X fans, have you tried other lines?

[true45]

We have sailed on Carnival, Celebrity, Rccl, Princess, Disney, & Oceania.

 

Of these, the only lines I would sail are Celebrity and Disney -- and we look forward to also trying a river cruise and perhaps Cunard and Azamara.

 

Re the changes on celebrity, I have noticed a few on constellation in January but they would not stop me from sailing Silhouette next yr. If more changes are a negative to us, then we will move on. We noticed changes on Carnival too with some of the food bring so awful now and it was good before. Be sure you have a recent sailing to compare Celebrity to

Changes happen everywhere.

 

 

 

 

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[Redtravel]

Cruising on many ships and on several lines, not all cruises are the same. Even on Celebrity, there are some ships that I like more than others. My first cruise on the Home Lines was fabulous. Every first cruise is wonderful or horrible. You either like to cruise or not. I loved it. Home Lines was elegant. Dressed for dinner every night. Elegant teas, midnight buffets, white glove service, table service for 3 meals a day, great food, and outstanding entertainment. Nothing has ever come close. Home Lines went out of business. I moved on. Chandris was a close second. It had many of the nice features of the Home Lines. Later it became Celebrity. Cruising has changed over the years. Gone are the elegant days of cruising. Celebrity is still good. I cruise often on their ships. I have also sailed on NCL ( awful.....stay away), Royal ( similar to X), Azamara( great if you like small ships and all inclusive), Princess ( similar to X),Costa ( great food and a party experience), Oceania ( like Azamara with free specialty restaurants.. Better food), Windstar ( best for service), Amawaterways ( stay away), Viking ( very nice) and Tauck ( varies in quality ). I prefer smaller ships. I like the M class ships mote than the larger S class. Century was also nice. I would be careful in picking a cheaper cruise line. You get what you pay for. If a cruise sells too cheap, it may lack too much. Read reviews, talk to friends who cruise, and be honest with yourself about what matters to you. For example. I often book gty which saves me money. If location matters to you, you may not want to do it. Another way to save is book very early or book very late. Looking for left over cabins can save you money. Good luck.

[HALcruiser2]

I've sailed primarily on HAL and will be taking Celebrity next year to celebrate our 25th anniversary. For me the best part about trying a new line is that I feel like a first-time cruiser again. I'm learning all about a different cruise line and a different ship which makes it exciting. I still like HAL, but my husband and I are beyond excited about sailing with Celebrity for the first time. Like one other poster said...the best ship is the one I'm on. :)

[Tudorcruisers]

have cruised with RCCL, princess and Celebrity and Celebrity is definitely our favourite.

[keithm]

My first cruise was on Queen Mary 2 with Cunard. Though I'm not the standard demographic (or even for Celebrity...) at 26, I had always seen Cunard brochures as a child and though "One day...". I thought they were the crème de la crème of ocean travel.

 

My first experience was enjoyable, but sorely underwhelming. I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it. The food was OK. The service was OK. The ship was stunning though, and I especially loved the Commodore Club, which is a bit like the Sky Observation Lounge in it's location (high overlooking the bow).

 

When I then cruised on Eclipse, I was simply blown away by the better service, better food, better entertainment, better cabin...

 

I'd love to try Cunard again, probably QM2 on a TA or one of the other Queens on any other itinerary. Then again, I want to try a lot of other lines!

We generally loved Cunard, but the Grills are the way to go. We did the Grills twice & found them to be "Cre'me de la Cre'me" as you said. Britannia, though nice, really lagged behind the Moonlight Sonata on the Eclipse when it came to variety/choice/quality. I do prefer tthe QM2 above all others, but we did really enjoy the Eclipse enough that we hope to repeat our Jan. 2014 trip again next winter.

[TallJerseyGirl]

I cruised NCL Breakaway for 2 nights in January. Disliked it greatly. Never going on NCL again. I was with a friend that cruised NCL before but not the Breakaway and she had a horrible experience too

 

 

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[vulcan1971]

We are HUGE fans of Celebrity, but cruise strictly for itinerary. If X doesn't offer something we want, when we want to go, we have no problem booking other lines. My partner and I are both in our late 30's. We do two long cruises a year, and while we always look to X first, we usually do one X cruise a year and one on another line for variety.

