Carnival Loyalty?

[USA41018]

My first cruise (2000) was on the Norwegian Majesty to Bermuda out of Boston. Being my first cruise I was wowed. All 40,000+ tons of her. After that we did 2 cruises on RCL. The rooms were so small, 138,00 tons of Voyager and Explorer(2001 and 2002) Bigger ship but smaller rooms. Nice cruise experience but was not too excited about the itinerary, especially Haiti and Jamaica. So a quick cruise for our son gratuating from high school. Called Carnival (2004) and got a great deal with a great PVP in 2004 on the Elation. After that we stuck with our Carnival PVP and we are going on our 21st cruise in October 2012. We did an RCL cruise out of Philly (2006) to Bermuda only because we couldn't do Carnival (nothing to Bermuda).

 

Basically, better itineraries, cheaper prices and great service, Carnival is great.

[wstxn]

After taking a few CCL cruises, we decided to try Royal. We even bought Royal stock to have for OBC on future cruises. Our impressions: Royal was a little pricier, but not more than about 10 or 15%. The slots were tighter (hard to imagine!). The food was about the same, but we slightly preferred Carnival. We did enjoy the ice show. We thought the lido pool and hot tubs were a little nicer than Carnival. The rooms were not a factor. The Royal ship appeared a little overdue for refurbishment, but we have thought that about a Carnival ship or 2, also. The biggest turn off: the passengers. Certainly not all of them, but enough that we noticed an overall difference. We mostly cruise in fall or winter and are used to an older than usual shipful of passengers. But the Royal demographics on our cruise seemed quite a bit older than CCL's for the same time (Feb). There also seemed to be a heavy aire of "entitlement" and frankly a lacking of lightheartedness. Additionally, a lot greater % of the theatre seats were "saved" 40 minutes before showtime. It was also nearly impossible to get a shaded table on the lido. We have kept our RCL stock and will probably use it for OBC again. Or maybe not.

[rferr]

Took our honeymoon cruise on Carnival in 94 and then three more Carnival cruises. Wife and I got really tired of the fixed seating at the dining room so we switched to Princess so that we could sit by ourselves. Did four Princess cruises. Then wanted a change and switched to Norwegian for four or five cruises. Found out that Carnival now has anytime dining so we decided to go back for a Carnival cruise for the first time since 99. Taking the Victory in July. Will be interested to see what the differences are now. Bottom line we are not loyal to any line. I personally think that they are all more similar than different.

[ddgleason]

I honestly prefer RCI, but RCI dumped us on the west coast. I love to cruise, so in order to get my cruising fix as often as I need it, Carnival has filled the need. If RCI were still in LA, I would sail them. Their loss as I still cruise as much as I used to, just not as much with RCI anymore. Not saying I hate my Carnival cruises. If I didn't enjoy them I wouldn't go back. But it is a slightly different product. We just know that before we go. I would guess others would say the same thing and since you are asking from a business perspective, I think it is a valid point to bring up.

[alreadypacked]

Greetings,

 

I am a student of a business school in North Carolina, graduating in May. For my final project, a few students and I were assigned to do a presentation on Carnival. I thought, how ironic, because I have been on multiple Royal Caribbean cruises, including my engagement and honeymoon in the past few years.

 

The reason I am posting is because I know why my wife and I are "loyal" to Royal, but I know that there are just as many people that are loyal to Carnival. I want to know what is the reason you stay with Carnival? What separates them from everyone else? Is it really the "fun" ship?

 

Thank you for your time in advance, and happy cruising.

 

Congrats on your upcoming graduation!

 

I cruise Carnival a lot because generally they have the best prices for the itineraries and time of year I choose to cruise. Also, the size of their standard inside cabins (as well as the size of their standard bathrooms) beats other lines on which I have sailed. In short, they have given me more bang for my buck.

 

Lately, I have been a little disappointed in their food and live music (or lack thereof), but overall, still more bang for the buck, I'd say.

 

Sounds like a pretty cool project. What aspect(s) of the cruise line is the focus of your project?

[westview1]

Our 1st cruise was on Carnival and that got us hooked. We have cruised on RCI, NCL, Princess and Celebrity. We enjoyed all our cruises. There were some good things and some not so good on each. We mainly cruise Carnival based on price and itinerary. Our next cruise is a 4 day to Canada, after that we are going Honolulu to Sydney and then b2b Santiago to Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires to NYC. The last 3 are all special itineraries and the prices were just too good to pass up. We are looking into Alaska for 2014 and will consider all the cruise lines and then make or decision based on itinerary and price. Sorry this is a bit long, but long story short (too late, I know) we like Carnival based on value for $.

