I've returned from a Carnival Cruise and now can compare.

[Kramerica]

Hey boys and girls. I'm sure that somewhere along the line someone has done a comparison between Disney Cruise and other various cruise lines. But maybe my insight could be moderately helpful deciding if Disney is worth the extra (lots!) of money. Keep in mind, I'll mainly be focusing on my experience with Carnival seeing as I'm sure most people here have plenty of experience with Disney Cruise and can do comparing themselves.

So a little background. Before this Carnival cruise, I've sailed on the Disney Dream a couple of times, and the Disney Wonder once. I've always sailed out of Port Canaveral, and with the exception of the Wonder cruise, most of my sailings were identical with going to Nassau and then Castaway. The Wonder sailing went to Key West, which is probably my second favorite port of call ever. And then Castaway Cay, my most favorite port of call ever, two days in a row for a double dip. Every one of these cruises was with my family. And all of then around September.

So, for the details on my Carnival cruise. I wanted to introduce my friends to cruising, and as most people my age aren't good with budgeting, we were seeking the cheapest type available. Queue Carnival Cruise Line! The so called Wal Mart of the cruise industry. You've heard a lot of bad things. But I'm sure you've heard a lot of good things. We decided to give it a whirl. Probably because it was hard to turn down a four night cruise for a few hundred bucks and that the itinerary was the most friendly for our work schedules. Booking was a mixed bag. Calling Carnival to talk to a sales representetive was a quick, albeit annoying experience. I would call frequently to try and feel out prices and see if we could get any better rates on the cruise we wanted, which I should mention was a porthole view cruise from Galveston Texas to Cozumel Mexico on the Carnival Triumph. Yes! The ship that had caught fire and caught national news as it was pulled slowly back to port.

Anyway, you call Carnival, and most every time it's the same thing. You get put on with a representative and you tell them what cruise your interested in. They look it up, and before telling you the price they start a big long speech that goes something like this "Okay, so you're looking at the Carnival Blank. This beautiful ship has X dining rooms, a fantastic atrium, X amount of pools, blah blah blah, all for the low price of X".. Listening to this whole speech gets pretty tiresome after your third or fourth call. Eventually I would just tell each representative "yeah, I know, you don't have to give me the whole rundown" It's also quite obvious that these folks are on some sort of commission or rewards based system as they'll do anything to make a sale. My first call, when I was still waiting to get the cash from my buddies before booking, I had the sales person saying things like "Can you borrow money from family?" or "Maybe you could use a credit card and pay it off later?" It was a turn off. Nevertheless, I can't say they weren't helpful, and after I pulled the trigger and booked the trip, things went very smoothly. Carnival has a very pretty, easy to understand website. And online check in follows that trend. Was overall a good experience.

For the sake of saving time, let's skip forward to the trip itself. We fly into Galveston and meet the Carnival employees at the baggage claim we were told they would be at. We opted to take Carnival's bus transport. The employees were friendly enough. And they happily loaded us on the bus we'd be taking to the port. This is probably the first big difference I remember from Disney and Carnival. We were loaded on what looked to be a rental bus. No Carnival markings on it. Those of you who'd done a Disney cruise know how awesome the Disney Cruise busses are. With their port hole windows and obvious Disney markings, it's clear they they've been built just for that purpose. As we leave the airport parking lot, the bus slowly pulls over to the side of the road. The driver stands up and says something along the lines of "We're having an issue with the bus. I'm gonna go reset the computer, that usually fixes it" He goes outside. We wait ten minutes. He comes back and just like he said, it starts up and starts moving just fine. Another turn off. But as long as we get there, I don't care. They play some sort of generic action movie on the monitors on the way to the port.

I'll continue with this tomorrow. Hope you're finding this atleast somewhat interesting.

 

[Sans Souci]

The agent asked you to borrow money to go on a cruise? That sounds like something a bill collector would say. LOL

 

[Kramerica]

The agent asked you to borrow money to go on a cruise? That sounds like something a bill collector would say. LOL

This is quite literally what happened. I'm not trying to embellish the story at all.

 

[ChuckElias]

Thanks for doing this. I've never sailed Carnival and, as a travel professional, I hate dealing with them. So I appreciate a fair comparison.

