Disney Cruise Line v. Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas comparison

Having said all this, my humble opinion is that Disney is not worth a lot more $ unless you absolutely can't live without Mickey Mouse. This is for a repeat cruiser only. DCL is definitely worth a lot of $ at least once.

This is basically along the lines of what I was thinking. We have a cruise booked next year to celebrate my 40th birthday and introduce my family to cruising. If we all like it, more than likely we will do it again with another line, as we like to take several (small) vacations a year rather than one big one like we will do next year. Thank you for this honest and in depth review.
 
This is basically along the lines of what I was thinking. We have a cruise booked next year to celebrate my 40th birthday and introduce my family to cruising. If we all like it, more than likely we will do it again with another line, as we like to take several (small) vacations a year rather than one big one like we will do next year. Thank you for this honest and in depth review.

Sounds fantastic! What month are you going in and what ship?

Edited to add: I'm going to read your TA now :) I know it's 5 years old but love POR and reading TR's!
 
I agree with you on this....we have had minor incidents on our DCL cruises as well as on this cruise and they were handled very differently. DCL always went the route of the customer is always right and Anthem went the route of Anthem is always right. Our safe wasn't working properly on Anthem and it was pulling teeth to get them to come fix it. We had the exact same thing on DCL happen and it was fixed in 5 minutes. Just lack of customer care really....
Our safe wasn't working right on Fantasy last month. We notified our host & GS. It was never fixed. It happens on Disney, too.
 
Our safe wasn't working right on Fantasy last month. We notified our host & GS. It was never fixed. It happens on Disney, too.

Right. We had a tv problem ...not on our last DCL cruise but the one before that. They came but just couldn't fix it. They did not offer any compensation (and we did not ask for any compensation either).

It can happen on any cruise line.
 




Thank you for the write up. I wished I had read it before we embarked on our Bermuda cruise last week.

While we enjoyed the our vacation (love Bermuda), I don't think I will book the Anthem again. I might try the Oasis class ships as we prefer more open space. The Anthem felt very crowded.
 
Thank you for the write up. I wished I had read it before we embarked on our Bermuda cruise last week.

While we enjoyed the our vacation (love Bermuda), I don't think I will book the Anthem again. I might try the Oasis class ships as we prefer more open space. The Anthem felt very crowded.

We also want to try the Oasis class...
I didn't actually feel like our sailing was crowded at all other than the Windjammer. Avoided it at all cost.
I won't go out of my way to book Oasis but I would sail on it again if an interesting cruise came up out of NYC.
 
I wouldnt go that far. If you are in there at the most popular times it's really crowded but I can say the same thing about every cruise Ive ever been on. It's manageable.
This was our experience on Anthem. Windjammer was beyond manageable and not just on embarkation day. I'm talking breakfast and lunch only, no experience with dinner. Sure maybe I was there at the most popular times, don't know.
I believe it's the layout of the buffet.
Cabanas on Disney while busy was more manageable. To us anyway.
 
Right. We had a tv problem ...not on our last DCL cruise but the one before that. They came but just couldn't fix it. They did not offer any compensation (and we did not ask for any compensation either).

It can happen on any cruise line.
We had that once on DCL and they simply replaced the TV with one that worked.
 
I probably would have made a bit of a fuss on that one,y wife loves to watch TV before going to sleep.

A good guess if no other cabins were affected is that someone who would not live without their gaming system or DVD player disconnected something and did not correctly reset it.
 
Thanks for the great info and the amount of time you spent posting it. I like the "classic" design of DCL ships so until I've sailed all the itineraries I want to sail (which will take some time), I'll stick with the Mouse :-)
 
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I just wanted to thank you for the post - super informative. We have done 3 DCL cruises now and DH was a little disappointed about the lack of alone time for the grownups on the Fantasy this last time. So we booked the Anthem for Spring Break week. Everyone we talked to the Fantasy last week that recommended RCL said their kids loved the kids club there and stayed there a lot more than on DCL. I also feel there is less to miss out on if if skip MDR dinners and save time that way as well. I really appreciated the comp to DCL since that is what I currently know best.
 
We also want to try the Oasis class...
I didn't actually feel like our sailing was crowded at all other than the Windjammer. Avoided it at all cost.
I won't go out of my way to book Oasis but I would sail on it again if an interesting cruise came up out of NYC.

We looked at booking the Oasis next Thanksgiving. We have done one prior RCCL cruise (Serenade of the Seas), and everyone hated it. However, I think that a lot had to do with the size of the ship, so we thought about trying the larger one. However, the Carnival Breeze is about $1,000 cheaper for the 3 of us, so I think that we will probably do that (I know this sounds crazy to everyone here, but we REALLY enjoyed Carnival much more than RCCL - Actually, I'd take Princess over either...)...

At any rate, it seems to me that for the big ships, RCCL always seems more expensive than the other lines (outside of DCL).
 

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