kingoftheicedragons

And I remember reading somewhere that a lot of TAs don't like Carnival because Carnival has really tried to not work with TAs and have removed a lot of the incentives for TAs to book passengers on their ships. I think Carnival has recently changed this position, but the damage has still been done.

Carnival's rooms are always way too cold. We have to shut down the A/C as much as we canto even hope to have a comfortable room. And on the Conquest, the whole ship was cold, there were several people complaining about the cold ship.

We typically buy approximately four months in advance.

Don't forget SeaDogs on sea days. Granted, not too impressed as all they offer are hot dogs, and just basic toppings are available. It would be great if they could offer a wide range of toppings for their hot dogs to create more "gourmet" dogs.

Thanks for reminding me that I didn't mention the theatre. Yes, the fact that there was no tables or places for drinks on Dawn was another thing that stood out to us, and we commented that it would be hard for a waiter to be able to get a drink to someone in the middle of an aisle.

It was nice, however, that there was stadium seating in the theatre on Dawn so that you didn't have to worry about someone tall sitting in front of you and blocking your view. There were also usually some good seats off to the side of the theatre that people usually didn't sit in--I thought it was because they were poor line of sight seats, but once we tried that section, we found that they were pretty good seats.

Other comparisons that may be unique (or not) to our sailing--the Garden Cafe/buffet area seating was always super crowded during meal times that it was at times impossible to find seating. Once, we had to sit in the children's section on little kindergarten sized tables and chairs because there was no where else. Another time, that section was overrun by adults as well, so we actually took our plates to the window ledge between the buffet area and the spa and ate there. And buffet line cutting seemed to be a lot worse on the Dawn than on Carnival.

I don't understand the hate either. In fact, Sunshine is currently my favorite ship and would sail on her over just about any other Carnival ship, depending on itinerary. After sailing on Sunshine, Conquest didn't seem as exciting.

On our recent Norwegian cruise, they did have a meet and greet on turn around day for the people doing B2B cruises (but there were 500 people doing a B2B so that might be why, and I did hear at least one person say that they didn't realize that a 7-day cruise was an option because everything they saw online listed it as a 14-day cruise). I haven't ever seen this on a Carnival ship.

MISCELLANEOUS

Bingo doesn’t seem like it’s as big of a deal on Norwegian. Yes, there was bingo, and they would announce it over the speakers at times, but it was usually held in the Spinnaker versus the main theatre. (Advantage: Norwegian).

I like the option of having photographs taken when you’re on the ship. Sometimes it could be fun to have pictures taken to pass the time if you want to, even if you don’t want to buy them. On Carnival, they seem to harass you to have your picture taken, and at times it seems like you can’t get away from this. It’s much more tuned back on Norwegian. Yes, they’re there, and yes, they do pictures as you disembark in each port as well as in the MDR, but they’re not in your face about it. (Advantage: Norwegian).

FINAL SUMMARY

Now that we have sailed with Norwegian, and it was fairly similar to Carnival, I would definitely sail with Norwegian again, especially if there was a good price and/or a good itinerary that we would like to do. Both lines have things that they do well and things that they need to improve on, and while there are other difference as well, most of them are relatively minor and simply different ways of doing things. Having said that, I think Carnival would likely still be our cruise line of choice.

FOOD

Breakfast: I think Norwegian’s breakfast was much better than Carnival’s. Part of this is due to a wider variety, such as waffles with toppings and bangers, or being able to do up your own bagel with things such as smoked salmon and capers. Granted, some things on the breakfast buffet weren’t as good as that as Carnival’s, overall I think Norwegian wins breakfast.

We never ate breakfast or lunch in the MDR or in the Blue Lagoon restaurant, so I cannot comment on those two venues on the Dawn. Blue Lagoon being open 24 hours is a big plus for late night munchies, though—but considering they had a popular music duo in the grand atrium where the Blue Lagoon had good seating for this would have been hard to find during this time period.

Beverages: This is another area that Norwegian does better. Juices were available most if not all of the time, as well as milk in dispensers. There was honey for the tea. There were the flavored waters as well. Lemonade wasn’t as sweet on NCL as it is on Carnival.

