Which do you prefer over the other?

No matter what all our opinions are, you won't know until you try it yourself. We were hesitant to "jump ship" and try something different, but it is worth the experience. If the price was great, the itinerary one you could enjoy and the timing fits your vacation schedule; I'd say go for it. My sister prefers RCL and we are more of CCL sort of folks.

AUNTIE has it right as usual. Me telling you I prefer NCL over CCL (just as an example) is a complete waste of time...and the experience from one ship to another even WITHIN a given line can vary. In order to make any kind of comparison, we've cruised on 3 different lines so far. "increasing knowledge is increasingly expensive". On roughly a dozen different ships. And there are folks in here who make us look like newbies!! We've found some ships we like so much we don't care who owns em. Some ships we've cruised on several times, even in the same cabin! Sometimes ships are laid out so badly your "deal" is no deal at all...Folks who make these generalizations that the food is bad on one line, or the crew is rude or some such are simply posting anecdotal evidence, sometimes years out of date. There are all kinds of stories floating around (pardon the pun)...Holland America is for old folks, Carnival for young drunks, NCL is too expensive "for what you get", Disney is strictly for families with children, and the list goes on. It only takes a bad steward or a meal to get folks sour on a whole cruise line. The more you cruise, the more you need to do your own research, and trust your own judgement. Its a big ticket item yknow...and you're spending YOUR money, not mine...GOOD LUCK!

I like both! As Yankee and AuntPinkie said, it really depends on you and your preferences, and also experiences vary between ships even within the same line. Out of curiosity, which Royal ship are you sailing?

We love RCI. We would have to win a free cruise to sail Carnival again. But everything is relative to your background and interests. On Carnival, the stage show didn't start until 10 pm. If you like them late, I can see why you like them. All things being equal, you know what Carnival is like, so give RCI a try.

Its a cruise!! Gotta love it!!!

I agree with all .. especially nlcdn

Sailed on both. Prefer RCL.

We are fairly die-hard Royal Caribbean fans. We have had nothing but a stellar experience with RCI, where as many of my friends, customers and co-workers have sailed Carnival, and after 2-3 cruises swore off the company as a whole, some of them cruising as a whole!

We are steadily climbing the ranks of RCI's C&A program, so the extra perks dont hurt any at all either...

I started cruising Loyal to Royal then I tried other cruise lines (6 cruise lines to date), I liked some of them and did not like one line. I enjoy myself on both RCL and Carnival. Both are good lines. You can have fun on both lines.

Try RCI with an open mind, it will not be the exact same as Carnival but it is good and has tons of Loyal to Royal customers. It can open up a ton of new options to you.

Either way, have a great Cruise

We had only cruised with Carnival until last spring, and that's when we did a "side2side" . We had 8 days on Royal Caribbean followed by a 6 day Carnival cruise. For our particular cruises, we preferred the food on Carnival in the MDR over RCL, but the shows on the RCL ship were superior. Our rooms were about the same size, and both had very comfortable beds. Both cruises had male Canadian (just like me) cruise directors but Carnival's was way more fun and engaging. RCL had a live steel drum band perform daily on the Lido and they were great!

All in all, we had a great time on both, enjoying the similarities as well as the differences.