Review of Carnival Venezia Compared to Royal Caribbean

[Bound4Bermuda]

I was on the July 17-25 sailing of Carnival Venezia--my first Carnival cruise--with stops in Dominican Republic, Grand Turk, and Half Moon Cay. I've sailed Royal Caribbean a few times, most recently last year on Oasis but also on smaller ships such as Brilliance. (And Princess once a long time ago but won't factor that in.) Since reviews on Venezia are only just getting started and I, like many others, was desperately looking for info on how the two lines compare, thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. I might be a little nitpicky here, but I'm not writing any letters to corporate or anything--just between us.

 

The NY/NJ Cruising Market

Now, you might be thinking it's not really fair to compare Oasis (a much larger class of ship) and Venezia. But for locals such as myself, these two ships are direct competition at this time: Carnival Venezia out of NY or Royal Oasis of the Seas out of NJ. To be fair, the $2,000 price difference mentioned in my TL;DR at the bottom was not only for the larger class of ship but also one extra day (total for 3 people in one balcony room). Your pricing may vary, of course. To be even fairer, I will compare Venezia to my experience on the smaller ships, when more applicable.

The Ship Decor/Building Materials

You've probably seen the pictures. Venezia looks very nice. However, if you look too closely, you'll notice how fake everything looks. It's like it has "builder's grade" materials throughout. All of the marble, wood, brass, and glass is just plastic. For a ship that's only a month out of drydock, it's very apparent that Carnival had a budget for specific items, and everything else was exactly as it was from when it sat vacant since 2019 or 2020--cracks, rust spots, and broken things be damned. All throughout the ship, you'll notice pieces of the gold floorboard molding missing, laying on the ground, or not making it to the corner. The little plastic covers that are on the room key scanner were off or kept falling off many room doors as you walk through the halls. The most annoying was that my shower door would not close at all. If we were docked, you could get the top to rest on itself and only the bottom half was open like a half inch, but moving, forget about it--swinging all over the place and soaking the entire bathroom. I was also irrationally bothered by the seats in the theater. The outside ring of seats faced across the auditorium rather than toward the stage. I suppose they fit more in that way. But again, super nitpicky, but if you start looking at the rows they weren't carefully laid out and seemed haphazardly installed. So, just looking at the ship it was hard to consider this a "new" build, and if it looks rough one month in, I can't imagine how it will look after a few years' of use. Again, not something I would normally even pick up on, but once you start noticing one thing that's off or broken, more was jumping out.

 

The Lido Deck

If you like to lounge on the lido deck by the pool, the Venezia is not for you. Hell, if you like to go into the pool, the Venezia is not for you. We avoided the lido at all costs. It was just a mob of people with nowhere to move. (The day we were waiting for our tender to Half Moon Cay, we managed to jump in the pool for a few minutes just to say we did it since most people were already off the ship.) There was only a handful of loungers, surrounded by enclosed seating areas to the side and the deck above that had tables/chairs and patio furniture upstairs. It was a very strange layout, and I don't think the patio furniture was used. They definitely could have made better use of the space. However, I'm going to let you in on the biggest secret of Venezia that somehow only a few other people other than myself seemed to have found. Get yourself a private "cabana" nook with loungers on deck 5--the best spot was port, forward. Royal for sure would have charged to rent those spaces--but here it was just open, and not a soul around!

 

The Lido Buffet

We only ate lunch here once and a couple of breakfasts. The layout is terrible. You have to wait in long lines without even knowing what's there. Royal's buffet setup is SO MUCH LESS HECTIC--the stations are in circles so you can wander around to see what they have and jump in and out to just grab the one thing you want without having to wait on an entire line. Not to mention, the food in the buffet of Carnival was atrocious. I don't think I ever had anything bad on Royal. The best lunch option for me on Venezia was just going to the La Strada Grill for the salads and sandwiches. My teenager liked Guy's, but I wasn't a fan of the greasy sheet-pan baked burgers.

