Alaska - Norwegian "Spirit" vs. Royal Caribbean "Radiance of the Seas"

[bstreep]

At the suggestion of a CC administrator, this is posted in both the Norwegian and Royal Caribbean forums. It's long. And I apologize for that. 

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We wanted to make a trip to Alaska to visit family near Anchorage.  Airfare from Texas was over $1300.  However.  We have a Companion Pass on Southwest, and lots of points.  So, we decided to fly to Seattle on SWA, then Amtrak to Vancouver.  

 

We took Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) north, spent 9 days exploring Alaska, then took Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) south.  The itinerary was almost the same, with the exception of a stop in Sitka northbound, and Ketchikan southbound.  The short answer to who won in this review between Norwegian and Royal Caribbean?  We thought upfront that Royal would be the winner, as they were our favorite budget cruise line. Nope. Norwegian kicked Royal Caribbean’s butt.  Not even close.  Read on for the details. 

 

Bias coming in:  We’ve done this trip before, 16 years ago on Princess.  We had a good time, but it turned us off Princess, and me in particular, off of cruising. It took over 10 years for us to go again.  We’ve done 2 on RCCL and 2 on NCL. Our trip last summer had me betting on RCCL to win this one, because of how atrocious the food was last summer on NCL’s Star.  And our RCCL trips out of Galveston had been fantastic. One pre Covid, one post.  Cruise ships go against our core beliefs.  We don’t like crowds, we don’t like touristy venues, we like to be off the beaten path.  But somehow, they seem to work.  Like jet skis. As sailors (we sailed our own boat to Panama), we despise them.  But when you actually get a chance to ride one, they are a heck of a lot of fun. 

 

Cost:  We went slightly over our budget of $1350 for each cruise (total for 2) when we booked, each was just over $1400 for an inside cabin. 

 

The ships.  Spirit is NCL’s oldest ship, built in 1998.  It was completely refurbished in 2020 (43 days).  It might be the oldest, but it was readily apparent why many NCL regulars consider this their favorite.  The ship belied its age.  It looked and felt almost new.  Everything worked, and it had modern upgrades. Radiance of the Seas, on the other hand, felt and looked like it’s age of about 20.  Newer than Spirit by a few years.  It had received a recent refurbishment, but it was just lipstick on a pig.  Royal Caribbean either needs to refurbish it completely, or scrap it.  It’s going in for a 2 week refurb later this year, but that’s not enough. 

 

The cabins:  We had a crappy “ocean view” we’d managed to upgrade to on Norwegian.  Deck 4, in the bilge, porthole view.  But it was a better cabin than on Royal.  Even better than our second cabin on Royal, both of which were balconies.  Everything looked and felt nearly new.  Like a 1 or 2 year old ship.  Immaculately clean. A shower you can move around in. A comfortable bed.  On Royal, our first cabin was a disaster. We’d upgraded with a weak bid on Royal Up, for $1000.  Immediately upon entering, we noticed a sewage smell when opening the balcony door.  There was liquid on the balcony.  We pointed this out to our room steward, and he said he would report it.  By evening it still wasn’t fixed, so we reported it to maintenance, along with a shower that went back and forth between hot and cold.  Day 2, the same thing. Multiple reports, maintenance coming, no solution.  For either problem. The balcony was unusable, and unsanitary.  On an ALASKA cruise. I could see where the sewage was coming from, there was a leak in the overhead pipe.  Pointing it out did nothing.  Day 3, same old excrement.  Several times.  Even went down to reception to report it. Promises and promises.  Day 4.  I made a scene at reception.  Finally got some attention, and by evening we were in a new cabin.  But changing cabins is a pain in the butt, and takes time away from our vacation.  In the new cabin, just down from the old one, the shower also went from cool to scalding, back and forth. Ship problems.  Old ship, old plumbing.  The bathroom had the typically despised circular shower, big enough for a 12 year old.  And a shower curtain that didn’t do a great job at keeping water in the shower, but was fabulous at sticking to your butt.  Both bath floors were soft from rotting subfloors, from the showers leaking.  Because of this, the floor drains are uphill, and the bath floor is constantly a pool of water. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?  Speaking of baths, whatever both of the cruise lines put into those shower dispensers should be avoided. Neither of us have particularly sensitive skin, but both of us found the contents left us itching.  We switched to bar soap. Bring your own shampoo.  Conclusion:  We would take an inside cabin on Norwegian vs a balcony on Royal.  Sewage or not, Royal Caribbean. Hands down. 

 