Key West, which is probably my second favorite port of call ever. And then Castaway Cay, my most favorite port of call ever, two days in a row for a double dip.

Awesome itinerary. I loved Key West, too. I was there a couple times on the Magic. It's too bad that the Fantasy doesn't get there anymore.

Carnival Triumph. Yes! The ship that had caught fire and caught national news as it was pulled slowly back to port.

Two words, baby: Poop Cruise! (It's still funny, but I'm glad your cruise didn't make the news!)

"Okay, so you're looking at the Carnival Blank. This beautiful ship has X dining rooms, a fantastic atrium, X amount of pools, blah blah blah, all for the low price of X"..

That's just annoying.

I had the sales person saying things like "Can you borrow money from family?"

That's more than annoying. That seems almost irresponsible.

Those of you who'd done a Disney cruise know how awesome the Disney Cruise busses are. With their port hole windows and obvious Disney markings, it's clear they they've been built just for that purpose.

It's actually really sad when you take the Disney transportation to a port other than Port Canaveral, because you just get a plain bus.

Hope you're finding this atleast somewhat interesting.

Very much. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

 

[Sans Souci]

This is quite literally what happened. I'm not trying to embellish the story at all.

I didn't doubt you, I was just surprised.
Then again, it's Carnival.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

I've done Disney and Celebrity cruises in the last few years, and there really is a Disney difference. Looking forward to hearing more of your comparisons.

The Disney cruise experience really is top notch. The big question is, is it superior enough to justify the huge price difference compared to other cruise lines?

 

[Weather_Lady]

Ooh, I'm in!

My family is doing the reverse. We have a Carnival cruise coming up in February -- a first cruise for the kids, and DH's and my second ever (and the first was a decade ago). We wanted it to be a Disney cruise, but the cost for a Disney cruise of the same length for the same week was going to be double the cost of Carnival, and that didn't even take airfare into account!! (In contrast, the Carnival cruise departs from Baltimore, well within comfortable driving distance of our home in upstate New York).

Money is tight, so we decided to "start off small" with the Carnival cruise, and then start saving up for a Disney cruise in a couple of years (by which time, Disney will be sailing out of New York City - again, driving distance! Yay!).

OP, I'm really interested to hear your comparisons-and-contrasts between the two, so we can know what to expect when we can finally take a Disney cruise. I hope you'll share your thoughts on whether Disney cruises are worth the added cost when all is said and done.

 

[Kramerica]

Okay then, our adventure continues.

So we get to the port. You'll have to forgive my ignorance. I've only been to two cruise terminals in my life. Disney's, in port Canaveral. And Carnival's in Galveston. I don't know what the logistics of this works in the cruise industry. If there's "rented" or "temporary" terminals. Perhaps there's a generic terminal that a cruise company can use to load certain ships. So my comparison might not even be fair. But regardless. The differences between the Disney Port Canaveral terminal and the Carnival terminal is near culture shock level. Disney's is organized. Clean. Comfortable. Even beautiful. You're helped quickly when it's your turn to be helped. There's plenty to do and see when it isn't your turn. Everyone is in an eager, happy mood. People taking photos and shaking with excitement to get onboard the beautiful ship that sits outside. A giant scale replica of the ship you're about to get on is the center piece of the room. Disney is proud of their ship, and they're more than willing to brag about it. Carnival's experience was quite different.

You're taken off the bus and put through customs. Then the next room is a large, fluorescent lit room filled with endless rows of basic stackable chairs. There are very few monitors scattered about the place displaying the current number being served to be checked in. Occasionally you'll hear the next number being called over the intercom. The best way I can describe this experience is akin to going to the DMV. Only larger. Looking around, people are eager, but more to just end the waiting in this giant waiting room, rather than getting on board and starting the fun. Nevertheless, our number is called and we stand in line to get the next open desk. When we get there, it goes smoothly and quickly. But you can't help notice the wrinkled Carnival polo the employee is wearing and her vaporizer sitting next to her computer terminal. She checks us in and has some anecdote about how hard we're gonna party and we're sent off with room keys in hand off to the ship. Like Disney, Carnival wants to have photographer take photos as your'e boarding. We opt out and continue walking aboard. There's no sharply dressed employees lined up to call your name and clap when you board a Carnival ship. But Entering the atrium for the first time still did leave an impression. And not a bad one!

