choosing RC after Disney

[lulucornbread]

The prices are obviously the reason for considering RC over Disney. We have two boys who were so in love with the Disney characters... I am afraid they will be disappointed.

How does RC handle dining? I believe it's diff than rotational dining.

 

[karl_nj]

The prices are obviously the reason for considering RC over Disney. We have two boys who were so in love with the Disney characters... I am afraid they will be disappointed.

How does RC handle dining? I believe it's diff than rotational dining.

If you are just looking for a cruise, you can be very happy choosing a different cruise line. My family has wanted to go on a cruise to Norway for years. We booked one for next summer. Although DCL is going to Norway next year, we decided to go with Royal Caribbean. The price difference between DCL and Royal Caribbean was huge, and our main purpose of us booking the cruise is to see Norway. It's a big family trip, including the extended family. I don't expect our children to be interested in using the kids club very often on this trip.

In a few weeks we will be sailing on the Disney Fantasy. We are mostly going on this cruise to enjoy a Disney Cruise, on a Disney Ship, to see Disney characters, see Disney entertainment, and to go back to Castaway Cay, Disney's private island.

I think you need to think about what you want. I am not "loyal" to any cruise line, and my family sails on many cruise lines, including Celebrity, NCL, Cunard, and even Carnival. You need to pick the line that is going to work best for you. If your main reason for taking the cruise is for doing "Disney" things, you aren't going to be happy on another line. If your main reason for taking the cruise is to go on vacation, then you will have a wonderful time. DCL is not the only company that does cruises well, but if you want a Disney cruise, you need to sail DCL.

For your next trip to Orlando, will you be happy if you only visit Universal? Or, at this point in your kids life, is Disney a requirement?

If your kids are going to miss the Disney characters, perhaps you should save Royal Caribbean for when they are older.

 

[vacation_junkie]

The prices are obviously the reason for considering RC over Disney. We have two boys who were so in love with the Disney characters... I am afraid they will be disappointed.

How does RC handle dining? I believe it's diff than rotational dining.

What ship?
There is always the Dreamworks Experience. Lots of Characters on board

 

[bumbershoot]

How does RC handle dining? I believe it's diff than rotational dining.

See, to me it's all the same. Same servers, different menus each night, etc...but on Disney you go to a different place and on other ships you don't.


Do they require characters everywhere they go? Are they disappointed when there aren't characters everywhere? If not, I doubt they would be disappointed that Mickey won't be there. Just make sure to let them know it's a different ship and Mickey won't be there. Are they old enough to see Dreamworks movies? Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, etc? If so, consider a ship with the Dreamworks experience. Po is fun to see; I'm not a character person (never have been) but he pulled me in for a hug and even got me to smile.

 

[StarCruiser]

The prices are obviously the reason for considering RC over Disney. We have two boys who were so in love with the Disney characters... I am afraid they will be disappointed.

How does RC handle dining? I believe it's diff than rotational dining.

Not sure if this answer your question, but RCCL has 2 types of dining, Traditional and My Time Dining.

Traditional - A set seating time where you sit at the same table, at the same time with the same wait staff each night.

My Time Dining - It's always in the same dining room, but you're free to change the time, table, and wait staff. Basically you show up when you like and can request a specific table or wait staff, if you like. Just know that a wait may come with a request.

I believe that RCCL also offers the ability for the kids to be served quickly, and then taken to the kids club, but I haven't done this yet, so i do not know all of the details.

 

[vacation_junkie]

Not sure if this answer your question, but RCCL has 2 types of dining, Traditional and My Time Dining.

Traditional - A set seating time where you sit at the same table, at the same time with the same wait staff each night.

My Time Dining - It's always in the same dining room, but you're free to change the time, table, and wait staff. Basically you show up when you like and can request a specific table or wait staff, if you like. Just know that a wait may come with a request.

I believe that RCCL also offers the ability for the kids to be served quickly, and then taken to the kids club, but I haven't done this yet, so i do not know all of the details.

Details

My Family Time Dining is offered for the first seating time in our main dining room, for children ages three to 11. Kids enjoy their meal within 40 minutes of seating, before heading to the evening's Adventure Ocean activities. The program starts the second evening you're onboard. After that, you can use it each evening or whenever you wish.

 

[garycpa]

We have gone on seven Disney cruises and our kids loved them. When they got to be 16 or 17 years old we started on Royal they loved them also. There were not a lot of kids around ages 16 or 17 on the Disney cruises like there was when they were younger.

 

[CocosMeme]

I have never been on a Disney cruise, but have taken about 15 RC cruises. We absolutely LOVE them. My son went on his 1st one with us at age 8 and we went on one every year with him until his last with us (a graduation cruise with 6 other families). He loved every one of them. He could not wait to get on board and sign up for the kids program. He enjoyed all of the different age levels of the kids programs. RC does an excellent job with their programs. Sometimes he would join us for dinner and sometimes he would choose to stay with the counselors at the kids area and eat with them. They used to have a pirate night where the kids would parade through the dinning room and "taunt" the parents in their costumes.

 

[TempusFugit]

We've been on RC once back in 2000 and have sailed DCL several times since. We are once again booked on RC, the Freedom, next year. It will only DW and myself. The cost was nearly half sailing the Fantasy in a similar cabin. We love DCL but, hey, for the price we can cruise twice as often.
Time for new adventures.

 

[Golden Rose]

We've done both DCL and RCCL multiple times with kids. DD is princess crazy, and absolutely adores anything Disney right now. DS is decidedly not princess crazy, and not really in love with characters, period, and he still prefers DCL.

The big difference we noticed is that DCL has more and better activities that families can do together. If your kids want to go to kids clubs and hang out with lots of other kids and do various activities, they can do that on either line. If they want to hang out with YOU and spend lots of time doing things together, DCL has a definite edge. (We have one of each. DD wants to be in kids club all the time, unless there is a princess gathering in the atrium; DS wants to stay with us and do things together.)

DS had been on 4 or 5 cruises (RCCL and Celebrity) before we tried DCL for the first time, and he had a great time on all of them. He still thought our first DCL cruise was the best cruise we'd been on to that point. We actually got off the ship and canceled the RCCL cruise we had booked for 8 months from then, and booked another DCL cruise for a year out.

We enjoyed RCCL for many years and would definitely sail with them again. However, we prefer DCL for the stage our kids are currently in. If we did not have young children, we would still cruise with DCL, but we would probably alternate with other lines to get a wider variety of itineraries.

 

[woody73]

The prices are obviously the reason for considering RC over Disney. . .

I started cruising with DCL, and sailed with them exclusively for years.

Later, we decided to try RCI because they offered some interesting ports and itineraries -- including a cruise from Port Canaveral to Los Angeles around Cape Horn.

We continue to sail on both DCL and RCI, as well as others.

Woody