Lunch buffet: Norwegian has much more variety on its lunch buffets than Carnival does. However, Carnival’s buffets look and taste much better than Norwegian’s lunch buffet does. If variety was the name of the game, Norwegian would definitely win. However, variety doesn’t mean as much when the quality isn’t there. Plus, if the buffet doesn’t appeal to you on Carnival, you have many alternatives—Guy’s burgers (or even regular burgers on Carnival are better than those on NCL), Blue Iguana, Indian Tandoor, the Wok, Rotisserie, fish and chips, the pizza place, or the deli on Carnival. Again, you can find some of these items on Norwegian’s buffet, but the quality isn’t the same.

Ice Cream: This is a tough one. I liked that Norwegian had hard ice cream with a couple of different flavors. However, there was no self-serve soft serve ice cream. There was soft serve ice cream, just not self serve. This means no using ice cream with soda, coffee, lemonade, milk, etc. to make your own concoctions. Norwegian also had toppings for the ice cream which I don’t remember on Carnival. So for me, this is a toss up.

Specialty restaurants: I have never tried a specialty restaurant on Carnival—and I haven’t felt the need to. We did try one on Dawn—Bamboo for some Asian food. It was good food, but the quality of it was no different than what is normally available on Carnival and not worth the extra $15. Dining on NCL seemed to revolve around the specialty dining. I wasn’t too impressed by the fact that some of the specialty dining was out in the open, so ambience was severely lacking in some of the specialty restaurants.

Main Dining Room: There was never one night in the MDR where I looked at the menu and had a menu item jump off the menu at me as something that I really wanted to try, whereas on Carnival, I usually have at least one item (and sometimes two or three) that sound appealing to me. The menu on Norwegian just seemed boring. The food quality was good once it came, but I think the boring aspect was hard to overcome. It seemed like we did get better service in the Venetian than the Aqua dining room.

Advantage: Carnival. And it’s a big one.

STAFF

On Carnival, if you participate in activities you see your entertainment staff quite a bit. If you don’t participate in activities, you don’t see them all that often. Of course, Carnival does seem to have activities spread throughout the ship, including on Lido, so chances of seeing them is pretty good. However, on Norwegian, you can see the entertainment staff mingling with passengers in the main theatre before the shows in the evening. On Norwegian, department heads are introduced on the first night, and then you also see department heads quite often on Norwegian. While Carnival’s department heads may or may not be mingling with passengers or out on the ship on a regular basis, you generally wouldn’t know who they are. The singers and dancers on Norwegian also seem to be out and about more on Norwegian, helping with activities, etc., and just seem more like an integral part of the entertainment staff rather than just helping to sell bingo tickets.

Advantage: Norwegian.

ENTERTAINMENT

Again, remembering that everything is subjective, and some will like CCL’s entertainment better and some will like NCL’s entertainment better. And when I talk about entertainment, I’m talking about the main entertainment, that in the main theatre as well as the primary lounge (such as where CCL’s Punchliners would be, or the Spinnaker Lounge for Norwegian Dawn). The fact that NCL still has a live house band and had live music on the open deck for sail away—things that Carnival seems to be getting away from—is not going to come into play (bu, I thought NCL does this much better than Carnival).

Carnival has their new production shows as part of the 2.0 upgrades, Punchliners comedy every night, usually 2 different comedians a night, with a switch half way through the cruise. Carnival also has the Hasbro game show, passenger talent show, and the passenger singing show at the end of the cruise. Occasionally Carnival will have a comedic show, whether a hypnotist or a comedic juggler, or occasionally a magician doing okay magic.

Norwegian did not have nightly comedians, which is something that I do wish they had. However, the stage production shows I thought were done much better on Norwegian. Other entertainment included David DiVinci whose show was, IMHO worthy of a TV show. There was the comedic and musical mussings of Harry O’Donoghue, Second City, and the acrobatic skills of—well, I forget their names, but they were from France. Other than the acrobats, I thought this was all superior to anything on Carnival. And actually, the acrobats would have been more interesting if they didn’t have them two nights in a row—once as part of the Elements show and then just them the next night, doing stunts that no longer seemed as impressive as they did the night before. For the most part, though, I liked how you could see Harry O’Donoghue in the main theatre one night, and then see him again in a different show in the Spinnaker another time. The same goes for David DiVinci and Second City as well. I like how the different entertainments were used in “cross production” as well, such as the assistant cruise director having a significant role in one of the production shows, or Mr. DiVinci and the acrobats being a part of the Elements show. To me, the shows were better planned and executed on Norwegian than they are on Carnival.

Advantage: Norwegian.

I am cross posting this to both the Carnival and Norwegian boards, as I think this is relevant to both.

