surrealrain

While I don't have much experience with cruising, I will say this...our Carnival cruise was just as much fun as our Disney cruise. Both were a total blast.

What we loved about our Disney cruise:

~It's Disney and we are HUGE fans

~Character meet and greets- even in the parks we love meeting characters

~The ship was beautiful

~Rainforest room was heaven

~Kids club was amazing and our 6 year old never wanted to leave

~Movie theater

Things Carnival does better:

~Room layout, the Disney has a split bathroom which we didn't care for. Plus the way the room was layed out it was very narrow from the door to the beds and we were constantly in each others way.

~Dining- I much prefer Carnivals anytime dining. With Disney you get the same servers every night, which was nice, but I'd much rather have flexibility rather than the same servers. Plus Carnivals food was better overall.

~Trivia- Hubbie and I are trivia nuts and Carnival definitely wins hands down.

There were a few things about our Disney cruise that left me puzzled. We went early December and was lucky enough to have Santa fly all the way to our ship for a visit :eek:, unfortunately Santa only made two appearances, one during the middle of a port day when most people were not on board and once during the first seating of dinner forcing parents to decide between Santa or dinner. Santa isn't the only one, other character meet and greets were strangely timed as well.

Disney didn't have many food options outside of meal times. Their lunch hours were way too short, and if you miss it you're only option is basically burgers, fries, pizza or a limited room service menu. We're just not much on junk food like that and it became tiresome after a few days.

Basically I could go on and on, while I love Disney, I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way or pay too much more for a Disney cruise. We booked another one while onboard, but only because it was a surprise for my MIL who's always wanted to go on a cruise, so we decided to "go all out" and take her on a Disney one.

If you're not a Disney fan and care about the character aspect, then it's just not worth the extra.

I would love a photo package for our upcoming Carnival cruise. We got one on our Disney cruise last December ($399 for all pictures in print and digital for a 7 night cruise), and we walked off with over 200 professional pictures. Of course most were from character meet and greets which Carnival doesn't exactly have, but still, I would love a photo package regardless. But for the price they charge per picture, we won't be buying any on Carnival, but will be buying a package on our next Disney cruise for sure.

Carnivals loss I suppose, they'd sell much more if they offered a package or reduced the price.

Our first cruise (Carnival) we didn't tip any extra, just the suggested amount. No one really stood out or went above and beyond. On our Disney cruise, we tipped everyone $25 extra ($35 extra to the room steward as our son wet the bed nearly every night :o ), as the entire staff was wonderful and more than earned it.

My advice is to wait and see, if you feel they've gone above and beyond then tip more, otherwise stay with the base amount.

Thanks!

I looked all over Carnivals site for the answer and couldn't find much information at all about it. :)

Hey everyone! We just booked a cruise on the Carnival Magic for this August and I read about the Dr. Seuss Character Breakfast and was wondering if it requires a reservation. If so, do I reserve it ahead of time or wait until we are on board?

Thanks!