 

Congratulations on your graduation!:)

[RyanDMB99@aol.com]

I've done two cruises now, third in September, but my "loyalty" like a few others is that it fits my budget, I have a great time, and I can't imagine a better vacation!

[CruiserBren]

I keep cruising on Carnival for the value! Living 45 minutes from Baltimore and 2 hours from NYC, I can cruise almost any line. I just compared Carnival to RCI for a future cruise and there were $1300 reasons to sail on Carnival! LOL, that's almost another Carnival cruise with a balcony!!

[cruiznfevr]

Price. RCI and Carnival are both great and we have had great experiences on both, but when I can stay in a suite on Carnival for less than a balcony room on RCI, it's a no-brainer for me. Plus I find the itineraries to be a little more interesting for Caribbean on Carnival (granted both basically do the same things but with the larger ships on Royal some ports are missed). We are not "loyal" per se but until prices become more comparable, unless it's an itinerary or schedule that we must have, we go for the better price for the better cabin.

[samzgirl84]

I am going on my 5th Carnival cruise Jan 2013. I have no complaints about Carnival. I have always had a good time and have enjoyed every minute. I have looked at many other cruise websites to compare product and price and I always go back to Carnival because of value and because I know what to expect. I will probably stick with Carnival because I am afraid I wouldn't like another cruise line as well.

[Guest LoveMyBoxer]

No loyalty here to any cruise line. We fall in love with a ship and keep sailing her. Too many ships, too little time!:D

[yesaccasey]

Food is better on Carnival. Better value overall... And usually a little more lively crowd.

[The4Cruisers]

I'm not really "loyal" though all of my 7 cruises have been with CCL (#8 next week).

They were the first one I tried and I loved it. So far, they haven't given me a reason to look else where.

If for any reason they do, or I see a cruise I like for the same or lower price, I will try them.

 

Yeah, what he said! :)

[ChefSusan]

We cruise Carnival because their price point works for us, we love the larger cabins (and balconies), and we get our money's worth when it comes to food, drinks, and entertainment. That plus the Platinum benefits (priority embarkation, complimentary laundry service, complimentary strawberries and chocolates one night, complimentary debarkation at all ports, etc) keep us coming back. We look forward to trying RCI again, and once NCL and Celebrity ships return from their summer ports, we look forward to trying them out as well!

[mjmiller]

We're Carnival fans and openly admit it. :eek:

 

We like the product overall. We tried Princess and HAL once each. Maybe again in 20 years. Not now. We haven't tried Royal yet - it's just too expensive compared to Carnival.

 

Every cruiseline has pros and cons, and every ship within each line has pros and cons, and every sailing of a ship can even be different. So perhaps our negativity towards Princess and HAL are unwarranted - and we'd have a better time on a different sailing or different ship. But we aren't going to book something that we might be unhappy with, when we can book Carnival that we know we like.

 

Why do we like Carnival? We think it's a great value - good product, great price. Frankly, we think the main dining room food is better than the other two lines, the evening entertainment is better, our interior cabins are better. HAL had slightly better service, a little more ingratiating perhaps, but Carnival's service is still good. We aren't party drink-hard people, but there is always something fun going on. We enjoy going up on deck for the deck parties, or watching the adult comedian show late night. Almost forgot - now that we're Platinum, the perks make it that much harder to jump ship to another line.

 

Honestly, I'd love to cruise RCs Oasis or Allure, just to try the activities and see the Promenade, but I am certainly not going to pay that price. Our loyalty to Carnival is partially due to cost, and that allows us to cruise more often. And for us, that's bottom line.

[ccletzgo]

It astounds me that people assume Carnival is the lowest price. Do the "loyals" even bother to shop to around? I do alot of comparing fares across the board and its not a given that Carnival is the lowest price..:eek: I think people get comfortable and dont want to explore another line. Also the "larger" cabins comment amazes me.. NOw if you are comparing the OLD RCCL ships like the old Monarch to say, the old Jubilee, then maybe, but the rest of the ships all have comparable cabin sizes. My balcony cabin on the Pride, was absolutely NO bigger then my balcony cabin on Vision. The "carnival has bigger cabins" statement is something that people are repeating from the 1980's! :eek:

[bafinegan]

I have only cruised disney and carnival. Did disney when our son was younger. Was more expensive, but we wanted the disney experince so happily paid it:)

 

We now cruise carnival mainly because of the variety of embarkation ports. We live in central georgia and are a 4-7hr drive from 4 different ports. 2 cover the bahamas and 2 cover the gulf. Heck we live only 4 hrs from Jacksonville. So if you factor in the travel cost, carnival is a better value for us. Seeing as we have been lucky never to have had a bad experience, no reason to change:D.