 

The Dining Room

As with the buffet, the food in the dining room left a lot to be desired. Overall, the poor quality of food is the #1 reason why my husband and kid don't want to go back to Carnival. While on Royal it came down to having to select which of many yummy options you wanted, here it was like what's the least worst option. I've never had so much beef braised in wine in my life in one week, which might have been okay if this was a snowy Alaskan cruise, but who wants pot roast on a 95-degree day in the Caribbean. All of the descriptions of the food were just strange; if you thought you knew what you were getting, you were wrong. Like, a description of what sounded like eggplant rollatini to me ended up being an inedible tough undercooked grilled eggplant specked with feta and smoked provolone. But, then conversely I rolled the dice on a mahi mahi with sweet tomato relish and a hash of okra, pumpkin, and jalapenos--and that actually ended up being the best thing I had all week. I don't think my husband had one thing he liked.

 

The Entertainment

Okay, here it is definitely not fair to compare Oasis's entertainment--such as the diving and trapeze extravaganza that is Aqua 80, but they also have Cats on the negative side. But the entertainment is very similar to what you'd find on the smaller Royal ships. We saw a production show and went to the piano bar pretty much every night--and had a blast with both. Everyone was very talented and engaging. (Special shout out to Misso in the piano bar!) I'm going to give some bonus points here to Carnival also specifically for MarQ the cruise director, who was very funny and outgoing. And, I can now see what people mean about the "fun ship" as all of these cruiselines have the same games, activities, and shows--even down to both having Quest and Love & Marriage. But I do see what people mean about the fun squad REALLY trying to get people to have a good time. I also liked that they had the comedy shows day and night to give us something to do on sea days (since you couldn't get to the pool, lol.) They also had a few different parties that seemed to be more fun/organized than on Royal with MarQ leading crowd dance moves, etc. So for as much as my family wouldn't cruise Carnival for the food, I would consider Carnival again just for the entertainment.

Private Islands

But for all of us in my family, it's Royal's Coco Cay a million times over Carnival's Half Moon Cay! I was super disappointed because I read reviews that Carnival's island is always rated #1, but whoever does the rankings must go when there's no one there or something. Indeed, HMC had white powder sand and tranquil turquoise waters, compared to Royal's somewhat rocky ground, but that's where the advantage ends. First, the tender off rather than a dock was annoying. We are normally early risers, but we got tender group 41(!) so even though they started bringing people over at 10:15, we didn't get on the island until nearly 1:00. Of course, there were no chairs and people were all crowded on top of each other laying towels in the sand, but we managed to walk all the way down the crescent and found one at the very end--and I think it was because we got there so late that others already started returning to the boat. However, it was better being way far down because it was quieter and actually had room in the water. They were packed in closer up to where you get on the island. Royal's island also has a very large pool, and that's where the DJ and "party people" are at. So the beach is very tranquil; Carnival's beach was just blaring with the DJ there in the middle. No shade, unlike the palm trees all over Royal's beach. I don't even have to tell you how terrible the buffet was compared to Royal's; I still think about Coco Cay's cheesesteaks with shaved steak and perfectly chewy fresh-baked rolls. But, anyway, back HMC...knowing what I do now, having an "excursion" gets you on the tender earlier, so if I had to do it over again, I would totally pay for a clamshell to get 2 chairs and a early tender ticket. 

 

Security/Passengers

I'm feeling a little uneasy commenting on the clientele of each of these cruiselines, but I know this question comes up a lot. I didn't witness any altercations--then again, I was never on the lido or in the nightclub. As to be expected, there did seem to be a demographic and socioeconomic difference between the average passengers of Carnival out of NYC and Royal out of NJ--but no judgment on that, just like "census facts" here. Everyone I met was very nice and friendly. I did smell pot the first 2 days but saw the drug-sniffing dog all around the ship. In fact, we saw him pointed outside a room with security calling it in that had a "Happy 50th Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa" sign, so we got a good chuckle out of that. But that dog was a very good boy and a hard worker, because there was no discernable pot smell for the rest of the trip.

