I’ve been on 5 or 6 cruises but they’ve all been on Carnival. I’ve been happy with them. Most of the time I’ve had kids with me so the “fun ships” have been fine.
I’m considering an Alaskan cruise next summer and Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are the most likely choices. I’ve heard that Celebrity can be a little snooty but I don’t know if that’s actually true or not. I’d guess that RCI is a lot like Carnival.
So what are your opinions of the cruise lines that you’ve been on?
We alternate between adventurous vacations (Burma, Morocco, Trans-Siberian railroad, etc) and easy vacations (all-inclusive resorts and cruises).
all our Cruises have been on Princess. we have been happy with them. good mid level cruise line. We are older and don’t care for screaming kids running around the pool. I think most cruise people skew older and that’s been my experience. we are often the youngest people on the ship. and we aint young.
i have heard from other cruisers certain lines are more family friendly with stuff for kids, but the majority of passengers are still older.
there are some more premium lines like Seabourne or Crystal we might try, but princess, royal carribean, celebrity, etc are all pretty similar according to most people I’ve spoken with. Alot of them are owned by the same company.
I did an Alaskan cruise with, I believe, Royal Caribbean a few years ago. It was perfectly fine, but I’m not really the target audience for cruise lines. I don’t take in any of the shows or shipboard activities. I spent enough time in the casino to win some money at the poker table and then lose it at blackjack.
The crappy thing about the cruise (YMMV of course) was the trip back: there were two full “sea days” with no stops. It’s like being stuck in a hotel. I ended up getting tired of being around people and retreated to my room for most of it. Got a lot of reading done and watched alternating episodes of Angry Storage Unit Guys and Angry Pawn Shop Guys until I noticed they’d looped.
The breakfast and lunch buffets were at the upper end of fine. Dinner was very good.
I didn’t do any official excursions, preferring instead to make my own plans. Alaska itself was stupendous. I would love to go back on my own itinerary at some point.
We did our Alaska cruise, in 2000, with Princess, and it was good. We did a Panama Canal cruise with Holland America, and enjoyed it. We did a Mediterranean and then a Baltic cruise with Norwegian, and they seemed to nickel and dime you more than the others, so they are our least favorite.
I’ve never been on Carnival. I did one in 1987 with Ocean Cruise Lines, which was good, but I think they may be gone, and our first was a Transatlantic crossing on the QE2 in 1980. The good old days.
If you have the time, try the restaurant for lunch. Much nicer than the buffet. Try sit down breakfast at least once - it might not work for you timewise, but it is a better meal. On the QE2 I had awesome kppers more than once.
My recent cruises have all been Norwegian and I didn’t really feel like I was nickel and dimed - but since I haven’t cruised on another line in many years, that could a matter of I don’t know what I don’t know. What did you find to be different about NCL?
I’ve done several cruises on Royal Caribbean and I liked them just fine. At various times, I’ve done the buffet, the sit-down meals, and the premium restaurant - no complaints about any of them. The only thing we never have tried is room service.
I’m a pretty low-maintenance cruiser - don’t gamble, don’t drink, don’t much go in for trivia or pool-side activities. I like the shows, I enjoy the small venue concerts, I went to a couple of presentations, but mostly I’m happy to sit and watch the ocean go by.
Also had one cruise on Princess - a bit fancier than RCCL, and one on Holland-America, which our steward referred to as an old people cruise line. We were definitely in the younger end of the age spectrum and we’re in our 60s. 
Alaska is on our list, but not till after my husband gets both knees replaced this year. When he’s all recovered, I’ll start hunting for a deal.
We like to take kitchen tours. Princess and Holland America had them free. NCL charged. The ships weren’t as clean as the other ships we had been on also.
I had thought this was industry normal now, but the Holland America one, which we did after the NCL ones, was much better.
I’ve been on Carnival a couple times and Royal Caribbean once. Not a lot of difference as far as I could tell.
My cruise history: 4 on Princess, 2 on Holland America, 2 on Celebrity (and we’ll be doing Viking this summer [knocks wood]. We did Alaska on Holland and Celebrity.
I can’t compare my experience to Carnival - never having sailed with them – but the ships I’ve been on are definitely not “party boats”. There’s lots of entertainment, much to do, but the passengers will be older and more sober than you’ll find on Carnival (or, so I hear). There will be no rock-climbing walls or other carnival-ride stuff, but lots of music and trivia games.