Food:  If you think that the cabins are where Norwegian won this head to head, you are mistaken.  As previously noted, we expected Royal Caribbean to win the food war.  After 12 days on Norwegian Star last summer in Iceland and Norway, where the food was just tragic, it’s what we expected.  Footnote:  Cruisers are still reporting atrocious food on Norwegian Star.  The food on Norwegian Spirit was surprisingly good.  Main Dining Room access is superb.  Christian was our waiter for every meal, and he was the best waiter we’ve had on a cruise ship.  Every meal was good or better.  Many nights we’d eat dinner, go to a show, and then come back for dessert.  And the desserts were very good.  New for us was the ability to order a Cagney’s steak in the MDR for $15.  It was a home run. Fabulous.  Norwegian also has a 24 hour restaurant, “Local” on this ship, serving good quick bites.  We had a great specialty dinner at Le Bistro. Always a hit. We rarely eat in the cafeterias. The food on RC Radiance in the MDR was good.  Not as good as Spirit, but good.  However.  There are no extended hours restaurants on board Radiance.  And no lunch service in the MDR except on sea days.  As it was the only choice, we found ourselves in the Windjammer too much of the time.  It bordered on inedible.  Cheese and cold cuts were regularly found dried out and curling up.  Eggs always overdone.  Disgusting Pizza, and no Sorenntos.  Really, really bad.  We had FIVE specialty meals, for various reasons.  Of the 5, only 1 was at all good, and that was Giovanni’s, which was very good.  How the same filets can be great at one restaurant, and bland at Cagney’s is difficult to believe.  We ate at Izumi the first night.  They served a spider roll with a truly rotten soft shell crab in it. It ruined my evening.  The rest was just OK.  Our dinner at Samba Grill was terrible.  They kept bringing us what we didn’t want, and always overcooked.  They tried to serve us well done beef, and when we said no, rare or medium rare please, they came back out with medium-well.  We gave up and walked out mid meal, and went to the MDR.  We received no refund for our bad “specialty” meals.  None.  And they charged us $49 for that “complimentary” meal at Giovanni’s.  Just now noticed that.  Wow.  We also noted that in spite of a full ship, RC Radiance specialty restaurants were 90-95% empty, with most of the dining guests crew members.  A final point:  Who decided to not serve real butter, as butter on RCCL? Another cost cut?  We noticed. 

 

Entertainment:  Again, we expected RCCL to win this one.  And again, it wasn’t close.  The shows on Radiance were poorly scripted, and not professionally executed.  On Spirit, the sets were elaborate, cast truly professional.  RCCL obviously isn’t spending money on talent.  

 

WiFi:  This one is hard to judge.  RCCL has Starlink, which as sailors who have recently crossed the ocean on our own boat, should have been a game changer.  But their packages are expensive, and just didn’t suit our needs.  As well, many reported spotty service.  Starlink isn’t fully deployed, and northern latitudes are still not densely covered yet. We just used our Verizon cell plans in port.  On NCL, you get 120 minutes free.  It was slow, and often not available.  But it worked.  NCL is rolling out Starlink on their ships. 

 

Excursions:  We found no real differences.  NCL offers a credit towards excursions booked directly with them, as part of the “Free at Sea” package.  But their excursions are more expensive than on Royal Caribbean, so it evens out.  One huge note:  Hubbard Glacier.  Norwegian is known as “Chicken of the Sea”.  We watched Princess and MCS ships pass us 12 miles out (I have a navigation app), and go right up to the glacier.  Royal Caribbean got about 6 miles away, but still not as close as other cruise lines got.  Frankly, after doing Glacier Bay a few years ago on Princess, they were both a disappointment compared to Glacier Bay.  

 

Drinks:  We had the drink package on Norwegian, as part of the “Free at Sea”.  The drink gratuities were included in our original booking.  On Royal Caribbean, we chose the soda package ($20 a day each, plus gratuity), brought 2 bottles of wine onboard, and paid for drinks when we wanted them. The drink package on RCCL was over $1000 for the 2 of us.  Less the soda package, it would have been $700 out of pocket. We drank about half of that.  But doing it again, we’d probably buy the package. Just for the hassle. Norwegian wins this one handily.  Crushed it. 

 

Embarkation/Debarkation:  Almost not worth mentioning, except that both did this well. Both ends, both cruise lines.  No long lines. 

 

Total cost:  Final bill on Norwegian Spirit was $347, all of which was gratuities, either the $20 a day, or restaurant tips we didn’t give in cash.  Final bill on Radiance was $739, including $112 in gratuities.  We also paid for a soft drink package, another $335.  We spent several hundred dollars on each cruise on cash gratuities above the daily charge, which is our preferred tipping method.

 

Conclusion:  We won’t sign up for another cruise on Royal Caribbean again, unless it’s with a large group of friends.  They knew/know about the cabin issues we had at corporate during our cruise, and they haven’t even bothered to reach out.  They did offer us a Future Cruise Credit, but we told them 1) why would/should we cruise again with RCCL to use that credit since this one has gone so poorly, and 2) we would rather they fix our experience on the cruise we are on.  They did give us the meal at Giovanni’s, and the Food Service Director was aware of our problems (he is married to the Front Office Manager).  He made sure we had a good experience that night.  But RCCL dropped the ball at 2 subsequent specialty meals at Cagney’s and Samba.    With no apologies.  Norwegian is now our budget cruise line of choice.  They did almost everything well, in spite of having a very old ship.  They were also substantially less expensive in the long run.  Again, a butt kicking.  Not even close. 

 

Congratulations, Norwegian.  Well done.  Royal Caribbean?  Time to refocus on your guests experiences, and quit cutting corners.  Moral of this story?  Don’t let the bean counter run the ship. 

 

[debenson0723]

Nice comparison but I didn't think there was a restaurant on RCCL named Cagney's (that's NCL). So sort of confused on that point.

[bstreep]

1 hour ago, debenson0723 said:

Nice comparison but I didn't think there was a restaurant on RCCL named Cagney's (that's NCL). So sort of confused on that point.

Yup. Sorry.  Chops.  And it wasn't good.