 

TL;DR (i.e., the "too long, didn't read" summary that's popular online): My husband and teenager say they will never go on Carnival again. But as the person who paid $2,000 less on Carnival over Royal, the quality difference was to be expected, and the lines have more in common than not. We'll either go back to Royal or maybe try some other line in the future.

[nydney1]

Thank you for your summary

 

[Cruisesfun65]

35 minutes ago, Bound4Bermuda said:

As to be expected, there did seem to be a demographic and socioeconomic difference between the average passengers of Carnival out of NYC and Royal out of NJ--but no judgment on that, just like "census facts" here. 

Now, please say what you REALLY mean by this. 

[jerseyjjs]

I booked a Venezia sailing for September but cancelled it about a month ago.  I wasn't impressed by the reviews and videos I read and watched then or since.   I do have the Oasis booked in October though.  

[gkbiiii]

1 hour ago, Cruisesfun65 said:

Now, please say what you REALLY mean by this. 

More "multicultural." 

[BlerkOne]

Did you report the shower door issue?

[Bound4Bermuda]

7 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Did you report the shower door issue?

No, What would they do—hang a whole new shower door install because this was was installed wonky? It would have been obvious to the steward that it was unable to close and would be swinging in his way every time he entered the bathroom. Like I said, there was a number of broken things as you looked around the ship, so I doubt this shower door will be fixed.

[havanadaydreaming]

Interesting.  We are on the Venezia in Oct, 12 nighter.  I love port days so the 6 sea days will be a challenge. 

 

Im fine with food options on CCL. I survived 2 years of dorm food and another 3 decades where im the main home chef. Ill relish not being in the kitchen. 

[skywalkr2]

Based on this I think the Venezia will be great.  Most of the snobs will stay away which makes the time more fun for me.

[notscb]

2 hours ago, Bound4Bermuda said:

No, What would they do
> so I doubt this shower door will be fixed.

Send one of their maintenance crew to fix it. I'm not sure why you wouldn't report the shower door issue, especially when it's the kind of issue the shipboard maintenance crew are there to deal with and likely have a lot of experience handling.

Edited July 27, 2023 by notscb

[fair-winds39]

3 hours ago, Bound4Bermuda said:

No, What would they do—hang a whole new shower door install because this was was installed wonky? It would have been obvious to the steward that it was unable to close and would be swinging in his way every time he entered the bathroom. Like I said, there was a number of broken things as you looked around the ship, so I doubt this shower door will be fixed.

That’s something you should have brought to their attention; Maintenance would have been able to fix or replace the door. 

[ObstructedView2]

Hi @Bound4Bermuda🙂

 

Thank you for your review of Venezia. Very insightful, helpful, detailed & straightforward. 

 

 

 

 

🍹

[firefly333]

Seems like op is saying the same things I usually read. Carnival is better for fast food and lunch. I like their pizza better. I did not like carnival Mdr dinners, rcl better. Etc. 

 

I'd like to combine the 2 lines and have the fast food of carnival and rcl dinners. I miss good hamburgers on royal. Cant wait for dream and my next guys burger. And carnival white pizza.

[Drew B 58]

6 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Seems like op is saying the same things I usually read. Carnival is better for fast food and lunch. I like their pizza better. I did not like carnival Mdr dinners, rcl better. Etc. 

 

I'd like to combine the 2 lines and have the fast food of carnival and rcl dinners. I miss good hamburgers on royal. Cant wait for dream and my next guys burger. And carnival white pizza.

There are PLENTY of complaints out there about RCCL MDR dinners.  Particularly with the new menus…

[joge107]

We were on the Anthem from Bayonne Dec 26th.  2d time on Anthem.  Nice ship, typical RCL experience, but, the MDR food left a lot to be desired!  In past experience , I always found Carnival  MDR food better  ( pre covid).  On Venezia 8/2 so should be able to make solid comparison.