 

Doesn't mean carnival is the better product, just better for us:p

 

baf

[dcreech1966]

The Grand Ambassadoer offers free stuff for all that ask on his blog and facebook page.:) No other cruising copanies to do that. I love the fruit baskets and chocolate strawberries.:)

 

Wait...what free stuff?

[mjmiller]

It astounds me that people assume Carnival is the lowest price. Do the "loyals" even bother to shop to around? I do alot of comparing fares across the board and its not a given that Carnival is the lowest price..:eek: I think people get comfortable and dont want to explore another line. Also the "larger" cabins comment amazes me.. NOw if you are comparing the OLD RCCL ships like the old Monarch to say, the old Jubilee, then maybe, but the rest of the ships all have comparable cabin sizes. My balcony cabin on the Pride, was absolutely NO bigger then my balcony cabin on Vision. The "carnival has bigger cabins" statement is something that people are repeating from the 1980's! :eek:

 

I DO shop around. And on the itineraries we want in Jan/Feb - Carnival is lowest priced. I just checked right now for next Jan, second half of the month, as that is when we always cruise. Nobody came close to Carnival's price except Norwegian - which was still more expensive. Hubby and I won't consider that line.

 

And re: cabins - I can only compare to what I've been in. My Princess cabin was tiny. HAL, smaller than Carnival, bigger than Princess. Norwegian (which I didn't comment on earlier because it was a tiny old ship) had a cabin the size of a closet.

 

So don't go bashing and making assumptions when people make comments based on what they have experienced. :eek: :eek:

[rferr]

The itinerary we wanted was the Southern Carribean this July and Carnival was the only ship period. We will be the only ship in port at every stop. That was another reason we went back to Carnival this time but I am looking forward to trying it again after 12 years. The one thing I missed about it was that on Princess especially the ships were dead after 10 pm which was kinda boring.

[erica1000]

We have taken cruises on CCL, NCL and RCCL but find for us Carnival just works.

 

The reason we are loyal to Carnival is that is a good fit for us because of the following...

 

 

Atmosphere - Carnival has had the rep of being the party ship and was a little concerning for us at first, but has not been a problem. At our age (mid 50s), it seems that the things that we want to do don't necessarily attract the young folks that is fine with us. Also we don't go for the "stuffiness" and the upturned noses that can be on some other lines.

 

Size of ship - We prefer the Fantasy class ships. Yes they are older but the deck plan is awesome and once you become familiar with one you are good with the others. Mega ship is a big turn off for us.

 

Price - We like the space of the Grand Suites and have always gotten great rates that often are cheaper than some other lines regular balcony rooms.

 

Staff - We have had some great crew members who do everything they can to make our cruise great. There have been a couple that seemed to be having a bad day but they were few and far between.

 

Location - We live just outside of Atlanta and can reach several different ports within 8 hours by car.

 

As long as Carnival continues to be a good fit for us, we will continue to cruise with them.

[TheAcreys]

Thanks to everyone that has replied. For those that have asked, the project isn't necessarily about a certain aspect of Carnival, but rather a sales pitch for Carnival. That includes all the lines the own, including the one that crashed not too long ago. I continue to look forward to everyone's comments, and happy cruising!

[LMDaddy]

Greetings,

 

I am a student of a business school in North Carolina, graduating in May. For my final project, a few students and I were assigned to do a presentation on Carnival. I thought, how ironic, because I have been on multiple Royal Caribbean cruises, including my engagement and honeymoon in the past few years.

 

The reason I am posting is because I know why my wife and I are "loyal" to Royal, but I know that there are just as many people that are loyal to Carnival. I want to know what is the reason you stay with Carnival? What separates them from everyone else? Is it really the "fun" ship?

 

Thank you for your time in advance, and happy cruising.

 

In order of importance:

 

1. Price

 

2. I know what to expect on a Carnival cruise

 

3. Military discount

[Cloud9Family]

Carnival is the only line out of New Orleans when I cruise. So right now my loyalty is strictly due to location. But, when I have to start driving to Florida for other itineraries it will be open game! Price will be the most important factor though.

[scgamecock]

what is the reason you stay with Carnival?

 

I cruise on Carnival so that I can take twice as many cruises for the same price vs cruising on RCI.