First off, I know that I can’t really judge how Norwegian as a cruise line is after just one cruise…there are many things that may influence a particular sailing, such as weather, passenger demographics, and itinerary, to name a couple of things. Each ship can be different as well. However, as someone who has taken 9 Carnival cruises in the past and just having taken a cruise on the Norwegian Dawn, I thought I would provide my insights and comparisons on the two lines for those who may be thinking of trying another line. Bear in mind, these are my opinions only, and everything can be subjective to what a person may want from a cruise.

I think my cruise may not have been typical. It was a one-way New England/Canadian cruise from Boston to Quebec City. I have heard that the Dawn did not sail full, and even though I am 42 and my wife 38, we were among the youngest on the ship, with probably 85-90% of the passengers being older than us.

Because it was a Canadian cruise, we did not need to worry about chair hogs by the pool, as it was too chilly to really be out for long periods of time anyway. It was also a port-intensive cruise, with only one sea day.

CABIN

We have stayed in a variety of cabins with CCL, though typically we stay in interior rooms. Likewise, we booked an interior room with NCL. I have heard quite a bit that Carnival’s interior cabins are larger than that of other lines, but I thought any change in the amount of space would be minor. I was wrong. Norwegian’s inside rooms are definitely noticeably smaller. We had enough room in our cabin for the bed, and that was essentially it. On Carnival’s interior rooms, we usually do have at least a chair or small couch. There was no room for that in NCL’s cabins. I might also have been imaging this, but I thought the corridors on the Dawn were a little bit narrower as well. The one thing that NCL might have a slight advantage in is the steward seemed to be much friendlier on the Dawn than I have experienced with Carnival in quite a while. It’s been rare for a steward on CCL to introduce himself to us and for us to really have a good idea of who our steward on CCL really is. Our steward on NCL, Chris, was around quite a bit and made sure to address us by name each time he saw us. This has only happened on CCL two or three cruises. I also liked the time change reminders put on the bed when there was going to be a time change, or the little post-it note on the bathroom mirror about “Norwegian’s Night Out.”

MISCELLANEOUS

Bingo doesn’t seem like it’s as big of a deal on Norwegian. Yes, there was bingo, and they would announce it over the speakers at times, but it was usually held in the Spinnaker versus the main theatre. (Advantage: Norwegian).

I like the option of having photographs taken when you’re on the ship. Sometimes it could be fun to have pictures taken to pass the time if you want to, even if you don’t want to buy them. On Carnival, they seem to harass you to have your picture taken, and at times it seems like you can’t get away from this. It’s much more tuned back on Norwegian. Yes, they’re there, and yes, they do pictures as you disembark in each port as well as in the MDR, but they’re not in your face about it. (Advantage: Norwegian).

FINAL SUMMARY

Now that we have sailed with Norwegian, and it was fairly similar to Carnival, I would definitely sail with Norwegian again, especially if there was a good price and/or a good itinerary that we would like to do. Both lines have things that they do well and things that they need to improve on, and while there are other difference as well, most of them are relatively minor and simply different ways of doing things. Having said that, I think Carnival would likely still be our cruise line of choice.

FOOD

Breakfast: I think Norwegian’s breakfast was much better than Carnival’s. Part of this is due to a wider variety, such as waffles with toppings and bangers, or being able to do up your own bagel with things such as smoked salmon and capers. Granted, some things on the breakfast buffet weren’t as good as that as Carnival’s, overall I think Norwegian wins breakfast.

We never ate breakfast or lunch in the MDR or in the Blue Lagoon restaurant, so I cannot comment on those two venues on the Dawn. Blue Lagoon being open 24 hours is a big plus for late night munchies, though—but considering they had a popular music duo in the grand atrium where the Blue Lagoon had good seating for this would have been hard to find during this time period.

Beverages: This is another area that Norwegian does better. Juices were available most if not all of the time, as well as milk in dispensers. There was honey for the tea. There were the flavored waters as well. Lemonade wasn’t as sweet on NCL as it is on Carnival.

Lunch buffet: Norwegian has much more variety on its lunch buffets than Carnival does. However, Carnival’s buffets look and taste much better than Norwegian’s lunch buffet does. If variety was the name of the game, Norwegian would definitely win. However, variety doesn’t mean as much when the quality isn’t there. Plus, if the buffet doesn’t appeal to you on Carnival, you have many alternatives—Guy’s burgers (or even regular burgers on Carnival are better than those on NCL), Blue Iguana, Indian Tandoor, the Wok, Rotisserie, fish and chips, the pizza place, or the deli on Carnival. Again, you can find some of these items on Norwegian’s buffet, but the quality isn’t the same.