[jimbo5544]

Not sure about how a port comes up into a ship comparison…..but it is your review.  For what it is worth, an amusement park on a island stop is just north of a call from doctor saying I had covid.  Possibly the worst idea rccl has had (and there have been a bunch.  Appreciate the comparison, have not sailed the Venezia yet, but our Oasis cruise convinced us to not repeat that adventure again.  To each their own. 

[DisneyDatknee]

14 hours ago, joge107 said:

We were on the Anthem from Bayonne Dec 26th.  2d time on Anthem.  Nice ship, typical RCL experience, but, the MDR food left a lot to be desired!  In past experience , I always found Carnival  MDR food better  ( pre covid).  On Venezia 8/2 so should be able to make solid comparison.

Agreed. Carnival has always had better food. I did the ultimate comparison in 2021 when I sailed Carnival for 4 days and then got off the ship and sailed on Royal for the next 4 days. There was no comparison. Carnival's complimentary offerings are just much better.

[mdepsmom]

Thanks for this detailed review!  I'm Diamond on RC and am taking my first Carnival cruise in 20 years - a 10-night - in May.  Really appreciate the tips about where to find loungers and getting an early tender to HMC.  I'm not looking forward to the lines at the buffet - Windjammer was always my breakfast go-to, so we'll see how that goes.

[firefly333]

On 7/27/2023 at 5:32 PM, Drew B 58 said:

There are PLENTY of complaints out there about RCCL MDR dinners.  Particularly with the new menus…

I said I liked rcl dinners better than carnival. I didn't say posters werent complaining up a storm! Lol I maybe just was unlucky on breeze where I got steak that was all gristle and some beef that was all fat. I know my tablemate was better, just unlucky. My opinion.

 

And imo as I said carnival does fast food better. Even their pizza is better. 

 

Last time on vista I did 6 nights of pay restaurants and lobster night in the Mdr. Dinnertime is when I changed to rcl for a while. I'll be on dream for 14 days in January.  I turn diamond on carnival. I'm not lost, I go back and forth. Also the prices. Rcl discounts more. 

 

Hey if I could combine all my favorite things I would into one line at the best prices. No line is 100% perfect. 

[carol louise]

19 hours ago, mdepsmom said:

Thanks for this detailed review!  I'm Diamond on RC and am taking my first Carnival cruise in 20 years - a 10-night - in May.  Really appreciate the tips about where to find loungers and getting an early tender to HMC.  I'm not looking forward to the lines at the buffet - Windjammer was always my breakfast go-to, so we'll see how that goes.

I was on Venezia in June. A couple tips regarding breakfast in the buffet. As another poster mentioned, the aft buffet section was less crowded than midship. Made-to-order omelettes are a separate line, and cold cereal, rolls/croissants, and fruit are at their own counter away from the eggs, sausage, hot cereal, cold cuts, etc. lines. A simple continental breakfast is available at 6 am before the lines open. And the hours are pretty extended, so I think you may find a way to not deal with long lines. My husband and I are fairly early risers, and as the cruise went on, our early breakfast got less and less populated as more people apparently were sleeping in or eating elsewhere.

[Bound4Bermuda]

17 hours ago, carol louise said:

I was on Venezia in June. A couple tips regarding breakfast in the buffet. As another poster mentioned, the aft buffet section was less crowded than midship. Made-to-order omelettes are a separate line, and cold cereal, rolls/croissants, and fruit are at their own counter away from the eggs, sausage, hot cereal, cold cuts, etc. lines. A simple continental breakfast is available at 6 am before the lines open. And the hours are pretty extended, so I think you may find a way to not deal with long lines. My husband and I are fairly early risers, and as the cruise went on, our early breakfast got less and less populated as more people apparently were sleeping in or eating elsewhere.

