NCL VS CARNIVAL

gymbrat33 · June 9, 2009

Keith&Rita, Thank you so much for your input. I like both free style dining and scheduled dining. I'll continue to sail on both lines.

DebbieandJerry, thank you so much! I had a great vacation, and enjoyed trying a different cruise line. My mom wasn't too much of a Diva. She just missed her larger balcony cabin, and kept comparing both cruise lines while on the cruise. I told her to enjoy it because it was a different cruise line. She liked it, but likes Carnival a lot more. She loved how smooth debarkation was on NCL(it's always a nightmare on Carnival), and loved the freestyle dining.

Suzila- Thanks for the heads up about the specialty restaurants. I will try them next time. The food in the main dining room was delicious. I've eaten at the Specialty restaurants on Carnival, and the food was equally delicious as in the main dining room. How exciting that you're already planning the schedule for the specialty restaurants. The sky is an older ship. It was built in 1999, and was refurbished last year so the showers have curtains. Have a great time preparing for your upcoming cruise.

Jacketwatch-Thank you so much! Yes, NCL is a great cruise line, and I will definitely be sailing with them again. I will also try Royal Caribbean as soon as I find a great deal. I have always found the best deals on Carnival, and now on NCL.

DebbieandJerry · June 9, 2009

Some times you just have to go where the best deal is and not worry so much about the ship (unless it's a freight ship).

cruisingcats · June 9, 2009

Glad to hear you enjoyed your cruise with NCL. We love the freestyle and will sail with them again also. Matter of fact I have a credit with them and will need to use it sometime soon. I thought the food was good but had nothing to compare to it since it was our very first cruise.

gymbrat33 · June 9, 2009

DebbieandJerry- I'm happy on any ship as long as I'm on a cruise. When I sail with friends, I always book an inside cabin, but when I sail with my mom, she loves having her balcony. Since I've already tried NCL, I'm ready to sail on a longer cruise with them.

CruisingCats-Thank you so much! I loved the Freestyle cruise and will sail with them again. The food on NCL was very good. Start booking that cruise with the credit that you have.

zebra · June 9, 2009

Gymbrat - thanks for the details on your cruise on NCL, so glad you had a good time. We will NEVER know what other cruise lines are like if we don't try them and are able to compare. We have friends who did 12 cruises on one cruise line... the first cruise they did on their competition they were blown away and can now kick themselves for not trying others sooner. you certainly made NCL sound interesting to me. i do have one question though, you said that there are not many activities during the day - can you tell me, do they have Trivia and Bingo? i know others are not that interested, but since I have had melanoma I try and keep my "outside" activities to visiting the ports of call or islands as opposed to lying by the pool (which I obviously did one too many times :wink2: ). Thanks again.

gymbrat33 · June 9, 2009

Thank you so much, Zebra! Suzila is the one that stated that they don't have that many activities scheduled during the day. The Norwegian Sky, which I sailed on had a lot of activities scheduled during the day. They have a lot of Bingo and trivia scheduled. They even had trivia scheduled on the morning of debarkation(Which was today) at 9:00 for those staying later on the ship. I also sailed on Carnival 12 times before trying another line, but that's because I had never found a better deal anywhere else.

zebra · June 9, 2009

Oh that's great to hear gymbrat... sounds like we need to give NCL a try!

Suzila · June 10, 2009

Yes, they have lots of Bingo, and yes, they had trivia.

I'm on medication where I can't spend time just sitting in the sun, so I also do a lot of the inside activities. It's not like NCL has nothing to do, but just not as many 'planned' things as Carnival does. More time for me to read my book, knit, etc. Hubby likes to play in Carnival's ping pong tournaments and there were none on NCL. There were two ping pong tables, but no planned activity for them.

For any of you thinking about another NCL cruise, I can definitely recommend NCL Pride of America in Hawaii. We hope to do that one again someday. It was a totally different experience for us. We'd been to Hawaii many times, but never on a cruise. You more or less just use the ship as your hotel (more so than on any other cruise). The staff was mostly American and soooo easy to talk to. Of course, many people have complained that the service isn't the same as on any other cruise where the staff is international...it's 'different', but not bad. We had no problems at all with the service.

And we loved seeing Hawaii in a different way. It was so relaxing not having to fly from island to island.

DebbieandJerry · June 10, 2009

Have to agree that seeing Hawaii by ship really is the way to go. We've done it twice now. Highly recommend it.

hazelson · June 10, 2009

Sounds like you had a wonderful time.

Would you say you actually prefer the free style cruising to the regular pre determined times for dinner. I have heard that the waits are long but looks like you never had any of those either :o)