Cruise Line Comparison

It’s time for the shake down!  Royal Caribbean vs. Carnival vs. NCL – Who comes out on top?

First let’s talk price.  This section is not about value, it’s about price. All considered, NCL is the cheapest of the three cruise lines.  Coming in a very second is Carnival.  It’s so close that this can change depending on the specials they are offering.  You’ll want to compare them to see who is cheaper if your main focus is finding the cheapest cruise.

In third place is Royal Caribbean.  They are not close to Carnival or NCL but they are dramatically cheaper than Disney.

Food is our next category.  Coming in first is Royal Caribbean.  They still offer high quality food outside of their specialty restaurants.  In second is Carnival.  They have decent food outside of their specialty restaurants but you will have to pay for the high quality food.  In a distant third is NCL.  Every time I cruised with them, the food was not good.  It wasn’t good in the specialty areas either.

Service is our next category.  This is not customer service / problem resolution.   This category represents the employees you’ll run into.  In first place is Royal Caribbean.  They consistently offer am acceptable to high level of service.  In second place is Carnival.  They offer okay service.  Sometimes it’s lacking but overall it isn’t bad.  In last place is NCL.  There are going to be times when you wonder if the employees are slaves or employees.

Entertainment is next.  In first place comes Royal Caribbean.  They tend to have a better selection and the quality is good.  In second place is Carnival.  Their entertainment isn’t bad but they focus too much on Vegas style entertainment.  In last is NCL. They have some entertainment (term may or may not be used loosely).

Customer Service / Problem Resolution, is our last category, before we talk about value.  I’ll be blunt.  Two of these companies rank as poor and the other one is abysmal.  Royal Caribbean and NCL tie for first, but keep in mind they are both poor and need to improve.  In some ways NCL beats RC but it’s very close.  NCL was apathetic when I ran into an issue.  Royal Caribbean didn’t offer anything in the way of a solution to my problem when I brought it up. Carnival is just awful.  I had two major issues I presented to them and they blew off both of them.  If I had to give a letter grade to the three it would be: NCL = D, RC = D-, Carnival = F.

Now how does all that boil down to value? Royal Caribbean, even though it’s the most expensive, offers the most bang for your buck.  Carnival is a distant second.  NCL, even though they are the cheapest, comes in last.

Now for the most important question – Would I cruise on them again?

Royal Caribbean – Yes.  However, I am neutral towards them right now.  I would not recommend them and I would not tell someone not to cruise on them.

Carnival – No. I would not recommend them either. The only way you could get me back on Carnival, would be to give me a free cruise in a category equal to last one I paid for aka a Vista Suite.

NCL – No. The answer is just no.  I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d cruise them again. Even if it was free, I wouldn’t want to waste my vacation time on them.

Upcoming Topics

Here is a list of what is coming up. There should be a lot of activity over the next few weeks.

A video overview of a Grand Suite on the Grandeur of the Seas

A detailed written review of a Grand Suite on Royal Caribbean and what comes with it.

A few reports on Bermuda and things you can see there.

A fun joke video of a windy day in Bermuda.

A comparison of Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and NCL.

There will be more too but that's just the short list.

Disney Cruise Line vs. Royal Caribbean

I recently asked for a quote on a Disney cruise.  I’d never been on the Disney Cruise Line so I thought it would be worth a shot.  After all people rave about DCL.

The cruise I asked for a quote on was a seven day cruise in a balcony stateroom. What did it come out to for two people?  Over $3,700.00.  I nearly fell out of my chair.  That is…insane.

Why is that insane?

First you need to find a good comparison.  You can’t compare NCL to Disney.  NCL is as low as you can go when it comes to the major cruise lines. It’s not fair to compare NCL to anyone because no one else is that bad (if you don’t believe me go look my up many articles on my experiences with NCL).

What about Carnival?  That’s a no go to.  Carnival’s customer service is so horrifying it wouldn’t be fair to compare them to Disney.  If you don’t believe me about Carnival go look up the articles I wrote on my experiences with them.

Royal Caribbean is another matter.  After some fairly in depth research online RC to Disney is a fairly close comparison.  Let’s set the stage by saying that DCL is slightly better than RC.  If RC isn’t as good then they should be cheaper but still somewhat close.  Well that’s half correct. For a seven day cruise on RC the quote came in at $2,500.

The difference is literally 33%.  Disney is a full third more expensive. Disney is not 33% better than RC.

Now let’s take a page out of Mythbusters book.  On Mythbusters when a myth doesn’t pan out they often try to figure out what it takes to match the myth.  So what could you get on RC for the price Disney is charging?

