We tried RC and we liked itttttt...

[Princesca]

We sailed on Odyssey of the Seas back in February. We'd only been on one cruise prior to that, and it was on the DCL Fantasy (it was during the Disney+ promo and the ship was packed in like sardines, so that may have informed our opinion somewhat). We loved DCL, but it honestly isn't in our budget to do more than every few years, so we thought we'd give RC a try. We loved cruising, and RC beat any all-inclusive vacation we could find, price-wise, in addition to the convenience of having a 'traveling hotel room' and not needed to plan much of anything outside of the cruise itself.

We really liked it! There were some things we thought were better than DCL. Crowd management was better, room service and island food was WAY better, there were more activities, and we loved the footstools on the balconies. For such a small thing, they really improved our experience. Embarkation and debarkation were much smoother too, and we took advantage of their special needs program, which was much better than DCL (oddly - you'd think DCL would go out of their way for special needs kids but I couldn't even find that they had any kind of autism program). We loved Coco Cay and Labadee and would choose probably either of those over Castaway, as much as we loved Castaway.

What was better on Disney was the beds and the MDR. I also liked that sodas were free on Disney, but I'm not a big soda drinker anyway, so I just bought a couple during the week on RC and was satisfied. Dinner entertainment on Disney is also nice - there wasn't anything like that on RC, so if you have small kids, dinner was a bit boring for them. I have also read that DCL has special stabilizing thrusters on their ships, and if so, that would explain why we had much more 'debarkation sickness' on RC than on DCL. We didn't experience seasickness on RC, but felt a bit wobbly for a week or so after our return. Splash pad on Fantasy was vastly superior to what was offered for diapered kids on RC, which was basically a large puddle in full sun with a couple of tiny fountains. We also liked that the scent of cigarette smoke was less prevalent on Disney. On RC it popped up frequently, even on the beach at Labadee. :/

Kids club on RC was great, our son loved it, but he wasn't old enough to try DCL's so we don't have a basis on which to compare that.

If you're a Disney fan, nighttime shows were a tie. If you aren't, we give that win to RC too. They were more appealing to a diverse group I think.

DCL will always be our top pick and our 'home' at sea, but for half the price, I definitely see us cruising RC again. I'd like to try one of the Oasis class ships.

 

[Jwaire]

RCL has stabilizers too. While they do try to nickel and dime you, there's a ton of variety in entertainment, activities and most importantly food choices.

DCL has its place, especially for parents of younger children, but RCL has made vast improvements over the last 10 years and they aren't slowing down.

Whereas, I feel DCL has did nothing but jack up the price, cut costs, lower their quality standards and try to weed out anyone who doesn't have young children over the same time frame.

 

[dpswift]

Thank you for the positive review.we sailed RCI twice last year, Disney once(also on the Disney plus deal) Carnival once.

We are all adults so we didn’t use the kids clubs. We preferred our servers on RCI, however Disney servers made a point of going out of their way for us because on previous Disney cruises our servers were not great. I can’t compare Carnival on this because we had My Time dining and had a different server each night.

We enjoyed the entertainment on all 3 lines. I do however find it hard to compare because the shows were so different.

We currently have 2 RCI cruises booked we would prefer to cruise Disney again but it is so expensive