Diamond Memebers), love the ships, activities and friendly crew. Eventhough the food and service are not what they use to be be, we still feel like we get more than our monies worth on RCCL. We always have a fantastic time!

[negc]

We have cruised Carnival & Norwegian & loved them all. Want to try other cruise lines to make sure we're not missing anything! Scheduled on RCI in Dec. We find the food & entertainment to be the biggest differences between ships. All of the Carnival ships we have been on had fabulous food. Norwegian's main dining room food really varies more from ship to ship. Can't wait to try all the cruise lines! As far as entertainment, find Carnival more to our tastes. Great shows that appeal to a wider audience than Norwegian. On Norwegian, good talent but shows a little too "high brow" for our tastes. But...other things make up for this & we will continue to cruise on Norwegian. Just my opinion, of course. Then again, I don't really care which ship I"m on, just so I go!

 

Can you give us some examples of the "high brow entertainment" on Norwegian. I have heard many descriptions of NCL, but "high brow" has never, until now, been one of them.;)