Info About Trying Royal Caribbean by a Celebrity Cruiser

[TeeRick]

Not trying to alter this as a smoking thread- but we gambled quite a lot less on our last Symphony cruise because of the heavy smoke odor in the casino.  Celebrity is smoke-free in all casinos.

[2chiefs]

On 4/16/2024 at 7:21 AM, dazey said:

Thanks for all the opinions.

 

We do not purchase the drink package on Celebrity any longer as we are Elite and enjoy happy hour and events providing beverages. We do purchase a bottle of wine(with discount) and maybe a mixed drink a few times.  Our cost never comes anywhere near the cost to what a purchased beverage package would be.  We are not big drinkers so it works for us.  And if only one of you does enjoy a beverage then for sure no beverage package should work.

 

Celebrity is quiet and stressless and we do enjoy it.  That said, if we find an interesting itinerary we might try RC just for something different.  The four drinks RC program would definitely work for us.

We cruise both lines like others here have motioned. One thing we like about RCL that CCL does not have is the Crown Lounge exclusively for Diamond and above. It's open 24 hrs and has a nice coffee/expresso machine. Most Crown lounges also have a continental breakfast and then light snacks in the afternoons. In the evening, usually for about 4 hours, they have a "happy hour" with heavy hors d'oeuvres. (in the old days, this was when you could have as many drinks as you want but now they simply put 4 on your card for diamond, 5 for diamond+ and 6 for Pinnacle) We noticed that CCL has cut way back on their Elite and above functions that they used to have nightly. On our last two 12-night cruises they only did this for two nights of the sailing and didn't even have hors d'oeurves like they used to. 

[TeeRick]

17 hours ago, 2chiefs said:

We cruise both lines like others here have motioned. One thing we like about RCL that CCL does not have is the Crown Lounge exclusively for Diamond and above. It's open 24 hrs and has a nice coffee/expresso machine. Most Crown lounges also have a continental breakfast and then light snacks in the afternoons. In the evening, usually for about 4 hours, they have a "happy hour" with heavy hors d'oeuvres. (in the old days, this was when you could have as many drinks as you want but now they simply put 4 on your card for diamond, 5 for diamond+ and 6 for Pinnacle) We noticed that CCL has cut way back on their Elite and above functions that they used to have nightly. On our last two 12-night cruises they only did this for two nights of the sailing and didn't even have hors d'oeurves like they used to. 

On RCCL the 4D or 5D+ drink coupons are really nice and can be used anywhere all day.  We did not need to buy an expensive beverage package.  A note about the Crown Lounge- on some ships (like our last cruise on Symphony) it was D+ and P-only during the happy hour times with the hors d'oeuvres.  It depends on the sailing and the number of D, D+ and P's on board.

[PhillyFan33579]

On 4/16/2024 at 9:59 AM, dazey said:

 

Since Covid there have been many casinos that continued with no smoking. Only good thing that came from Covid.

in my book the best thing to come from COVID cruise related is the elimination of the in person muster briefing where the ship basically shutdown for an hour or so on embarkation day. 

[2chiefs]

2 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

in my book the best thing to come from COVID cruise related is the elimination of the in person muster briefing where the ship basically shutdown for an hour or so on embarkation day. 

Woo hoo! I hated that. Especially when there were always some folks very late to the muster and nobody could go until everyone showed up! 

[the wandering two]

On 4/20/2024 at 2:45 PM, TeeRick said:

On RCCL the 4D or 5D+ drink coupons are really nice and can be used anywhere all day.  We did not need to buy an expensive beverage package.  A note about the Crown Lounge- on some ships (like our last cruise on Symphony) it was D+ and P-only during the happy hour times with the hors d'oeuvres.  It depends on the sailing and the number of D, D+ and P's on board.

We earned our diamond (therefore elite match)  on Royal, mostly great deals on transatlantics, but recently have had way better value on Celebrity.  

Our last Royal sailing (Jewel Aug 23) saw around 1100 C&A diamond upwards members onboard, the viking crown was given over to Pinacles (200 ish) which left the D lounge for everyone else, so 900 people in a lounge with circa 36 seats! 

 

Recently off Constellation transatlantic,  way more inclusive, lots of elite events, food better (dont get me started on Royal  MTD shambles) greater choice of music and entertainers in lounges & theatre compared to Jewel, a similar sized ship. Lots of folks saying Royal has better entertainment, but they need to compare ship size. 

Looking ahead, for us to return to Royal it would need to be a destination itinerary, at our price point the older ships are better value but they don't have the quality that Celebrity has. 

[TeeRick]

14 hours ago, the wandering two said:

We earned our diamond (therefore elite match)  on Royal, mostly great deals on transatlantics, but recently have had way better value on Celebrity.  

Our last Royal sailing (Jewel Aug 23) saw around 1100 C&A diamond upwards members onboard, the viking crown was given over to Pinacles (200 ish) which left the D lounge for everyone else, so 900 people in a lounge with circa 36 seats! 

 

Recently off Constellation transatlantic,  way more inclusive, lots of elite events, food better (dont get me started on Royal  MTD shambles) greater choice of music and entertainers in lounges & theatre compared to Jewel, a similar sized ship. Lots of folks saying Royal has better entertainment, but they need to compare ship size. 

Looking ahead, for us to return to Royal it would need to be a destination itinerary, at our price point the older ships are better value but they don't have the quality that Celebrity has. 

We have sailed extensively on both Royal and Celebrity.  Onboard experience is quite different for sure.  We mainly do destination-type cruises on Celebrity.  Longer itineraries, quieter, very few children.  We have generally sailed in suites and the Celebrity Retreat product has dramatically increased prices and has decreased in value.  So we are trying the Royal suite product again.  It is less expensive overall since we have no need for a drink package with our D+ coupons and the included Suite Lounge drinks.   On Celebrity this is all built into the pricing so our E+ benefits are not very valuable to us.