The next step up on RC is a Junior Suite aka category JS stateroom.  It’s bigger and often better located than a normal balcony stateroom.  Does that match up?  Nope!  A JS comes came in around $2,800.  

So what is next?  The only other feasible stateroom for a couple on Royal Caribbean is a Grand Suite, category GS.  A GS is a HUGE jump from a JS.  GS is bigger, much bigger. They tend to be some of the best located rooms on the ship.  They also come with major perks.

1 - GS gives you expedited boarding.  In other words the second worst part of cruising is almost eliminated.   

2 – GS gives you expedited exit.  You get off the boat fast and while you are waiting you are in a private lounge.

3 – GS gives you access to an exclusive lounge where you get free booze at night.  To put this into Disney terms GS gives you access to club level services. 

There are a lot of other small perks that come with a GS but those are the big ones. 

So what is the price for that? About $3,300. A super suite with HUGE perks cost $400 less than a normal balcony on DCL.  

For once I am at a loss for words.  What can you say about that?  It’s truly hard to wrap you head around that.

CMDTA's - Cruise Tips

Here are some tips for everyone considering taking a cruise.  Most apply to all cruise lines.

If you have a choice take the late dinner – The early dinner is comical. All the old fogies line up and can’t wait to get in. There are tons of rug rats at this seating too. If you don’t like who you’re seated with tell your waiter. You have an out because it’s your honeymoon. If it’s freestyle seating do not go to dinner before eight at night.


Skip the Vegas Shows – they talk them up but they stink. They really stink. I don’t think stink is a strong enough word to describe them but I’m trying to keep things clean. The cheese factor is through the roof. All the other shows are great. On the night of the Vegas shows the hot tubs are empty. The hot tubs near the pool bars are the best ones. It’s normally cool and breezy too.

Kids aren’t allowed in the hot tubs or pool in the gym area. The gym area is a kid free zone. There are sometimes other pools are areas where kids are not allowed too.

You can’t take booze back to your room…if they see it. There is a booze check in desk if your getting back on the boat during a busy time you might be able walk right by it. You can also buy booze in odd containers that sometimes will get you through.

Most cruise lines allow you to bring a liter or two of soda. Ginger ale is a good one. Now because it can help with an upset stomach but because you can empty it and fill it with scotch, bourbon, whisky, or other golden liquids.

Even though you just drove or flew for hours smile non-stop until you are on the boat. They take your picture at least twice before you get on. Once is for your cruise card. If you’re not smiling then, security will see it for the rest of the cruise. They take your picture at every stop and a few of the dinners too. They post them all in the gallery so make sure to get down there and take them down. Plus you get to see all the freaks on the ship too.

Put a bathing suit and sunscreen in your carry on. You might not see you luggage until 8 or 9 pm depending on where you are located on the boat.

The fire drill is not optional.

Kids are not allowed on the tops optional desk (don’t ask).

If you’ve never seen a purple sunburn, you will.

If you’ve never seen a fat guy in a speedo, you will.

If you’ve never seen someone so drunk they can’t tell what floor they are on, you will.

If you think it’s impossible to gain ten pounds in a week, guess again.

The 24 hour pizza bar (carnival only) has really good pizza.

The midnight buffet is nice to look at but only the heavy hitters can eat that late.

Only drunks and fatty Mcfatties go to the late night crape buffet which makes it some of the best entertainment available.

It’s possible to eat at anytime and if you manage to eat one item of food for 24 hours straight you should get a trophy.
Beware of the pillow chocolates. Many people (yours truly included) have fallen asleep on them after a late night. Yes they do melt.

New Video Posted - Carnival Vista Suite Overview

I have posted a honest detailed video review of a Carnival Vista Suite to YouTube.  The video is in 1080p.  This is my first 1080p video.  I've always captured in1080p but until now it was always hard to edit in that format. 

You can view the video here

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival – To Do or Not to Do?

After everything is considered would I go on Carnival again?

Let’s consider a few things first.

• They are much better than NCL (no surprise there)
• The food is very good
• The price is often half of what Disney charges
• VIP check in is great
• The waiters are acceptable
• The entertainment is much improved.

So would I go on them again?

No.  This was my last cruise on Carnival and I don’t say this lightly.  I’ve been on a number of Carnival cruises and I have some good memories of them.   I also have some horrific memories that Carnival did nothing to fix or try to prevent over the years.