 

On my cruise, yes, cereal was off on a stand near the tables and the omlets were in the middle. However, the fruit was at the beginning of the buffet line and the croissants were at the end of the line, so you had to wait on the full line to get both. I also went around to all 4 lines, and none were better. Also not all 4 lines were always open, depending on the time, so you might need to walk around until you found the food. But I probably went at peak times or later.

 

Also, since some people have chimed in that my opinion on the food is somehow “wrong”—instead of just a different opinion than their own. I’d like to point out that I often chose entrees from the MDR menu that had the Italian flag next to them, which means they are exclusive to this ship, and so the posters who haven’t yet sailed Venezia haven’t had these entrees yet. There were definitely things I liked. (my husband had the bigger problem with the food.)  It was just more like they had a few ingredients that they just kept serving and claiming were different dishes. As I said, I had beef braised in red wine and served with polenta and green beans several times!!! It wasn’t bad per se, but not what I want to eat in the Caribbean. Yet, not much else sounded appealing since they only have a handful of options each night. I wish there were more lighter or fish options. Besides the various heavy beef dishes, my kid had fried chicken and mashed potatoes twice (though really liked it). So maybe the menu is geared more to the “stick to your ribs” kind of eaters? And, yes, if you are a meat-and-potatoes kind of person, you may prefer Carnival MDR.

 

Yet, I do agree it was nice having other lunch options with the various stands to avoid the buffet lines. And the stand foods were better than the MDR or buffet in comparison. I mentioned I liked La Strada. I also had a burrito from Tomodoro that was very good; similar to the burrito stand on Oasis. The pizza is also better on Carnival than Royal.

[balcony bound]

1 hour ago, Bound4Bermuda said:

 

I wish there were more lighter or fish options.

Odd.  I've not ever seen a menu in the MDR that did not have a fish option.

[carol louise]

2 hours ago, Bound4Bermuda said:

 

On my cruise, yes, cereal was off on a stand near the tables and the omlets were in the middle. However, the fruit was at the beginning of the buffet line and the croissants were at the end of the line, so you had to wait on the full line to get both. I also went around to all 4 lines, and none were better. Also not all 4 lines were always open, depending on the time, so you might need to walk around until you found the food. But I probably went at peak times or later.

Interesting. Maybe they changed the buffet arrangement after our June cruise. Definitely after getting my scrambled eggs and hot cereal in the main I got fruit salad or melon slices at the counter located behind you if waiting for an omelette, and the rolls/croissants were with the fruit. Or perhaps when we ate, around 7:30, those items were still there from the early continental breakfast set-up and were moved back to the main line before the end of breakfast service.

[carol louise]

Correction: “… after getting my scrambled eggs and hot cereal in the main line, I got fruit…”

[Stick93]

I don’t see how these ships even remotely compared besides leaving a few miles and bridges away -

 

Oasis class ships are the destination. The shows are superb - even cats which I didn’t understand a moment of. The shows have 10-20 entertainers and orchestras in each one compared to the 6-8 Carnival has in their shows screaming into microphones that don't seem to be tuned properly and pre - recorded music on may ships.  I personally have stopped going to shows on Carnival except for the comedy which they do better as there are more shows and they change the comedians on longer sailings.

 

Oasis also has a ton of common area to walk and sit, Carnival ships have much less and in most areas  especially heavy used areas are more congested. The Buffets are both congested! 

 

Carnival is a fun, not so inexpensive cruise out of NY. The product is predictable and pretty much the same from the smallest ships through the vista class ( I have not gone on an XL ship yet )The Alchemy bar is by far the best bar from any of the major lines - Celebrity Martini bar is a distant second. 

 

But out of NY the crown on Carnival is rougher than the other lines by quite a bit. The others are catching up but Carnival keeps betting worse as well. Go off season on Carnival out of NY and your experience will be much  better.