Nothing snooty about Celebrity at all.
Holland and Princess are virtually identical (they’re sister divisions of the same corporation). Princess has more bingo games, and their presentations are more focused on where you can go shopping in port. They also nickel-and-dime you a lot. So if you cut back on the Princess tackiness, you get Holland America. Celebrity felt the same as HA.
Highly recommend Alaska, by the way. Try to get a Glacier Bay itinerary, before it melts.
I don’t know what “snooty” would look like, but it’s not my experience of Celebrity or, I guess, any middle-ground cruise line.
My mother, landlord, landlady, and I very much enjoyed our cruise to the Bahamas onboard the Carnival Sunrise in October of 2019. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get out much. Mom is disabled, and had to use an electric wheelchair to go on the Nassau walking tour. The battery almost died about 10 minutes in, and the two of us had to go back, accompanied by someone summoned from the ship to make sure we got there safely.
I will say that I ate better on the ship than I ever had in my entire life, trying such exotic foods as escargot, vichyssoise, and frog legs, all of which I found quite delicious. Because I could eat as much as I wanted to during the big meals of the day, I often did.
We also got to watch the first three games of the 2019 World Series, the first two of which were won by my eventual World Champion Washington Nationals.
One thing about Celebrity, that I don’t think applies to Holland America or Princess: they have a restaurant and a lounge reserved for passengers who booked a suite. This rubs me the wrong way…kind of elitist/classist. Hearkens back to the days of the Titanic and the first-class dining room.
I didn’t experience any snootiness from the passengers, though.
I believe NCL does as well. I don’t think it’s an uncommon perk for the expensive cabins or suites.
at www.cruisecritic.com there are specific forums for every company and every ship on the planet.
The QE2 in 1980 was snooty. They set the place for dinner with an amazing amount of silverware - fish forks and the like, but I heard one passenger say that they really should have the waiters provide the silverware as needed for each course.
No one was snooty to us - being young I think the passengers hoped that we were the future of the transatlantic cruise. This was before Love Boat.
I agree. And if you have the time and money, the interior land tour is fun also. Each cruise line has a train car, and serves lunch in the old elegant dining car style. My only complaint was that the clouds didn’t part enough for us to see Denali, and the Northern Lights were a no-show.
On our last Alaska cruise, the captain came on the PA to say that atmospheric conditions indicated an excellent chance of Northern Lights at approx 2:00 AM that night. So we set the alarm and got up and joined hundreds of fellow passengers on deck (some in jammies & overcoats) to see the show. Nada.
We have friends who took a Viking cruise called “In Search of the Northern Lights” which goes up the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle – in February. Very cold, very dark, but spectacularly beautiful (they report). Also: no Northern Lights.
Wow. Our ship stopped way too far south for the lights. I was looking for them in Fairbanks, the last stop of the tour. The hotel called you if the lights came out.
I’ve seen the Norwegian cruise and it appeals. We were in Helsinki in the late spring, and daylight until nearly midnight was awesome.
Bumping this because we’re doing a Holland America Alaskan inside passage cruise in a week. It’s the Glacier Bay route which was recommended above. I originally booked a normal balcony cabin but I kept getting cheaper and cheaper upgrade offers and finally bit on a cabin at the very aft of the boat. It has a wraparound balcony so we can view the side and the back. I hope it was worth it.
I chose Holland America for the inside passage cruise specifically because they use smaller ships and are able to get much closer to the glaciers. I figured if I was going to see glaciers, then I should choose a cruise line that was going to let me see the glaciers best!
I am not a Cruise Person™, but I very much enjoyed the experience – far more than I expected to.
I went with my own party so didn’t really notice or care about the ages of other passengers. We found lots to do, engaged with an overwhelming amount of food and partook in several shore excursions. Holland America took care to keep us well occupied: Wine tasting lessons, how to fold towel animals (silly fun), high tea, an obscene dessert extravaganza. They do pack a lot into the available time.
The glaciers are wondrous, and if you can manage the shore excursion from Skagway on the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, I don’t think you’ll regret it. The views are fantastic, the history captivating and you will probably see bears among other things.
I can’t speak to the room quality, but ours was of a lower class than yours and it was perfectly fine. I do think you’ll enjoy having upgraded to a balcony.
Have a fantastic time!