Loyal HAL Cruiser Considering RCI - What Significant Difference Should I Expect?

[sassyredhat]

Our line of choice has always been HAL. We have sailed on other lines when we couldn't get the golf DH wanted or the itin. However we did sail RCI's Radiance of the Seas twice last year.

Prior to that, Zaandam was our favorite ship, but I have to say, Radiance is our favorite. True, HAL service is way over the top, as well as dining.

But~~we had good service and good food with RCI. And I loved Radiance's lido buffet.

I don't know if Serenade is a Mariner class or the same as Radiance so it may make a difference. Personally I don't care about a promenade parade, so we may not sail that class.

We are in our mid 60's (young 60's) and we don't do pools, rock walls, or dancing.

If HAL had what we wanted, we'd be back, but depending on the ship, RCI isn't bad.

Pat

[trinaM]

HAL and RCL seem to be similar in some respects, but for more different crowds.

[Brad1185]

Fresh oj on rci is $4 a glass incl on hal. With Hal room service is not extra, you don't have the $15 steak charge, you don't have to mess with rci's ridiculous towel check out system. I think Hal still offers cup-a-chinos in mdr rci is around $4.

[kyriecat]

sassyredhat (Pat),

 

Royal Caribbean has 4 ships that are Radiance class - Radiance, Jewel, Brilliance, and Serenade. I haven't been on Jewel yet but have been on the others. They are my personal favorites when it comes to ship layout and design. The Radiance class as beautiful ships - inside & out.

[bostongal]

IMHO the main differences between RCI and HAL are the ships - RCI (the bigger ships) feel like being trapped at the mall on the weekend with everyone in the same area of the ship at the same times and the quality of the food.

 

On our RCI cruises we have felt like the staff couldn't care less for the most part whether we enjoyed or cruise or not and on the final morning couldn't wait for us to be gone. The food was some of the worst we have ever had - so bad that we will not book another cruise with them period.

 

This is just our opinion but it is based on our experiences. YMMV

[Hobbsey]

I would suggest that you do not try and compare but just enjoy your cruise.

 

Granduer is older, think Rotterdam. She is wide open and beautiful and in every way a ship, not one of RCI's new floating theme parks. She is in the Vision Class, so lots of glass and lots of connection to the ocean. Her adult pool area is very pleasing.

 

In general my experience with RCI is that the dinner is service is fine, the food is not as much to my taste as HAL, the entertainment is tops. Note however, most of her basic accomodations are very small compared to what you might be used to on HAL.

 

Have you checked out the RCI boards to see what people are saying about her up-keep and the tone she sets on board. That's what I'd do to get some more definitives about her style.

 

My guess, you'll enjoy the ship.

[Hobbsey]

IMHO the main differences between RCI and HAL are the ships - RCI (the bigger ships) feel like being trapped at the mall on the weekend with everyone in the same area of the ship at the same times and the quality of the food.

 

On our RCI cruises we have felt like the staff couldn't care less for the most part whether we enjoyed or cruise or not and on the final morning couldn't wait for us to be gone. The food was some of the worst we have ever had - so bad that we will not book another cruise with them period.

 

This is just our opinion but it is based on our experiences. YMMV

 

FYI, RCI's Vision Class is lighter tonnage than HAL's Signature and Vista Class. Not at all the same as these new behemoths they've been floating out since Voyager.

[NancyIL]

IMHO the main differences between RCI and HAL are the ships - RCI (the bigger ships) feel like being trapped at the mall on the weekend with everyone in the same area of the ship at the same times and the quality of the food.

 

On our RCI cruises we have felt like the staff couldn't care less for the most part whether we enjoyed or cruise or not and on the final morning couldn't wait for us to be gone. The food was some of the worst we have ever had - so bad that we will not book another cruise with them period.

 

This is just our opinion but it is based on our experiences. YMMV

 

You were on RCI's Voyager-class ships with the Royal Promenade. I have been on those several times, and I much prefer RCI's smaller Radiance and Vision-class ships - with one vertical Centrum (atrium) instead of the long, horizontal Royal Promenade as on the Voyager, Freedom, and Oasis-class ships. On the other hand, the atrium on HAL's ships seems to have been an afterthought, and they aren't very pretty. The Zaandam has an ugly "organ" as the focal point of its atrium. What were the designers of that ship thinking?

 

I agree that the food quality on RCI has declined since my first RCI cruise in 2005. However, I don't think the food is bad, nor have I gone hungry. I haven't been on a HAL ship since July 2008, so for all I know, the cutbacks have affected HAL's food quality as well.

[cert4me]

We took an RCI cruise out of Los Angeles and down the Baja last February. Never have I had to plan my excursions around the "food police" before. A cruise ship is where you have to work to not gain weight, it was not problem on this ship. The dining rooms were clean since no one got to use them outside of VERY stringent hours.

 

Overall the crew was so busy jumping to the directions of the higher ups [and there seemed to be an excessive number of them] they had no time or energy to help paying customers.

 

I have cruised Princess, HAL, NCL, Carnival and RCI. RCI is the ONLY line I would not go back to even if it was free. I just can't stand to see people treated the way they treat their employees.