Here are some of the issues:

• The customer is never right and you never have a problem worth addressing
• Customer service is awful
• Maintenance is awful.  They tried four times to fix our stateroom door and failed. I finally figured out how to fix it myself.
• The sales culture has invaded in full force to the point where it’s annoying
• Excursions are overpriced
• Alcohol is overpriced – even for a cruise ship
• Major cutbacks could be noticed throughout the entire cruise
• Nothing about the service makes you feel welcome

Carnival is now at the point where I never want to cruise them again.  My fear is next time things will have gotten so bad that the experience will be similar to what you get on NCL. I have no desire to punish myself like that.  Right now Carnival is heading in the wrong direction.  Their biggest problem is their customer service.  It’s just bad.  Hopefully they can right the ship before it’s too late. If they don’t they will find themselves in big trouble.  NCL is already dominating the crappy cruise market.

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival’s Entertainment

If you’ve read my past overviews about cruising you know how I normally detest a majority of the “entertainment” that can be found on a cruise ship.

Upfront I will say that Carnival has done a great job with their entertainment.  In the past a majority of the shows were those awful Vegas Review style shows that I hate so much. Sometimes they would throw in a comedian to spice things up but other than that the entertainment was bad.

This time there were only a few Vegas style shows.  The first night you had the usual kickoff  show.  It’s not bad but it’s not great either.  It’s full of the cruise director and others talking about what’s coming up.  They also had a couple of comedians do some short sets.  They actually found decent comedians which was a nice surprise.

Carnivals main show was a Beatles tribute.  The only thing that saved the show was the Beatles music.  Without that it would not have been good.  One really odd thing about this show came at the end.  A band came on stage and did a few Beatles songs.  The odd thing was they looked nothing like the Beatles.  I realize that a lot of tribute bands don’t really look like the band they are imitating but these guys looked like the opposite of the Beatles.  In fact you would have been hard pressed to find four people who looked less like the Beatles.

Another night there was a show themed around Frank Sinatra.  We didn’t make it to that show but I got a detailed report from the couple we had dinner with.  Before I tell you what they said let me say that they like the Vegas style entertainment.  They like most cruise ship entertainment. They hated this show. They said it was a strange show with a guy who didn’t sound like Sinatra who liked to talk about himself.  I’m really glad we missed that one.

The rest of the week was filled up with a ventriloquist and some other forgettable shows.  They weren’t bad they just average.

The final show was a talent show.  Guests could get on stage perform.  I had to go to this one.  I love a good train wreck.  I was not disappointed.  One person out of all of them could sing. The rest were awful and I mean awful.  One girl tried to do a Brittany Spears song.  She did it so poorly she made Brittany Spears seem like she has some talent.  For that to happen you have to be beyond bad.

The only one who did well was an old guy who sang a Garth Brooks song.  I’ve never listened to Garth Brooks.  I don’t know if he did good or not but his singing didn’t hurt my ears so I assume it was good.  Most of the crowd sang along too and really got into it.  It was funny at the end because my wife asked me if I’d ever heard the song before.  Neither of us had.  When you live in New England you don’t listen to country music.

Overall Carnival was much improved in the entertainment department but is that enough to save them overall?  You’ll know soon.

CMDTA on Vacation – St. Maarten – St. Martin

No, I didn’t misspell the title and no I am not talking about two countries.  St. Martin is an island in the Caribbean.  It has two names because it’s technically two different countries.  It’s up to some debate but the Island itself is called St. Martin but the island is divided into two sections.  The French side is called St. Martin and the Dutch side is called St. Maarten.  Just to clarify my wife and I visited St. Maarten.

Sadly on this trip my wife and I couldn’t afford to do any excursions so my reviews of all islands will be based on what you get in the port.  I actually hope this ends up being a helpful way of reviewing islands considering how expensive excursions have become.

St. Maarten has a pier.  Right off the bat this puts it above other islands.  I hate getting tendered on and off a cruise ship.  From the pier you could walk to the shopping area but that would be a long walk.  Instead you go to the right hand side of the port and take a water taxi to the shopping area.  It’s only a five minute boat ride and it’s totally worth it.

Where the water taxi drops you off is a long sandy beach which is lined with bars and cheap shops.  Beyond the bars and cheap shops is a street that is lined with numerous shops.  This is a great island shopping area.  I use the term “island” because it’s a typical example of what you find on almost every island in the Caribbean.  These shopping areas consist of lots of jewelry, liquor, clothing, and what I call tourist junk stores.

Tourist junk stores is where you find all the crap you laugh at when you are home, but are compelled to buy when you are on vacation.  I don’t think I need to say anything else.  You know what I am talking about.

The best part of this destination is the beach.  You can rent a beach site for next to nothing, the water is clean and warm, and the bars will serve you if you want.

