“Better” is subjective, but pricing has made it difficult to make a straight-faced argument about “value” (if not impossible). Aside from their long weekend boozefests, we also enjoy Carnival for a week or more. They’re so apples to wrenches though that I find it hard to define “better.”
We’ve enjoyed DCL many times. I actually love the Fantasy, but her itineraries are stale, and that can’t be ignored.
For Alaska, you’re dead on. We could sail a (then) 25 year old Wonder or a nearly new flagship class ship on another line. As beautiful as she may be, and she still is, DCL just won’t be able to compete at those prices for our family with a 15 & 13 year old. They’ll need more shiny things so that we all get the vacation we want.