Ice Cream: This is a tough one. I liked that Norwegian had hard ice cream with a couple of different flavors. However, there was no self-serve soft serve ice cream. There was soft serve ice cream, just not self serve. This means no using ice cream with soda, coffee, lemonade, milk, etc. to make your own concoctions. Norwegian also had toppings for the ice cream which I don’t remember on Carnival. So for me, this is a toss up.

Specialty restaurants: I have never tried a specialty restaurant on Carnival—and I haven’t felt the need to. We did try one on Dawn—Bamboo for some Asian food. It was good food, but the quality of it was no different than what is normally available on Carnival and not worth the extra $15. Dining on NCL seemed to revolve around the specialty dining. I wasn’t too impressed by the fact that some of the specialty dining was out in the open, so ambience was severely lacking in some of the specialty restaurants.

Main Dining Room: There was never one night in the MDR where I looked at the menu and had a menu item jump off the menu at me as something that I really wanted to try, whereas on Carnival, I usually have at least one item (and sometimes two or three) that sound appealing to me. The menu on Norwegian just seemed boring. The food quality was good once it came, but I think the boring aspect was hard to overcome. It seemed like we did get better service in the Venetian than the Aqua dining room.

Advantage: Carnival. And it’s a big one.

STAFF

On Carnival, if you participate in activities you see your entertainment staff quite a bit. If you don’t participate in activities, you don’t see them all that often. Of course, Carnival does seem to have activities spread throughout the ship, including on Lido, so chances of seeing them is pretty good. However, on Norwegian, you can see the entertainment staff mingling with passengers in the main theatre before the shows in the evening. On Norwegian, department heads are introduced on the first night, and then you also see department heads quite often on Norwegian. While Carnival’s department heads may or may not be mingling with passengers or out on the ship on a regular basis, you generally wouldn’t know who they are. The singers and dancers on Norwegian also seem to be out and about more on Norwegian, helping with activities, etc., and just seem more like an integral part of the entertainment staff rather than just helping to sell bingo tickets.

Advantage: Norwegian.

ENTERTAINMENT

Again, remembering that everything is subjective, and some will like CCL’s entertainment better and some will like NCL’s entertainment better. And when I talk about entertainment, I’m talking about the main entertainment, that in the main theatre as well as the primary lounge (such as where CCL’s Punchliners would be, or the Spinnaker Lounge for Norwegian Dawn). The fact that NCL still has a live house band and had live music on the open deck for sail away—things that Carnival seems to be getting away from—is not going to come into play (bu, I thought NCL does this much better than Carnival).

Carnival has their new production shows as part of the 2.0 upgrades, Punchliners comedy every night, usually 2 different comedians a night, with a switch half way through the cruise. Carnival also has the Hasbro game show, passenger talent show, and the passenger singing show at the end of the cruise. Occasionally Carnival will have a comedic show, whether a hypnotist or a comedic juggler, or occasionally a magician doing okay magic.

Norwegian did not have nightly comedians, which is something that I do wish they had. However, the stage production shows I thought were done much better on Norwegian. Other entertainment included David DiVinci whose show was, IMHO worthy of a TV show. There was the comedic and musical mussings of Harry O’Donoghue, Second City, and the acrobatic skills of—well, I forget their names, but they were from France. Other than the acrobats, I thought this was all superior to anything on Carnival. And actually, the acrobats would have been more interesting if they didn’t have them two nights in a row—once as part of the Elements show and then just them the next night, doing stunts that no longer seemed as impressive as they did the night before. For the most part, though, I liked how you could see Harry O’Donoghue in the main theatre one night, and then see him again in a different show in the Spinnaker another time. The same goes for David DiVinci and Second City as well. I like how the different entertainments were used in “cross production” as well, such as the assistant cruise director having a significant role in one of the production shows, or Mr. DiVinci and the acrobats being a part of the Elements show. To me, the shows were better planned and executed on Norwegian than they are on Carnival.

Advantage: Norwegian.

I am cross posting this to both the Carnival and Norwegian boards, as I think this is relevant to both.