Included in the beach are the bars. I say this because if you are looking for a beer you will be in heaven here.  To explain what I mean I first have to inform you about beer on cruise ships.  Carnival (Royal Caribbean and NCL) sell “beer buckets” on the ship.  These are insanely expensive four packs of beer.  Bud Light or Bud (which are both like pee in a bottle) will run you around $15 when you count the gratuity.  In St. Maarten you can buy a “beer bucket” for $10.  Oh and by the way these beer buckets have six beers, you can pick what beers are in there, and it’s not “pee in a bottle” beer.  Normally you can pick between six or so Caribbean and Mexican beers. WOOOOOOO!

So that is the St. Maarten port area.  If you are broke it’s the place to be.

CMDTA on Vacation – Nick and Nora’s Steakhouse

I’m not a fan of the “dine when you want” trend in cruise industry.  This trend has also lead to the creation of multiple restaurants that have a cover charge.  Thankfully Carnival lets you still have a set dining time and only have one extra restaurant with a cover charge. 

At first my wife and I didn’t even consider going to Nick and Nora’s Steakhouse.  We normally avoid those places because we’ve never had a good experience at one.  What changed our mind was the fact that we got seated with another couple at dinner.  Don’t get me wrong, John and Ashley were very nice and we had a decent amount in common but my wife does not like people.  She has to deal with people all day long where she works and has to put up with a lot of their issues.  She gets burned out.  The last thing she wants to do on vacation is make small talk.  Add that to the fact that we were celebrating our anniversary and John and Ashley were on their honeymoon and you can understand why all of us would need a couple days away from people.

Nick and Nora’s Steakhouse cost $30 a person for dinner.  This is no surprise.  They mention the cover charge in you daily cruise flyer and when you call to make a reservation.  They also mention when you make a reservation that dinner can take up to 2hrs to complete.  That surprised me at first but then I realized that they were trying to do a truly classic dining experience.

On a side note:  You do need to make reservations.  They number of people they serve each night is VERY limited.  In fact they book the place with the mindset that everyone is going to take 2hrs for dinner.  This means you never have to wait for your table and the place is quiet because it’s never more than half full.

There are three ways to get to Nick and Nora’s Steakhouse which is located on the 10^th floor of the ship.  The first way is to take the glass elevators to the 10^th floor.  This is a nice scenic way to get there.  You can also take the normal stairs by the elevators but that’s boring.  The final way is the best way.  There are glass (or plastic) stairs that curve out from the lido deck, over the atrium, and up to Nick and Nora’s.  There is something very unsettling about being able to see down 90 feet by looking at your feet.  I’ll also warn you that if you have vertigo or are afraid of heights that this will scare the pants off of you.

The meal is five courses long.  You start with an odd taster that you don’t order they just deliver it to you.  Then you get to choose a salad.  Next you order an appetizer.  After that comes the main meal and desert. 

Anything you order here is going to be great. The food is amazing.  The options are excellent too.  You truly get what you pay for.  To explain why consider what my wife and I got for our main course.  I ordered a 24oz porterhouse and my wife ordered a lobster tail and filet.  That one course would have cost $83 + tax at the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club in Disney World.  Oh and that $83 does not include the lobster tail or tip.

There is only one other thing food wise I will point out because it was insane.  It’s one of the deserts.  It was chocolate five ways.  The five parts were shooter glasses with different chocolate deserts including banana, tiramisu, white chocolate, black forest and dark chocolate. Believe it or not, it looked as good as it tasted.

The service was excellent.  You couldn’t ask for better service. You had four different people who serviced you and the manager came by as well.

The atmosphere is great.  The atrium is capped by a large glass ceiling. The lighting is dark but not too dark. Everything feels open and spacious.  If you are not sitting in the atrium you are sitting up against large windows.  It’s very nice.

All considered the cover charge was worth it.  For what you get it’s an amazing value.

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival: The Food

One of the biggest features on any cruise is the food.  The food can make or break a cruise.  You need to look no further than my overview of my NCL cruise to see how bad food can get on a cruise ship.  Honestly the food was so bad I was concerned that the standards had plummeted throughout the industry.  Thankfully Carnival has not lowered their standards.

I can’t even compare Carnival to NCL when it comes to food.  It’s just not fair.  Carnival beat NCL in all but two places and those two places are so foolish they are not a factor.