It's impressive. The 5 (I think?) story atrium is quite the spectacle. It's a neon light jungle. With glass and gold shaded metal everywhere. Bartenders serving drinks like mad at the enormous Horse shoe shaped bar that sits front and center when you enter the ship.Glass elevators visibly take people up all the way to the top deck. Now it's at this bar that we got our fist taste of the employees onboard. A cute foreign girl is behind the bar. Now, Carnival offers an "all you can drink" pass. It's 35 bucks a day, but you can drink all you want, up to 15 drinks a day. Being in our early 20s, we decide this is a terrific idea. You have to purchase this pass onboard, so we tell the bartender we'd like to buy the pass. She tells us that due to Texas state law, they have to be out of port before you can buy the pass. Fair enough. We order our drinks and start exploring the ship.

Will keep going again soon. I could say tomorrow. But that's proven to be unrealistic for me.

 

[Kramerica]

I've done Disney and Celebrity cruises in the last few years, and there really is a Disney difference. Looking forward to hearing more of your comparisons.

The Disney cruise experience really is top notch. The big question is, is it superior enough to justify the huge price difference compared to other cruise lines?

I'll get to my thoughts on this at the end of my comparison. Promise! I have a lot to say about it.

 

[216bruce]

Enjoying this. We're "Gold" Disney Cruisers but have never been on another company's ships.
By the way, yes, there are 'rented' terminals and even Disney uses them, but they do a nice job of 'Disneyfying' them. In Barcelona and Dover we boarded at these type of places and while they don't compare to Port Canaveral's home port terminal they weren't bad. Sorry, no pix as I'm usually in a rush to get onboard!

 

[Kramerica]

Since one of the three of us were running late to get to the terminal, we got on the ship fairly late. As such, our room was ready right away. We were on deck one, and opted to get a porthole view. The difference in price was only like forty bucks each. I had worried up until this point about the room. I'm a bit of a home body by nature, so I always like to have a port in the storm. Somewhere I can atlas go and be lazy. I had worried that if the room was gross or too small, I wouldn't even have this to fall back on. I was actually pleasantly surprised. The room was a bit smaller than you'd see on a Disney ship. Or atleast you'd think that much. It didn't have the separated bathrooms. And it's tv was wildly outdated. But apart from these imperfections, the room was nice. It smelled clean. It was brightly lit. All the linens were clean and crisp. Compared directly to Disney's rooms, it doesn't make the Carnival room look bad. But they certainly are different. Disney's are luxurious. Dark leather, deep reds, tan wood. Everything custom built just for this room. The Disney rooms feel more like a miniature penthouse on the seas. The Carnival in comparison was more of a comfortable, cozy type situation. Not as beautifully appointed. But economical and smartly designed. There was one glaring difference though. And this, to me, as silly as it sounds is almost enough to justify the price difference alone. The Disney ship's state rooms have climate control. A thermostat. Where the Carnival's don't. Or atleast this ship didn't. I suppose the whole ship was just kept at one consistent temperature. I come from the pacific northwest. I appreciate a cold sleeping environment. And having that Texas sun shining through the window onto you without air conditioning to compensate was really a bummer.

We leave our room and walk down the hallway to the nearest elevator bank. It's at this point where I miss the ambient Disney music in the background. What I would of done to hear A Pirates Life For Me. Anyway, to the nearest elevators. One is out of order, but we still hail one quickly. We decide to go up to the top deck where the party is already in full effect. One of the biggest differences between Disney and Carnival's ships is that on Carnival, the top deck is always packed. There's always a party in full swing. In this case they had a DJ playing electronic pop music. It was a super fun upbeat environment. Drinks are flowing, food is everywhere, and the music is loud. Disney in contrast, with the exception of the spillway party is more of a relaxing atmosphere. I might be overthinking it a little bit, but I like to think of this part as Disney's sort of "we welcome you to come and explore out beautiful ship." It's more of Disney knowing their ship is amazing, and not being afraid to show it. The Disney Dream is the most beautiful place I've ever been. Period. And I appreciate this period of time to acclimate to it's brilliance. But I think Carnival is right in getting the party started right away. While there's much less of a ship to appreciate here, letting the guests let loose and start the party is a smart idea.

