Royal Caribbean Cruise VS. Carnival Cruise

This is the one question I get asked the most out of all our adventures!

Which cruise line did you like better? Royal Caribbean or Carnival?

(we will go with those two, because they are the most popular and both port out of Galveston Texas, which is the closest to our home base)

Let's start by painting the picture. We sailed Royal Caribbean, Freedom of the Seas Jan 2016, porting in Belize, Honduras and Cozumel. We sailed Carnival Freedom Feb 2017 making port in all the same places. We really wanted to compare apples to apples!

The Boarding:

Both boarding through the same port and had such a similar process there was nothing worth noting here.

The Food:

The main dinning room:

On the Royal Caribbean we had 8 pm dinning. (which if you don't know what that is, you can choose either 6, 8 or anytime dinning. We really like having a time to eat. We enjoy sitting with the same people each night and hearing about their day and excursions. We are pretty social. If you choose to eat at the anytime dining, <which we are trying on our next cruise Feb 2018, so will update then> you will be able to go into a different dinning room and eat anytime dinner is available. However, you may not ever sit in the same section or with the same people again.

The frog legs appetizer from Carnival. 

We mostly enjoyed eating later at 8 pm, this is a comparison of Royal Caribbean and Carnival, not our individual preferences of times, or excursions, I will make another post about that eventually.

We ate at 6 pm on Carnival.

 As far as comparing the two dining rooms. They are so similar there isn't much to compare on. 

The Rooms:

A shark towel animal in the hallway on Carnival. 

The room layout and rooms themselves are very similar. The few differences we saw was that Royal Caribbean on their balcony rooms had sliding glass doors while Carnival has a spring loaded door. (just bring a bungee cord to keep it open) Royal Caribbean also cut back on making daily towel animals, while Carnival still does this daily. Both have a great turn down service. 

One of the nightly animals in our room on Carnival.

Towel Animal from Royal Caribbean

This was a Carnival room, you can see the spring loaded balcony door. 

You can see the sliding glass door here. (room service coffee)

Entertainment:

Let's start with Carnival, aka "the party boat". I can tell you why they call it that. There is a little more entertainment for a younger crowd and generation. Carnival has a few night clubs, piano bar, their famous alchemy bar, our favorite the comedy club and nightly shows. The nightly shows at Carnival although much more for a younger generation, was very similar every single night. Carnival has a party crew made up of about 8-10 people who sing and dance. They cover many songs most of which I knew. So it was really entertaining.... till about the fourth night, and it was still the same crew singing and dancing. There was a family game show night and marriage game, so they did offer a little variety, but mostly still the same. It was nice to see the same group, but i'll let you make that decision. Both casinos offered the same tables, games, etc. Different ships will have a different layout, that's all we could surmise was the differences. 

Carnival had pool side games that participants would win medals and prizes, along with featured in the nightly show. Carnival has pool slides and splash pad areas for the kids, kids clubs and family table games to play all throughout the decks. On the sports courts they have basketball, soccer/volleyball areas, golf and sometimes a sky rider. Movie theaters are hit and miss depending on the ship, but are played on the big screen outside if not inside. Carnival also had an adults only section up top deck with nicer lounge chairs a an adults only hot tub. But there was no VIP area. 

Pool side Carnival Games

 

 Wave Runner (wake boarding/surfing experience) on Royal Caribbean

 Rock Wall on Royal Caribbean

Royal Caribbean Nightly show

On Royal Caribbean they seemed to gear their entertainment to an older crowd. The nightly shows were offered twice, so you could eat late and see and early show or vise-versa. That was SUPER great. Every night they offered a different show, signing and dancing, a  Cirque Du Soleil  type show, a musical, a comedian, a singing impersonator and family game shows. All though I was completely entertained through it all, a lot of it was unknown songs, shows or people to me, because it wasn't geared toward someone younger than 35. I didn't know any of the songs from the impersonator, etc. Royal Caribbean did have a night club, a piano bar and other bars as well. 

Pool side games were offered on Royal Caribbean, and some ships have a slide and kids area. As well as kids club and pool side games. Royal Caribbean also has fun sports for older kids, a wake board experience exclusive to Royal Caribbean. There is also gold, ice skating, rock climbing and basketball. A lot for an older teen to have fun!  Movie theaters are also hit and miss depending on the ship, but are played on the big screen outside if not inside. Royal Caribbean has no adults only section but did have an upper deck for VIP sailors. 

Poolside cooking on Royal Caribbean

Dancing Poolside, Royal Caribbean

Cost:

Carnival is called the party ship and it's probably because it's less expensive and so bargain hunters are more apt to book these cruises. But that's not to say Royal Caribbean is outrageously expensive. It's still very similar and deals can be found. And you can have a party on either ship! We sure had a great time on both! 

Conclusion:

Our Conclusion...there really is non. We aren't that picky and had a blast on both. We decided we would be picking in the future based on the ports we wanted to visit and time of year. Cost does matter a little to us too. 

Make your own choice! Lay back, relax, slowdown and ENJOY whichever you choose!