The food on Carnival is very good.  It’s not top notch but it’s consistently great.  The food in the buffet is good for buffet food and they mix it up a lot.  The pizza at the pizza bar is very good.  The self serve ice cream and frozen yogurt is great. The food over all is fresh and well presented. The bread isn’t stale (I have to mention that because of NCL).  The deserts seem like they were made recently and not pulled out of a box (again I have to mention that because of NCL).  The food was hot when it should have been hot and cold when it should have been cold (again…NCL).  The waiters were nice and wanted to do their best to serve you.

It’s hard to imagine food that is cooked on such a massive scale being as good as it is on Carnival.  I say without any doubt that they match Royal Caribbean any day of the week. That’s impressive considering Royal Caribbean is often much more expensive.

Earlier I mentioned that NCL beat Carnival in two areas.  The first area is the coffee.  Carnival has 24hr coffee machines that provide coffee or hot water.  NCL has 24hr machines that do coffee, espresso, and cappuccino.  If you want better coffee on Carnival you have to pay for it.  The second area is the self serve ice cream.  NCL gives you a topping station.  Those are the only two areas.  Like I said they are not a factor at all when comparing the food the two cruise lines offer.

CMDTA on Vacation - Carnival Spirit Class Vista Suites

Carnival, like all cruise lines, has a seemingly never ending list of stateroom categories. You start with the basic inside stateroom and go up to the mega suites.  Somewhere near the top but not quite there are the Vista suites. 

Vista suites are only found on the back of the ship.  There are two of them on each floor.  One can be found on the right and the other can be found on the left. The floor print takes up roughly ¼ of the rear of the ship.

This review focuses on the left hand suite (left if you are looking towards the front of the boat).  I have no idea what they call that in ship terms.

When you open the door to a Vista suite you enter a hallway that is about 12 feet long. When you look forward on your left is a work area, mirrors, mini bar, glassware storage, and a love seat. Nothing is really visible on your right until you walk down the hall a little ways.  At the end of the hall is a den area consisting of the aforementioned love seat, a coffee table, storage cabinet, counter, and tube TV. The den also has a number of floor to ceiling windows.

Taking a right out of the den you get another small hallway.  On your left is your door to the balcony, on your left is a door to another room, and straight ahead is the bedroom.  Again on your left are more floor to ceiling windows.

Taking a right out of the hallway puts you in the dressing room?  It’s a room with a big mirror, a bench, and that’s about it.  It’s really an odd room. This room has three doors.  The one on your left goes to the been room (yes there are two doors right next to each other that go to the bedroom.  They are only separated by a wall).  Straight ahead is the bathroom and then there is the one you walked through. 

In the bathroom you will find a decent sized Jacuzzi tub, your standard cruise ship toilet, and a dual sink mirror vanity area. The bathroom is nice but it’s not amazing.  The tub is ok but the Jacuzzi doesn’t have any jets on your back. It’s also not deep enough to be a Jacuzzi tub. If you don’t angle the jets down water could possibly shoot out of the tub.

The bedroom is decent sized.  It has a dual closet, decent sized LCD TV with a counter and chest of drawers below it, two night stands, more windows on your left, a large mirror behind the bed and what is supposed to be a king sized bet.  First of all it’s not a king sized bed.  Its two smaller beds strapped together. If you lay in the middle you can feel the crease.

The balcony is huge. From the door it goes about 15 feet to your left and about that to your right before it curls around the side of the ship. There are two full deck chairs, two normal chairs, and two small tables outside and it doesn’t feel at all cramped.  One feature of this balcony that is great and awful at the same time is its roof.  The back of the Spirit Class ships are slanted.  This means that when you lean on your balcony you easily see down into the balcony on the decks below you.  This also means people can easily see down into yours.  This also means that the privacy dividers between you and the stateroom next to you are not good.  The good thing about this exposure is the fact that you can sun bathe on your balcony for a few hours a day.

The biggest drawback of the exposed balcony is not the lack of privacy.  The biggest drawback occurs when you have an inconsiderate JERK above you.  I’d like to use stronger language but this is a family blog. I’m talking about the people who were in stateroom 7298 on the Carnival Miracle during its cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale that lasted from 11/27/2010 to 12/5/2010.  I hope you read this and realize how rude and inconsiderate you are (get ready for a Pete Warner style rant)

Why were the people in 7298 jerks? Not once, but twice they decided to shake out sandy clothes over the side of their balcony.  Now, if you made it through the first grade, or fell out of a tree if you didn’t go to school (more likely in this case), you know what happens to things when gravity takes over.  They go down.  The first time my wife called out in disbelief and looked up in time to see the person quickly go back into their room.  The second time my wife had just put on sun screen, had a drink on her table, and laid back to relax for a few minutes.  The sand stuck to her like glue. She got it in her hair, mouth, drink and blanket.  This time my wife really went off and caught the person before they could run away.  They said sorry and ran back inside. How selfish and inconsiderate do you have to be?  Wouldn’t your bath tub be a much better place to shake out a blanket?

