pozbaird Posted November 1, 2023 Share Posted November 1, 2023 Got my first Royal Caribbean cruise coming up in a fortnight, looking forward to the holiday itself obviously, but also looking forward to comparing all the things on Royal Caribbean, compared to the lines I have already been on - Carnival, Princess, Celebrity, and MSC. Have also got future cruises booked with NCL and P&O. Will treat them all with a clean slate and judge on personal experience after actually being on them. A perfect example was our first ever cruise with MSC, on the MSC Virtuosa out of Southampton. Everything we read in advance didn’t paint a great picture - they price their cruises cheaply to hook you in, then when onboard, they are overly-aggressive in trying to upsell you drinks packages, dining packages, spa packages, photo packages…. Couldn’t have been farther from the truth. On embarkation, in the atrium area as you boarded, they had a bannerstand graphic with drinks package details on it, and a member of staff there if you wanted to speak to them. At no time in the entire cruise, did anyone try to aggressively sell us anything. It was the exact opposite. That MSC Virtuosa was a great ship. Loved MSC. Looking forward to being on the massive RC Symphony of the Seas soon, see how the Royal Caribbean mega-ship experience stacks up. Open mind, deep breath, get through embarkation day madness, let it settle down… then judge. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Naitch Posted November 1, 2023 Share Posted November 1, 2023 7 hours ago, pozbaird said: Got my first Royal Caribbean cruise coming up in a fortnight, looking forward to the holiday itself obviously, but also looking forward to comparing all the things on Royal Caribbean, compared to the lines I have already been on - Carnival, Princess, Celebrity, and MSC. Have also got future cruises booked with NCL and P&O. Will treat them all with a clean slate and judge on personal experience after actually being on them. A perfect example was our first ever cruise with MSC, on the MSC Virtuosa out of Southampton. Everything we read in advance didn’t paint a great picture - they price their cruises cheaply to hook you in, then when onboard, they are overly-aggressive in trying to upsell you drinks packages, dining packages, spa packages, photo packages…. Couldn’t have been farther from the truth. On embarkation, in the atrium area as you boarded, they had a bannerstand graphic with drinks package details on it, and a member of staff there if you wanted to speak to them. At no time in the entire cruise, did anyone try to aggressively sell us anything. It was the exact opposite. That MSC Virtuosa was a great ship. Loved MSC. Looking forward to being on the massive RC Symphony of the Seas soon, see how the Royal Caribbean mega-ship experience stacks up. Open mind, deep breath, get through embarkation day madness, let it settle down… then judge. We docked alongside RC’s Explorer of the Seas in Trieste and it was some size so can’t begin to imagine the scale of the Symphony ship even going by the videos etc. online. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pozbaird Posted November 1, 2023 Share Posted November 1, 2023 48 minutes ago, The Naitch said: We docked alongside RC’s Explorer of the Seas in Trieste and it was some size so can’t begin to imagine the scale of the Symphony ship even going by the videos etc. online. Met a couple on a Celebrity cruise once who were platinum members on Royal Caribbean who said they tried an RC mega-ship once, but they found it too big, too impersonal, too busy. They went back to doing Royal Caribbean’s smaller ships instead. I’m sure it will be busy, big, but having been on the huge Carnival Celebration, we liked the mega-ship experience. Quite enjoyed the fact that with it being really big, you never really saw the same people twice, you could blend into the background yourself. On one smaller Celebrity ship in particular, on a prior cruise, we somehow couldn’t escape this arsehole Irish couple who popped up in every bar, restaurant, or poolside. So posh and up themselves they nearly puked when they learned we had actually cruised on the ‘commoner pleb’ Carnival line. There’s a lot to be said for anonymity. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pozbaird Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 Came back from the Symphony of the Seas cruise a week ago. Absolutely loved it. Was our first cruise on Royal Caribbean, and it was over the American Thanksgiving holiday period, with 6,400 or so on board, and, apparently, 1,100 of that number were kids. After the usual busy embarkation day experience, everything settled down and everyone spread out. Kids generally spent their time on the water slides, splash pool, or eating endless ice cream. Not once did we wait in a lengthy queue for dinner, or fail to find a seat in a bar. The Aqua Theatre show and ice skating shows were genuinely amazing, and I generally find cruise ship shows cheesy and not my thing. Only issue we had was that we took a three-restaurant speciality dining package, which, with Royal Caribbean, you cannot book in advance online. You book where and when you want once onboard - hence, a lengthy queue to make those bookings on embarkation day. Seemingly they are changing that process in 2024 and you can book online in advance. Took a shitload of photos, but will only post the one - docked at Labadee in Haiti. Anyone thinking about going with Royal Caribbean on an Oasis class megaship, drop me a PM if you’ve any questions and I’ll give you my honest opinion, if I can help! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Naitch Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 That’s a cruise round the Greek islands sorted for October. Gone with TUI again, this time on their Marella Discovery ship. It’s one of their family friendly ones so hoping the ship is big enough to avoid all the annoying kids on board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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