Which do you prefer over the other?

I want to do that sometime!! Two different ships back to back from the same port. That would be so fun.

Royal Caribbean for sure. i have done 2 carnival cruises and about 5 on RC. the last carnival cruise i was on was 3 years ago and i vowed never to use them again. they are super cheap for a reason. didn't find anything about the ship to be that great and the clientele just really made it awful. everyone there was just wanting to be loud and get drunk. RC offers some class!

I do have to agree, I was surprised, but the food is now better on Carnival. RCI used to have better food, but that was 20 years ago.

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.

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 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...

Sailed on both. Prefer RCL.

I agree with all .. especially nlcdn

Its a cruise!! Gotta love it!!!

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.