There was a third / fourth event but we were not outside when they happened.  Based on our experience with the sand we feel strongly that the same party was involved.  Someone tossed out their ash tray on two different occasions.  Not only did this cover our chairs with ash but on one occasion a hot ember landed out our chair and partly melted it (the chairs are plastic).  My wife sat down on two different occasions and ended up with black ash on her clothes but that pales to the idea of a fire starting on our ship because someone has the IQ of a slug.  Stupid isn’t a strong enough term for what that person is. If you relate this story to a chimp, the chimp would shake its head, find the person, and slap them in the face for being so dumb.

If you don’t have ignorant, inconsiderate, pigs above you these are some of the best staterooms you can find.  They are not perfect but they are very nice.  The price is high but when you consider you also get VIP check in and put in one of the first groups off the boat it’s not bad at all.

Keep checking back.  I’ll be posting an in depth video of the stateroom soon.

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival Miracle

The Carnival Miracle was the last Spirit Class ship Carnival built.  It’s been a few years since then but the Miracle is still in decent shape.

Unlike some of the other Carnival Ships the Miracle has a full promenade that can be walked or jogged at anytime. This is always a nice feature and I really don’t like ships that don’t have a full promenade.

One thing the Miracle has in common with all other Carnival ships is its atrium.  The atrium is impressive.  It rises from deck two to above deck ten.  It has the classic glass elevators and the nice bar at the bottom.  At the very top of the atrium you can find Nick and Nora’s Steak House.  I’ll do a separate review for the steak house.

Deck nine is Carnivals Lido deck.  A solid third to one half of the lido deck is the buffet area.  The buffet area is made up of a fresh pizza counter, cuisine of the day counter, salad counter, Asian counter, drink station, grill (dogs, burgers, fries, and so on), deli, and a handful of soft serve ice cream machines.

Beyond the buffet area are two pools and the gym / spa area.  In the very back of the ship there is a bar and the smallest pool I’ve ever seen on a cruise ship.

Beyond the staterooms the rest of the public areas are found on decks two and three.  In rear of both of these floors is the main dining room.  On front end of both of these floors is the Phantom Theater.  In between are a number of clubs, a casino, the atrium, a library, and some bars and sitting areas.

One odd thing; near the entrance of the Phantom Theater is the entrance to the Mad Hatters Ball which is a secondary showroom where they do a lot of karaoke and have some Comedians.  This is odd because the entrance is a stairwell that goes under the Phantom theater and dumps you on deck one. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this design before.

The Phantom Theater is a classic Carnival theater.  It’s not bad but if you’ve been in other Carnival Theaters it’s nothing to write home about.  Along the sides of the theater there are Phantom masks with glowing red eyes.  I thought the red eyes were tacky and didn’t add much.  On the walls there are paintings depicting scenes from Phantom of the Opera. These are very nice except one of them wasn’t cropped correctly so one of the characters heads was cut off.

One thing that I noticed which I believe is a Carnival policy was the number of bar service and photograph employees. They have always been there but now they solicit you.  In the past the photo employees stood by and waited for people to get their picture taken.  The only exception was when you got on and off the ship.  Now they constantly invite you to stop and take a picture.  It gets old after a while.  They are not pushy and are nice but you get tired of being asked. This hits home when you have to walk by at least five photographers when walking from the dining room to the theater.  I don’t know why they ask.  If you don’t want your picture taken, they are just wasting money because they print a copy of every photo.

The bar service people are the same. In the past they’d walk by and announce “bar service” now they ask everyone if they want a drink.  Doesn’t sound bad but there were a number of times when my wife and I would sit down and we’d be asked by three different people in less than five minutes if we wanted a drink.  It just gets old.

The dining room on the Miracle is nice.  It’s themed after the Greek god of wine.  The only real way you can tell is from all of the purple lights that are designed to look like bunches of grapes.  Beyond that it’s a standard Carnival dining room. 

Taking all aspects into consideration the Carnival Miracle blows the NCL Pearl and Jewel out of the water.  It’s not even fair to compare them.  I can’t think of one way the NCL ships are better than the Miracle. In fact every Carnival ship I’ve ever been on is better than the NCL ships.  I’ll go into some finer details later.

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival VIP Check In

I recently spent 8 days on the Carnival Miracle. After my last cruise I was prepared for the worst. After all, NCL helped me to define what a terrible vacation is.