This particular Carnival ship is the one that caught fire. The Carnival Triumph. So it was virtually a floating public relations stunt when they announced they would spend a ton of money refurbishing the thing. Adding the fun 2.0 upgrades, which I'll talk about later. Gutting the ship and making it seem fresh, and adding backup power systems. The funny thing to me though, you can visually see where the ship's refurbishments took place and where they didn't. Big patches of the decking are new and darker. While the other bits were obviously old and sun bleached. Just an interesting thing to mention I thought. There's also a difference between maintenance on both ships. The amount of pride taken in Disney's fleet is astounding. I've seen crazy things. My first cruise after stumbling back to my room early in the morning I saw the maintenance crew in their iconic gold jumpsuits replacing the carpet in the elevator banks. The next day you wouldn't of even known it was new. And you wonder how the Disney ships always smell brand new. I've also seen them sanding down handrails and re staining them in the middle of the night. Chipping off paint to apply a new coat. Pressure washing and applying new paint in literally every port we stop in. It's amazing. Carnival takes more of a "good enough" approach it seems. Things are always functional. But don't be surprised if you see duct tape on decking that's starting to chip. Soot build up around the smoke pipes. Nothing is ever outright dilapidated. But they certainly don't take the same pride into their ships as Disney does.

Out on the top deck, after we've started sailing off we remember that we can now purchase our all you can drink packages. We go to the nearest bar, and this time we're told that we have to now wait until midnight to purchase them, as we can't buy them on the same day of being in port. This is rather frustrating at this point. But we're trying to keep in good spirits. Continuing to explore around the ship we decide to check out the one thing you'll never find on a Disney ship. The casino. This is the only indoor area of the ship where you can smoke. And it's strong. Carnival seems to atleast try as they have generic air purifiers scattered throughout the area. But it's still enough to make my eyes water. Nevertheless, we play roulette and end up walking out of there 100 bucks up. This was our goal, because we've decided to make a purchase. And get used to this. Not as much is included on these ships. Soda? Gotta pay. Bottled water? Gotta pay. there's even a big bottle of water sitting in your state room for four bucks that is replenished every day. Likely to play on hungover people in the morning that will do anything for a drink of water. We decide to order a fifth of Skyy Vodka. It cost us 70 dollars.

Will continue in a bit

 

[LSUmagic]

This is fantastic. I cannot wait to read more. DH and I took a carnival cruise as out very 1st trip together. We had an amazing time. Then we cruised Disney and we were hooked. About to take our 4th in less than 100 days. That said I wouldn't rule out Carnival if a bunch of our friends wanted an adult only trip.

 

[Ralphlaw]

Fascinating. A few comments.

Carnival markets itself as a party ship. With families, the vices will probably be uncomfortable, including old or middle aged men, drunk, with gold chains, chasing after your teenage daughter. Topless top decks. Vomit. Cigarette butts all over. Midnight noise outside your cabin. Racy shows in the theatre. Slinky dresses, and "intimacies" in the pool and hot tub. I would never take kids on board. Yes, from a snobby standpoint, the guests are also less well-off, less well-dressed, less well-mannered, and often downright crude. Profanities. Overpowering perfume and cologne. Obnoxious. Less class, and I'm not being snooty, just observant.

At Port Canaveral, you're made to feel welcome from the get go. The busses and terminals are an adventure, not an ordeal. Kids are bouncing. CMs are joyous, joking and professional. Lanyards are handed out, and Mickey or Mini are right there to welcome you. Music has already been piped in. And then, dramatically, as you get past the counters and start up the gangway, it's quieter. Tension builds until, suddenly, beautifully, you're there with, "The Disney Dreams welcomes the _______ Family!" Aaaaah.

