Anthem of the Seas v. Carnival Triumph

A good friend is trying to decide on a ship. Anthem is a 9 day Bermuda Eastern Caribbean v. 8 night Eastern Caribbean on Carnival Triumph. Sailing is for Aug. 2019 and price difference is negligible. Ports are different except San Juan. Which would you choose? Posting on both boards.

Definitely the Anthem. Same price for one extra night, and a bigger ship with more bells and whistles. And I routinely sail both lines, so I'm not choosing one cruise line over the other.

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I have sailed both RCCL and Carnival and I would always choose the longer cruise if price is the same. Plus Anthem is a much bigger ship

The Triumph was our first and third cruise so it has wonderful memories for us. Have been on the Allure twice and Oasis once. Harmony’s sister ships.

This said, for us there is no comparison. Night and day the Harmony wins hands down.

Truimph was our first cruise and it is the reason we love to cruise, but she is 19 years old now and quite a bit smaller than Anthem. One more night on Anthem makes this a no brainer to me.

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I'm going to have to head over to the Carnival board and see the responses, but this is a no-brainer. Anthem hands down. I'm not loyal to Royal by any means, and have enjoyed our Carnival experiences, but Anthem is much newer, 1 extra night, has more to do on board, etc. About the only spots where Triumph has Anthem beat is afternoon food (Guy's Burgers, Burrito Bar, etc are much better than Royal's afternoon offerings), Piano Bar (assuming its the same as on other ships, which is far and away better than Spinnaker), and comedy shows (Carnival generally swaps comedians out half-way through sailings for multiple acts, and they're generally funnier than Royal's comedians).

Have been on both ships, although the cruise on the Triumph was a decade ago, I think. Nonetheless, I would have recommended Triumph over Anthem EXCEPT for the extra night. Especially if you’re leaving from NY in any season other than summer, you really do lose full use of the ship facilities (like the pool) for a day or two at the beginning and end of the cruise. My reasons for otherwise favoring Triumph are that in my experience it handles the rougher waters of NY better (we actually sailed back into NY during hurricane Floyd and really didn’t notice it much at all) and we found the Anthem cruise to be boring (by cruise standards, that is, which IMHO is still better than any other vacation out there). Sure, Ifly is interesting for the five minutes you’re in it, but it was the very first ship on any line that we wouldn’t bother going on again. Having said that, the extra day more than makes up for the difference, so in this case I’d take the Anthem.

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The Triumph was our first and third cruise so it has wonderful memories for us. Have been on the Allure twice and Oasis once. Harmony’s sister ships.

 

This said, for us there is no comparison. Night and day the Harmony wins hands down.

Although I agree, the Harmony, Allure and Oasis is a whole different class of ship then the Anthem. The Anthem is extremely different and you really can't compare them to each other. (yes, I have been on the Oasis class and the Anthem).

OP....I have been on Carnival's Pride, Fantasy, Glory and Splendor. I am not and never will be loyal to any cruise line. I love them all, but given a choice, I would definitely choose the Anthem for many reasons. (even though we loved all of the ships I listed). The main reason...The Anthem is a "winterized" ship...meaning if you sail out of NJ in the cold or rainy weather...there are tons of "inside" venues and things to do. Including a pool.