 

Celebrity's Solstice Class ships blow everything else away for us.....even better than Crystal, which cost us 4 times the price of an X cruise.

 

We have done several cruises on NCL....we could only recommend it if cruising in a suite. We did the Owner's Suite the first time and Penthouses the following two times. It's the whole ship-within-a-ship concept and kept us pretty well-insulated.....butler and concierge, private dining room, private elevators to reach tenders, etc. Overall, the NCL product is pretty lowbrow and just offers basic cruise experience. But their suite experience is probably better than any other line.

 

Our trip on Holland America was on one of their older ships....a dilapidated old tug....we really hated the ship, but loved the service, food, and general customer service experience. We could only suggest one of their newer ships. HAL does have some of the best itineraries of any line.

 

We have Azamara and RCL on the books, but have yet to try them.

 

 

 

Michael

 

My cruise experiences match quite closely with everything mentioned by Michael.

 

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[Duanerice1]

We've been on Celebrity, Carnival, NCL and RCCL. Our choice is Celebrity but this last week we took a 6 night cruise on the Carnival Breeze. Pleasantly surprised. This is a newer Carnival ship and the decor and layout are closer to the S class ships than other Carnival ships. No, really :)

 

Booked 3 weeks out and ended up in a Spa balcony which gave us the equivalent of the Persian Gardens but with a really nice T pool.

 

So branch out, for most of the lines, they are more alike than different. And yea, if you take a smaller Carnival ship for a long weekend, as an example, it is an entirely different cruise than the Breeze we just took.

 

Still looking forward to our 10 day Equinox in December!

[vulcan1971]

I think it was around 80 bucks each, but soooo worth it. It is a member only area with comfy padded loungers, only allow 80 people max and no kids. There are 2 hot tubs and your own private bar and bartender. .never saw more then 20 people up there at one time. They come around with fresh fruit skewers also. .Loved it:)

 

If this "pass" is to give you access to a portion of the private Haven sun deck, I think the cost is considerably less than $80 per person for a week long cruise unless the cost differs between NCL cruise ships. I stayed in the Haven on the Epic where there were limited passes sold for the week we were on board this spring (FEB 2014) and they were going for approximately $50 per person.

[Jem 12]

Hi there.

We are fairly new to cruising (the last 5 years) and have always cruised RCI. It fitted in with our circumstances initially because we had young(ish) children and we liked the look of the ships. After 5 cruises with RCI, we are considering trying celebrity. During our last cruise in the Med, the afternoon belly flop competition on the pool deck kinda tipped me over the cliff. The bingo announcements when I was taking a nap were particularly annoying too.

Just looking for some comparisons on food, entertainment, general atmosphere on the pool deck. The kids are now 14 and love swimming and the gym. They have never really gone for the kids club stuff and enjoy just hanging out on deck.

Do you think Celebrity would suit us ?

 

Thanks

 

Pete

 

We have cruised mainly with RCI and Celebrity, we stopped cruising with RCI a few years ago mainly because of the smoking policy, but I understand this has now changed.

 

We love Celebrity because of the complete lack of announcements in half a dozen languages, safety announcements fine but Bingo etc no way thank you.

 

I would say definitely try Celebrity at least once, although we are now thinking of trying something else because we are finding some of the entertainment very repetitive. I would recommend for a first cruise that you try a Solstice class ship.

 

Enjoy.

[Going Coastal]

We have cruised with Celebrity, Royal, Princess, Azamara, Oceania, and once on NCL in Hawaii. Like many others, we are itinerary focused and like something about most of the lines listed above.

 

 

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[CHEZMARYLOU]

So far we've only cruise with Celebrity and have 2 more cruises booked. We started with Celebrity in 1997. We were looking at Azamara for our 45th anniversary but they are not going to Bordeaux in 2016. We are now taking a good look at a river cruise with Uniworld.

 

Mary Lou

[OCruisers]

Interesting question. I'd think most X cruisers who had been cruising for a while would have been on other cruise lines as well.

LuLu