Once on board, the CMs go many extra miles. Dressed impeccably. Always helpful. In Estonia, after our last port adventure, there was a line to get back onboard. So, of course, there was the DJ on Deck 4 playing some fun music at the rails for us, with Mickey and Goofy waving down. We're dancing, joking, and telling stories for that 20 minutes on the breezy, cool dock- you're stuck in line, but it's fun to be there. (And your ship is so much cooler than any of the other tipped over milk cartons in the harbor.)

By the way, in Dover, Barcelona, Venice and Vancouver, the experience is very similar. Disney is there to make sure the experience is as good as it can get without being at Canaveral. No, it's never quite as clean or magical, but you can't beat the views from the harbor: Castle in Dover, city in Barcelona, Venice in Venice, and mountains in Vancouver. Also, Disney is very picky about their ports, requiring state of the art facilities for the embarkation and debarkation. Dover just spent millions to update their harbor. Disney would never have used it if not for that.

I can't wait to hear how the debarkation experience went. Back in the 90s we did a Norwegian cruise, and once the tips were handed out and the ship was in port, it was, "Thank you, now go away." We were stuffed into various lounges with too few chairs and made to sit there sweating with our luggage until our number was called. Definitely not a boomerang back experience.

 

[Sans Souci]

I saw people having "intimacies" on the Dream in Evolution last year and so did a few other people here.

It happens on DCL, too.

 

[EOD K9]

I saw people having "intimacies" on the Dream in Evolution last year and so did a few other people here.

It happens on DCL, too.

No, they are making magic. It sounds better!

 

[KeithVH]

I hate to pile on but Carnival is definitely a different caliber of cruiser. DW used to work for Holland and they would sometimes share piers with Carnival ships. Even between HCL and Carnival, just at boarding, the difference between clientele was painfully obvious. They behave no differently off the ship than they do after they board.

 

[kelknight84]

We've been on 4 Carnival Cruises and 1 Disney cruise. I enjoyed the Disney cruise and the entertainment was definitely more family friendly but the food and our wait staff was terrible. I've run into 0 of the issues described here on Carnival. The staff we've dealt with has always been good, check-in was easy, and I never experienced anyone going crazy on any of our 5 cruises. The only plus to Disney is that it is Disney, but if I can take three 7 day Carnival cruises with a balcony room vs. one 4 day Disney with an interior stateroom, I'm going Carnival every time. I just didn't see much of a difference.

 

[Weather_Lady]

We've been on 4 Carnival Cruises and 1 Disney cruise. I enjoyed the Disney cruise and the entertainment was definitely more family friendly but the food and our wait staff was terrible. I've run into 0 of the issues described here on Carnival. The staff we've dealt with has always been good, check-in was easy, and I never experienced anyone going crazy on any of our 5 cruises. The only plus to Disney is that it is Disney, but if I can take three 7 day Carnival cruises with a balcony room vs. one 4 day Disney with an interior stateroom, I'm going Carnival every time. I just didn't see much of a difference.

Thank you for your post -- this is very reassuring, as we're taking the kids on a Carnival cruise in February and the posts above were beginning to scare me! We expect some noise and chaos and crowds on the ship and I know that Carnival is a budget cruiseline which probably attracts more that its fare share of the manners-impaired, but what some posters have described is a booze-fueled, 24-hour redneck bacchanal! I was having visions of DH and I hiding with the kids in our stateroom and playing Uno for the whole week, so as to shield the children's eyes and ears from the debauchery. I know we're not going to get much use out of the bars, adult dance/comedy clubs and casino onboard, but I'm hoping there will be some activities offered that families can do together, especially since the week we're traveling is "February break" for a lot of public school kids.

 

[Kramerica]

Thank you for your post -- this is very reassuring, as we're taking the kids on a Carnival cruise in February and the posts above were beginning to scare me! We expect some noise and chaos and crowds on the ship and I know that Carnival is a budget cruiseline which probably attracts more that its fare share of the manners-impaired, but what some posters have described is a booze-fueled, 24-hour redneck bacchanal! I was having visions of DH and I hiding with the kids in our stateroom and playing Uno for the whole week, so as to shield the children's eyes and ears from the debauchery. I know we're not going to get much use out of the bars, adult dance/comedy clubs and casino onboard, but I'm hoping there will be some activities offered that families can do together, especially since the week we're traveling is "February break" for a lot of public school kids.