For the first time we got to try out Carnival’s VIP check in. Anyone who has cruised with Carnival 10 or more times or booked a qualifying stateroom gets to use the VIP check in. So how did it work?

I showed up at the port around 11:15am on the day of departure. We went in the separate entrance reserved for the VIP check in. Right off the bat we passed dozens of people who were waiting in the regular line. Next went through a separate security screen which was amazingly fast. After that we dealt with our first employee. We didn’t have to wait at all. She processed us and sent us up the escalator.

At the top of the escalator we went to another separate VIP check in area. Again there was no line. An employee gave us our stateroom cards, took our info and had us on our way in less than five minutes. She also informed us that they were already boarding VIPs. We followed the signs to board the ship and passed a few hundred people who were using the standard check in.

By 11:30 we were on the ship. I’ve never even come close to that timeframe on any other cruise I’ve been on. To be honest getting on the ship could not have been easier.

If you have the chance to use the VIP check in on Carnival, use it. It’s awesome.

Upcoming Vacation Topics

About a year ago I did a series of topics called CMDTA on Vacation.  Those posts coved my horrifying (and it was horrifyingly bad) cruise with NCL.

I’m pleased to announce that the CMDTA on Vacation is coming back! WOOOOOO! Here are the upcoming topics which should debut around late December:

Carnival Miracle

Carnival Spirit Class Vista Suites

Carnival Overall

St. Marten

St. Lucia

St. Kitts

Carnival at Sea

Carnival vs. NCL

What’s the Next Vacation?

Now if any of you are disappointed that I’m not going on NCL again I just want to remind you that a certain warm place hasn’t frozen over yet.  NCL was so bad I’ve almost blocked the entire trip from my memory.  I remember the details but it now feels more like a nightmare then something that actually happened.  Why don’t you go on NCL and blog about it?  I won’t be doing that anytime soon.  If I want to waste my money on something that depressing I’ll burn it in my pellet stove.

Want to know all the really bad stuff about cruising?  Check this out:

Carnival = Poor Conflict Resolution

Carnival is in a cut-throat industry.  Typical wisdom would tell you that you need to do what you can to make your customers happy.  Throughout the history of business the best way to do that is live by the famous saying, “the customer is always right.” 

Carnival does not follow this creed.  In fact Carnival will argue with you to convince you that you are wrong.  I found this when I discovered a problem with my original stateroom.  In my opinion (and my travel agents as well) my stateroom was not as described.  In fact its description was very deceptive and had an undisclosed obstructed view.

I may not know much but I do know one thing.  A stairwell outside your window is an obstructed view. 

So what did Carnival do to fix the situation?  Charged me $400 to get into a decent stateroom or take a lower category stateroom.  I am being very serious here.  Carnival did absolutely nothing to take care of my problem.  They wouldn’t even admit there was a problem with the room and insisted that no one had complained about the room.  In fact many people had complained about the room. All I had to do was Google my stateroom number and an insane number of hits popped up. I found a shocking number of people who ran into the same problem I did.

You might think they treat their loyal customer’s better right?  Wrong.  This was our 7^th cruise with Carnival and after being treated like this I think it’s safe to say it’s our last.

You might wonder what kind of stateroom did we book, was it one of the cheap ones?  We booked a suite. So keep that in mind. Carnival is so greedy they will do NOTHING for a loyal customer who booked an expensive stateroom and has a problem.

How much time was wasted trying to find out Carnival would do nothing?  Hours were wasted.  My travel agent called many times spending hours talking to different people.  She even called her agency rep and got the same results. I spent hours supporting her by digging up information and researching what Carnival should have disclosed up front.

Keep in mind that Carnival normally offers a good value.  A good value as long as nothing goes wrong.

Carnivals Nasty Little Policy

Almost all cruise lines rely on ambiguous descriptions of their staterooms and categories. It’s a universal fact that you’d have to a border line rocket scientist to figure out the never ending array and classifications of those dreaded categories.

Some cruise lines are worse than others and some are just downright deceptive. Take for example Carnival’s Spirit Class of ships. The Spirit, Pride, Legend, and Miracle all have a sinister secret that Carnival will not disclose to the public.

When you book a Suite you have a certain expectation. Most of this expectation is based on two items. The first is Carnival’s description of stateroom. The second, if you do your research, is the deck plan of the ship. The JS category on the Spirit Class ships look great. According to Carnival you get a spacious room, a private balcony, even a real tub!

