Carnival Corporation Exercises Option for New 130,000 Ton Ship

sailingrose · December 19, 2006

Joey I love the mid-sized ships with less than 2500 passengers. Enough space to roam and not feel crowded. I'm pretty open to anything but over 3000 to me is too many in my opinion. I like RCI's Vision & Radiance class ships. On Celebrity I'd do anyone of those since the largest are only about 2000 passengers and on Princess I liked the size of the Sun Class ship we were on. Of course price and timing always count too.

Dan · December 20, 2006

Like jacketwatch above, the Sapphire is our largest to date (it had just over 2900 on it in January, according to the sign on the wall in the galley tour, but carries just over 2600 double occupancy). I didn't feel crowded at all except at disembarkation.

I think it's all proportional anyway. Smaller ships have fewer people, but fewer places for them to go as well. The Carnival Tropicale with 1022 pax still had line-ups and you had to go to the show early to get seats. As I've said many times before about the Carnival Victory (somewhere just shy of 3000 capacity), when we sailed it right after 9-11, there were 756 passengers on the ship, and we still lined up at the buffet and disembarkation was an unorganized disaster.

GottaCruz · December 21, 2006

I agree with what Dan is saying about the Victory and it's sister ships. ON those ships, all the food, meaning the salad and main dishes were on the same line. So, if you wanted just salad , you still had to get on the same line as those eating hot dishes. On the smaller Carnival ships, like the Fascination, and it's sister ships, it is better organized. If you want just salad, the salad bar is in the center of the ship and the hot food is on the sides. I've never seen the lines get too long because of this. I think the way the food is organized is even more important than the number of passengers.