Please don't feel worried about your Carnival cruise. You will have fun. And there's plenty of other kids on board. We never felt unsafe or uncomfortable.

 

[Kramerica]

Alright, not sure where we left off. But I'll pick up later that night. As I mentioned earlier, we had been told a couple of different things as to when we could get our all you can drink pass. The latest information we were given was midnight. Well, midnight comes and we go to the Alchemy Bar. This is where we went most nights, and we talked to the bartender that we got to know over the course of the cruise. We walk up, ready to buy passes! We get a different answer once again. We would have to wait until the next day when the bars open again to get our passes. This was one of my biggest turn offs on this trip. Being told three different things, by three different people, who's job is to know these types of things. I was a bit upset and tried to express how I felt to this particular bartender. I told her this was my first Carnival cruise, and that I wasn't very impressed with the employees knowledge thus far. I told her that I've been on a few Disney cruises before and I don't think I'd ever have that type of thing happen to me there. I'll never forget what she told me. She looked at me and said "Well, this ain't Disney" We pay out of pocket for the rest of the night for our drinks. Most of our nights on the ship were the same thing. Going from bar to bar, meeting new people. On a Disney cruise, there's so much going on every night that I hardly even have time to settle down for drinks. Carnival has things going on, but I never really found anything appealing. And the one show we did decide to go to, a match your mate type game I think, they had technical difficulties and had to cancel it. That pretty much turned us off to the idea of any more shows.

The next day we decide to take advantage of the pools and sweat out our hangover. One thing I should note, Carnivals slides and pools are salt water. Keep this in mind. It will sting your eyes if you're not careful. I wasn't expecting it, being used to fresh water pools on Disney and got a teaspoon of salt to the eyes. This ship was upgraded to the "fun 2.0" package. This includes various eateries and bars. If you have the choice of a ship before and after this upgrade. Do the ship with the 2.0 upgrades. We found almost all of these upgrades to be super fun. Despite the fact that they were almost all heavily sponsored. I will tell you this. As a burger snob, I didn't expect much from the "Guy's burger bar" But this was consistently the best burgers I've ever had in my life, period. Get there quick though, it's only open for a few hours a day. Other upgrades include a couple of tequila and rum bars on the top deck, always crowded. EA Sports bar, which is pretty cool. The theming is awesome, and if I actually cared about sports I could of spent a lot of time in here. The Alchemy bar is great, It's supposed to be the specialty cocktails bar, manned by only the most highly trained mixologists. Expect a lot of showy type drinks. Lighting things on fire, putting on shows as they make them. Granted, after spending a lot of time there you realize most of what they make are just the same ten drinks over and over. But it was still a good time to watch. And it's located right outside of the main theater, creating a lot of foot traffic and interesting people to talk to. Right next store there's a piano bar. You have to keep in mind that if you're used to Disney, you will be in for a shock when the piano player demands tips to take requests. You will pay for everything.

I'll just mention this now, because I don't know where else would be an appropriate place to put it. Carnival likes to brag about their free room service.. But the menu has about five items on it. Most of which is various cold sandwiches. In fact, the only thing on there that I remember being warm was a grilled cheese. We had a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches. I will also mention the other people sailing on the ship. The difference in people that were sailing between Disney and Carnival is vast. On Disney, expect more kids, obviously. But also people who are warm, friendly and sober. Haha. I hate to generalize, but we saw a lot of things on board that I haven't ever seen on Disney. A couple yelling at each other in the elevator banks because "My husband was too busy taking photos of other girls with his phone than to pay attention to me!" Or the girl who thinks it fun to flash people boarding the ship from her stateroom porthole. Or who could forget the lovely folks smoking contraband in the middle of the night on the top deck, Listen, if you just take it for what it is and learn to enjoy the experience and laugh at all this stuff, you love it. I thought it was all hilarious. But don't plan on having a dignified experience. Girls. You will get hit on a lot. Guys, you will have girls pestering you for free drinks. But hey. Just take it for what it is.

In the interests of not becoming redundant, I'll write one more post. Probably tomorrow if I can get around to it.