First off, I know that I can’t really judge how Norwegian as a cruise line is after just one cruise…there are many things that may influence a particular sailing, such as weather, passenger demographics, and itinerary, to name a couple of things. Each ship can be different as well. However, as someone who has taken 9 Carnival cruises in the past and just having taken a cruise on the Norwegian Dawn, I thought I would provide my insights and comparisons on the two lines for those who may be thinking of trying another line. Bear in mind, these are my opinions only, and everything can be subjective to what a person may want from a cruise.

I think my cruise may not have been typical. It was a one-way New England/Canadian cruise from Boston to Quebec City. I have heard that the Dawn did not sail full, and even though I am 42 and my wife 38, we were among the youngest on the ship, with probably 85-90% of the passengers being older than us.

Because it was a Canadian cruise, we did not need to worry about chair hogs by the pool, as it was too chilly to really be out for long periods of time anyway. It was also a port-intensive cruise, with only one sea day.

CABIN

We have stayed in a variety of cabins with CCL, though typically we stay in interior rooms. Likewise, we booked an interior room with NCL. I have heard quite a bit that Carnival’s interior cabins are larger than that of other lines, but I thought any change in the amount of space would be minor. I was wrong. Norwegian’s inside rooms are definitely noticeably smaller. We had enough room in our cabin for the bed, and that was essentially it. On Carnival’s interior rooms, we usually do have at least a chair or small couch. There was no room for that in NCL’s cabins. I might also have been imaging this, but I thought the corridors on the Dawn were a little bit narrower as well. The one thing that NCL might have a slight advantage in is the steward seemed to be much friendlier on the Dawn than I have experienced with Carnival in quite a while. It’s been rare for a steward on CCL to introduce himself to us and for us to really have a good idea of who our steward on CCL really is. Our steward on NCL, Chris, was around quite a bit and made sure to address us by name each time he saw us. This has only happened on CCL two or three cruises. I also liked the time change reminders put on the bed when there was going to be a time change, or the little post-it note on the bathroom mirror about “Norwegian’s Night Out.”

Advantage: Carnival.

Just off the Dawn.

Always, or almost always, available:

Water

coffee

tea

iced tea

lemonade

milk (whole? I can't remember)

skim milk

orange juice

apple juice

cranberry juice

strawberry kiwi water

tropical mango water

Yes, the juices were available almost all the time--I had some juices for lunch/early afternoon, so it's not just at breakfast. We also saw magnets for other flavors of juices, so the juices may rotate; however, juices did not rotate during our cruise.

Related question that I'm not sure on. Are the menus in the more casual and more formal dining rooms pretty much the same, or are they different?

I think part of the problem with Pointe-a-Pitre (that's Guadalope, correct?) is in getting there. I have looked with fondness at that Costa cruise a couple of times in the past year because it would get us to Guadalope as well as some stops that I would otherwise have difficulty getting to. Unfortunately, when I look at air from Minneapolis to there, it seems to take almost a full day, and some puddle jumping involved. That seems a bit much to get to a Caribbean destination.

As a fellow mainly Carnival cruiser, I was excited to see some cruises that go to Grenada (rare on Carnival), so I'm thinking of doing that cruise.

I don't think there is anything subjective about setting the thermostat to it's coldest and having to sleep without your sheets because it is too hot.

The Dream had a real issue felt by many.

Just like there's nothing subjective in having to turn the thermostat to its warmest setting and still needing to ask the cabin steward for additional blankets?

There's the Serenity, I believe Sunshine also had the forward observation decks that are rarely used (unfortunately, no deck chairs, but they may have had benches up there, I can't remember). And there are the side decks on Deck 3 I believe that you could go and enjoy. These are usually shaded and windier, so not a good choice if you wanted to get some sun.

We live in Minnesota and cruise to get away from the cold. Carnival rooms are always way too cold, and common areas of the Conquest this past year were also way too cold. I'm hopeful that maybe Carnival has finally listened and made the temps on the ship more tolerable and comfortable.

Thank you all for your replies. I guess I will check out Deck 13 and see what that's like.

I agree with the above posters that it would be hard to tell if the water will be rough or you'll have good weather--it would be hard to tell you that about the Caribbean/Bahamas for January/February cruises as well (which we do regularly). We were in the Med last fall, and I think we actually had abnormal weather in that we were lead to believe that October/November is rainy season in Europe. We had rain in Venice the day we boarded the ship (apparently quite the downpour, but we missed it because it all happened during the time when we were exploring on the ship), and for a couple hours the morning we arrived in France--otherwise, we had no rain for our 12 day cruise, plus an extra day in Venice and three extra days in Barcelona. We may have been lucky.