Even in light of our burglary this past Friday, I started planning a vacation for the wife and myself for our five year wedding anniversary. Last year we went on a cruise (With Celebrity) and we absolutely loved it. So I thought, why not give it another shot.

So I've always heard the saying, friends don't let friends go Carnival (no offense to anyone here who enjoys Carnival), but I don't know anything about Royal Caribbean or Norwegian. Does anyone here have any feedback regarding Royal Caribbean and Norwegian.

Any and all feedback is appreciated. We like the idea of cruising over our anniversary, but Celebrity doesn't offer a cruise during that time frame, so we are considering the other two.

Thank you very much,

Drew


***Cliff's Notes***
Does Norwegian or Royal Caribbean cruise lines suck? Tell me why or why not.
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Sailed with NCL on my Honeymoon, but that was 28 years ago and I am sure things have changed. We have friends that sail with RC and they love it -- good service, good food, etc. These same friends also sail on Disney, and they say that Disney has them all topped in terms of entertainment and service, while the food on Disney is not quite as good. RC is a little less expensive than Disney and has a good "frequent cruiser" program. I know that I can smoke my cigars on the Disney ships, which is not necessarily the case on the other cruise lines -- it can be hit or miss depending upon the ship.

Have not heard many good things about Carnival.
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Check out Crystal Cruise line: http://www.crystalcruises.com/
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I sailed on Royal Caribbean about 5 years ago. It is going to be a step down from Celebrity for you though. I believe they have open dining where RC still have dinner times. I have been on Carnival it is more of the younger party crowd. The shipped seemed dirty to me. I was very impressed with RC. I would cruise them again.
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I thought you WERE younger party crowd, Kris??
I must be thinking of someone different, lol.
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I've heard good things about Celebrity. Also, check out this website:

Cruise Critic
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I've only sailed with Celebrity and Carnival. For what it's worth I vowed never to sail with Carnival again. It just wasn't a good experience while Celebrity was the complete opposite and we really enjoyed ourselves. My biggest complaint about Celebrity at least the ship that we sailed on was there was literally one bar to smoke cigars and it was at the back of the boat and most nights it was windy so it kind of put a damper on really enjoying the stick. I have also heard great things about Royal Caribbean from friends who have sailed with them. We looked at Norwegian but our Travel Agent talked us out of it because she said we may not enjoy ourselves as much as most people on those ships tend to be 55+. I'm 35 and my wife is 33 so I guess that is why she tried talking us out of it but now that I think about it that really wouldn't bother me since we tend to be more layed back and usually prefer a mellow surrounding when we're on vacation. I was attracted to Norwegian because they seemed to have the most cigar friendly ships.(Yes, my wife rolled her eyes at me when I brought this up when booking our last cruise:-)) I'm sure many people love Carnival as my parents cruise with them at least once a year and my brother and sister in-law cruise with them all the time. Our last cruise with them was so plagued with issues that I just refuse to spend my money with them again.
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We had dinner times assigned when we cruised with Celebrity recently. They do allow you the option of being able to go to a different time without much hassle should you want to change or miss it one night. We always choose the later time as it makes it easier to get to without having to feel rushed.
I have the same feeling about Carnival. The ships seemed dirty and it seemed to be a different kind of atmosphere on their boats. Loud and lots of out of control unsupervised kids running around.
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I've sailed on carnival twice, and after the last cruise, where my wife and I came down with some horrible plague, we vowed to never go back. We are looking at royal Caribbean and ncl for our 5 year anniversary or my graduation next year.
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Thank you for the feedback everyone. It sounds like a lot of what I have already heard, which is reassuring. I definitely won't count out Norwegian or Royal Caribbean, but I would prefer to stick with Celebrity if possible. I had a very generous offer from a member to give me some contact info to a friend of theirs who books cruises. I think I will be contacting them.
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