 

My .02

 

Mary

[cinnamon123]

hi middle aged & happy,

i did rcl last year because of a special occasion with friends. they picked

rcl. never again! no comparison to hal.

my son did europe last year, transatlantic crossing to fl. & loved it.

we've tried most but think hal is the best for staff, cabins & food.

hope you have a great cruise with your daughter.

cinnamon:)

[Middle Aged and Happy]

Thank you all for all your thoughts. I am planning on going and hope for it to be the cruise of a life time for my daughter.

[cmaygar]

We had a great cruise with RCL last summer in the Adriatic Sea (debarked Venice and did the Greek Isles and Croatia). The cruise was very good with great service, very organized staff and no issues. The two areas where HAL stands above RCL (at least in my experience of only one RCL cruise) was the entertainment options and the alcohol prices and wine policies.

 

HAL tends to offer 2 performances per night to fit their guests. RCL had only one entertainment offering that was a bit late for us so we never sat through an entire performance (we're in our late 40's but like to get up early to go on excursions, etc.). The charges for alcohol on RCL were excessive. They charged $ 12 per glass of a mediocre house wine and would not let passengers bring their own wine aboard. We are wine drinkers, always buy the wine packages offered for dinner for the week and enjoy wine tasting on the ship with HAL. We found the RCL pricing for glasses of wine ridiculous.

 

With that said, I would choose HAL over RCL any day. The only reason why we took RCL last year was because the itinerary offered a cruise-tour option of the Italian Lake Region prior to debarking for 5 days which we loved. HAL did not have a cruise tour option for its Adriatic cruise.

[kyriecat]

MA&H,

 

I hope you have a great time with your daughter. RC is different than HAL (some good, some bad) but if you keep an open mind, you will enjoy the cruise. You shouldn't believe everything bad that you read about the various cruiselines. If I did, I never would have sailed on HAL. I read it was for the almost dead and since I haven't quite hit 40 yet, I like to think I'm still mostly alive. ;)

[chrispb]

We sailed with RCI last October and although we found many similarities with HAL, including passenger demographics, we did notice the following:

 

Cons for RCI:

Loud reggae music played constantly on the pool deck

Outside bars closed around 7 pm and left with dirty tables, glasses, etc (still there the following morning). Whole area filthy.

Mens lovely legs (or was it knobbly knees?).

 

Pros for RCI

Desserts were better than HAL

Staterooms more up-to-date and brighter

 

We wouldn't sail with RCI again.

[LFCNUT]

We have sailed on 3 different RCL ships Legend/Radiance and Explorer so have tried 3 different classes /sizes of ship. Radiance is my favorite size but Legend was the best as far as crew. We generally sail in suites so cabin size is not an issue but we did cabin crawls and found some of the offerings very small for our tastes. I notice a lot of negatives about RCI food but as someone who spent over 30 years in the food/restaurant business I can honestly say there was never a meal where I did not find several choices that were to my liking.The DR staff will willingly change your meal if it is not to your liking and bring you another selection with no questions asked.Never met a surly crew member and would sail with RCI again anytime.We are taking our first HAL cruise next week so will have something to compare very soon.

Go on RCI with an open mind and realise you are in the middle of a very large ocean and you should not be disappointed.

[rafinmd]

I hope I'm at least a little qualified to respond on this, although I haven't actually been on a HAL ship for several years (to change soon). I'm currently less than a day away from completing my first RCI cruise. I last sailed HAL in 2002 but have been on Windstar recently and think that while they are now independent they still carry a lot of HAL in their heritage.

I am on the Enchantment which I think is the same class as the Grandeur. One of the first things I noticed is something that will probably affect you. I found RCI provided very little information on ports of call, so you probably want to do quite a bit of research before you leave. If we got maps at all, they were probably just shopping maps. I'll contrast that to my Windstar transatlantic where we had to make an unexpected stop in Madiera to pick up some supplies which did not arrive at the embarkation port. With just hours of advance notice, the crew put together a slide show on what to expect and got us oriented. In my Med cruise they had maps and information sheets as well as an introduction to the port the evening before with real useful information. None of that on RCI.

If you are a walker, the facilities are not great. The "jogging track" is on the top deck and extremely exposed to the weather, and not a very attractive surface. The 350-passenger Wind Surf had a much nicer walking deck than the 2600 passenger Enchantment, and my recollection of the Zaandam is that it beat either of them by a mile.

I had mixed results on the entertainment. The producton shows were superb, but there were only 2 on my 9-day cruise. I found the other entertainers brought in for the remainder of the shows good to mediocre.

I did a review of the Windjammer cafe here as a followup to a question I asked Lisa when she was on RCI:

[url]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=29193677&postcount=50[/url]

The comparison is to QM2, but I think I put in enough specifics so you can compare it to your own impressions of the HAL lido. My main issue with WJ was that the selection was really more limited than in most other lidos. The main dining room and Chops were fine.

One other tip: The safes, at least on Enchantment work with a credit card rather than a PIN. I ended up wishing I had taken an expired credit card or hotel room key along with me.

If I sound a bit negative here, I still had a wonderful time and I'm sure you will too.

Roy