Each of the Spirit Class ships has only two JS code staterooms. The fact that there are only two is your first warning but after reading the description and seeing the deck plan any reasonable person would ignore that warning even if it occurred to them.

What Carnival is not telling you is that staterooms 4226 and 4235 do not match their descriptions and the deck plans are VERY deceptive. The balconies on these “suites” are close in size to a normal balcony. You may wonder how that is possible when the room is so large. What Carnival tries to hide is the fact that there is an external stairwell that greatly reduces the size of your balcony. This also means that your balcony is far from private. Carnival is quick to explain to anyone who questions this that there is a partition in place. That’s like putting lipstick on a pig. It doesn’t change what it is.

Now you also might be wondering what happened to the rest of the room. Well you’ll be pleased to know that you have a nice window with a lovely view of the stairwell. You might as well just keep the shade pulled. If you don’t, remember to stay fully clothed when you are in front of the window. That’s not exactly what you think of when you think private is it?

This would not be an issue if Carnival explained this before someone booked the room. However, you will not find out this info unless you Google your room number. Carnival will not tell you of any of these issues in advance.

If you think they do not know about the problem you are very wrong. Carnival has been receiving complaints for years. Think I’m kidding? Check out this link.

Interesting isn’t it. Not only does Carnival know, they said they would look into it. However, in the last few years Carnival has not fixed the problem. All you need to do is Google stateroom 4226 or 4235 and you will get a ton of hits, both old and new.

So why wouldn’t Carnival fix this? Here is my theory on that subject. Staterooms 4226 and 4235 are listed as Junior Suites which mean they can get top dollar for them. If you admitted there was a problem with those rooms you could not get the same rate, you’d have to seriously discount them. Now take a minute and check out the complaints on line about these staterooms. Do you notice something in common? In most cases the issues were resolved when Carnival offered the disgruntled customers onboard credit on a future cruise. I’m both offended by that but at the same time it’s a really smart move. Think about that for a minute.

You over charged for a room, ended up with an upset customer, but appeased them by convincing them to buy another cruise. Worst case you probably break even. If half of people never cruise again you still have half that you know are going to cruise again and have a much better experience because they either know what to expect or wouldn’t be dumb enough to book that room again.

That is my theory as to why Carnival does not fix this problem. They don’t have to. They are actually making money by creating a problem. Is it right to do that? In my opinion absolutely not but if they are making money on it, they are going to keep doing it.

Cruising

My wife isn’t a Disney fan so for this year’s vacation I had to do something she’d like. I ended up booking a cruise through NCL. I’ll start by saying my first impression with NCL was not a good one.

We went on an Alaskan cruise aboard the Pearl. The weather was great, Alaska was amazing, but rest was just average.

I’ve been on Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and NCL. Carnival and Royal Caribbean are much better than NCL. NCL came out with “Freestyle Dining.” Another word for freestyle dining is gimmick. Freestyle Dining allows you to go to select restaurants for dinner whenever you want. I say select restaurants because only a few of them are free. Yes, NCL discovered a way to get people to pay for food on a cruise. If you don’t go to one of the pay restaurants you get average food. All of the expensive items have been removed from the menus.

Being the kind of guy I am, I asked why the other cruise lines offered items like filet, lobster, baked Alaska, and the other classics and NCL didn’t. The answer was so dumb my brain grinded to a halt and refused to work anymore. I was told that guests were tired of the usual fare and wanted something new. So in other words, you took that to mean that your guests were tired of good food and wanted cheap sub-par slop.

My other big complaint about NCL was the ship. It was ugly. What a tacky ship. It reminded me of a retirement home. It was completely unimpressive too. Both Carnival and RC had massive atriums and other impressive architecture. NCL had nothing impressive.

So why did I pick NCL? I’m willing to give second chances and they offered the best deal. However, if NCL doesn’t show dramatic improvement I’ll never cruise on them again unless someone else is paying for it.

The stops for this cruise include: Costa Maya – Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and some private island in the Bahamas. I’ve never been to Costa Maya. I’m not expecting much. I’ve been to other places in Mexico and was never overly impressed. I’ve never been to Honduras so that one is a total wild card. I’ve been to Belize. Belize is very nice. Great place to go see some ruins if you’ve never done that before. They also sell cashew wine there. That’s great stuff. I’ve been to about 25 different places in the Caribbean but have never been anywhere in the Bahamas. This won’t count either. It’s just a private island and those can be hit or miss.

I should be excited about going on vacation but after going to Disney last year, I’m not. It’s hard to get pumped up about an everyday cruise. If it was Alaska I’d be pumped up about it. I’m sure I’ll get a little excited as it draws closer.