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Old November 3rd, 2006, 12:04 AM posted to rec.travel.cruises
Tom K
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Posts: 2,578
Default First cruise - CARIBBEAN - questions

My suggestion... Voyager. Hands down.

My reasons:

I've been on about 14 Celebrity sailings and about 10 Royal Caribbean
sailings, so I have a decent perspective.

Celebrity is my favorite line, but for me, for very specific reasons. And
the 2 lines are rather different.

But the first place to start is the ships. Zenith is an old, small ship
without any balcony cabins. She's nice for an itinerary like Bermuda, when
a small ship is important to get into the tight channels. But in the
Caribbean, you want BIG, BOLD, SPLASHY. And NEW.

Radiance is a pretty class of ship, but NOTHING compared to Voyager class.
If you pick Royal Caribbean, do the Voyager, or one of her sister ships.

If you look at Celebrity, the advantages it has over Royal Caribbean are the
better food and more relaxing type experience. More elegant. More chic.
More pampering. But you didn't mention any of those. And the Zenith is the
worst of the Celebrity ships.

Royal Caribbean's advantages over Celebrity are the more dramatic looking
ships, the non stop activities, ice skating rink, Johnny Rockets burger
place, etc. It's more into action. Disco open till the wee hours of the
morning. Hot casinos. Just a more "happening" type cruise experience.

If you really decided that you wanted the pampering and better food of
Celebrity, than go with one of the newer ships instead. Otherwise, go with
Voyager, or one of her sister ships Explorer, Adventure, Mariner, Navigator.
Or even the newer Freedom. That way the ship is the destination.

--Tom


wrote in message
oups.com...
We decided to buy our first cruise:
place - Caribbean, time - December, we found too many nice cruises and
now we are confused what is the best for us? We need some help....

We have three types:
1) 7-night Caribbean-Western - from Miami with Royal Caribbean -
Voyager of the Seas
- Labadee, Haiti
- Ocho Rios, Jamaica
- Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
- Cozumel

2) 8-night Caribbean-Eastern - from Fort Lauderdale with Royal
Caribbean - Radiance of the Seas
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda
- Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands
- St. Martin - Sint Maarten
- Nassau, Bahamas

3) 10-night Caribbean-Ultimate - from Tampa with Celebrity Cruises -
Zenith
- George Town, Grand Cayman
- Puerto Limon, Costa Rica
- Colon, Panama
- Roatan (Isla Roatan), Bay Islands, Honduras
- Cozumel, Mexico

We have a lot of questions, we are under 30, we would like to see a
lot, we like snorkeling, exotic places, good fun etc. It will be our
honeymoon, but we want to spend it in active way. We don't want to
spend all day on the beach.
Do You think 1st cruise for 10 nights isn't too long for first timers??
Is it better to take 7 nights?
Is it big diffrence between these lines ( royal and celebrity ) ? Is it
really bad to stay at interior room or it's better to pay a little bit
more for oceanview? what we should know about additional charges? Is
some lines better for "young" people? ( beside disney's ship )? What
about shore excursions? Have You tried something? What can You
recomend? Is it better to organize our time by ourselves or buy some
excursions? We would love to hear everything what You know, every
suggestion, specialy from people who tried one of those cruises.
It's our first time and we would like to know everything before we book
the cruise
Thank You soooooo much

Eve