Is Your First Cruiseline Still Your Favorite?

This morning, I realized that the first cruiselines we cruised on are
still our favorites.

I started wondering how common this is. Were the travel folks I talked
to first (25 years ago) especially skilled in determining my needs,
did the first cruises set my expectations for others to approach, or
was it dumb luck?

How about you - do you still find yourself favoring the lines you
first cruised on?

FYI, my sequence has been:
Cunard x2
HAL
Princess
HAL x2
Celebrity
Cunard
Celebrity
Cunard
Seabourn
Premier
NCL
Carnival
Princess
RCI
NCL
HAL
Cunard x2
HAL
Cunard
(upcoming Crystal)

....and our favorites are (in order) Cunard, HAL, Celebrity

Mark

On 5/3/10 1:35 PM, Mark (SF) wrote:
This morning, I realized that the first cruiselines we cruised on are
still our favorites.

....

...and our favorites are (in order) Cunard, HAL, Celebrity

Mark

I think my order of sequence would be:

Cunard, Celebrity, RCI (simply because of their ships), Princess, HAL
.... and then there are the ones I stay away from: NCL and Carnival.

Celebrity was our third (RCI and Majesty were first and second)... so it
took me 3 cruises to find Celebrity... and I didn't try Cunard until
after 40+ cruises... but twice on the QM2 now puts Cunard into First place.

--Tom

In article
, SF
wrote:

This morning, I realized that the first cruiselines we cruised on are
still our favorites.

My first three were Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Princess.

I would say my favorites have jumped around over the years. From Royal
Caribbean to Princess and now my favorites are Celebrity followed by
Royal Caribbean. The cruise lines have changed and so have I over the
years. I like Azamara, Cunard and HAL but with only one cruise on each
I don't think that is enough to include them as favorites. So with five
cruises booked none are on Celebrity. Go figure.

--
Charles

(Mark*(SF)) wrote:

This morning, I realized that the first
cruiselines we cruised on are still our
favorites.

I started wondering how common this is. Were
the travel folks I talked to first (25 years ago)
especially skilled in determining my needs, did
the first cruises set my expectations for others
to approach, or was it dumb luck?

How about you - do you still find yourself
favoring the lines you first cruised on?

Our sequence was:

1. Royal Caribbean
2. Royal Caribbean
3. Norwegian
4. Princess
5. Carnival
6. Holland America

Our 7th will be Princess this August.

I think my wife and I both agree that our best cruise was the Princess
cruise to the Baltic for our 30th wedding anniversary. Her favorite is
definitely Princess. MIne are Princess and Holland America.

I rate Carnival and Norwegian definitely lower. My wife has less
problems with them.

For our upcoming cruise, we were looking at Holland America, Princess,
and Norwegian. I think I started by favoring HAL, but I have no problem
with our final choice. I would have been somewhat apprehensive about the
Norwegian Pearl, but it was on my wife's list (for the itinerary), and I
would have went for it if it turned out to be our choice.

On 5/3/10 1:35 PM, Mark (SF) wrote:
This morning, I realized that the first cruiselines we cruised on are
still our favorites.

...and our favorites are (in order) Cunard, HAL, Celebrity

My first two cruises were HAL a long time ago (1950)

After that starting in 2004, it goes NCL Crown, NCL Crown, HAL
Maasdam, HAL Maasdam, RCI GOTS, NCL Pearl, NCL Jade, HAL Statendam,
HAL Statendam, HAL Rotterdam, Celebrity Mercury.

So far my favorites is HAL, with NCL and Celebrity second or third. We
have RCI booked for next winter hoping for better than the first one.
I'd really like to try Carnival too.

wrote:
On 5/3/10 1:35 PM, Mark (SF) wrote:
This morning, I realized that the first cruiselines we cruised on are
still our favorites.

...and our favorites are (in order) Cunard, HAL, Celebrity

My first two cruises were HAL a long time ago (1950)

After that starting in 2004, it goes NCL Crown, NCL Crown, HAL
Maasdam, HAL Maasdam, RCI GOTS, NCL Pearl, NCL Jade, HAL Statendam,
HAL Statendam, HAL Rotterdam, Celebrity Mercury.

So far my favorites is HAL, with NCL and Celebrity second or third. We
have RCI booked for next winter hoping for better than the first one.
I'd really like to try Carnival too.



Our first 2 were Disney. Yes it is still our favorite, but
we just did a Celebrity and it is a very close second.

2 Disney
1 Carnival
2 NCL
1 Celebrity

In that order.

Clay

My first cruises we

Royal Caribbean (Song of America)
Royal Caribbean (Sovereign of the Seas)
NCL (Dreamward)
Princess (Crown Princess... the old one)
Carnival (Fantasy)

My favorite cruise lines:

Princess.... doesn't do anything exceptional, but does everything well
and I feel "at home" on their ships.
Royal Caribbean..... best mass market ships in the industry
Celebrity.... has come a long way in my opinion over the years. Most
"relaxing" ships I have been on.

That said, this Saturday if the spill doesn't block the Mississippi, I
will be getting on the Carnival Triumph out of New Orleans.

--

George Leppla

Countryside Travel http://www.CruiseMaster.com
Blog http://cruisemaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CruiseMaster

You know cruise ships have changed a lot since our first honey moon cruise
in 67. It was on NCL's Sunward. I don't think any cruise since then can
match that wonderful experience.

Since then we have taken,
1 Asmerilda with International Expeditions on the Amazon River.
1 on a 40 passenger ship to the Galapagos Islands, and the name of that tour
and ship escapes me right now, although it was wonderful as well.
Those two were in the 90s.

Since 2000
We have taken the following,

5 RCI,
7 Carnival
1 NCL,
1 Celebrity

We liked them all but especially RCI and Carnival.

Sandy

"George Leppla" wrote in message
...
My first cruises we

Royal Caribbean (Song of America)
Royal Caribbean (Sovereign of the Seas)
NCL (Dreamward)
Princess (Crown Princess... the old one)
Carnival (Fantasy)

My favorite cruise lines:

Princess.... doesn't do anything exceptional, but does everything well and
I feel "at home" on their ships.
Royal Caribbean..... best mass market ships in the industry
Celebrity.... has come a long way in my opinion over the years. Most
"relaxing" ships I have been on.

That said, this Saturday if the spill doesn't block the Mississippi, I
will be getting on the Carnival Triumph out of New Orleans.

--

George Leppla

Countryside Travel http://www.CruiseMaster.com
Blog http://cruisemaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CruiseMaster

Sandy, it is hard for me to choose a favorite cruise line, because like
you said, the cruise lines keep changing. You like Royal Caribbean and
Carnival, and so do I, we will be cruising on the Triumph this Saturday.
Celebrity may be my new favorite cruise line.

How long has it been since you cruised on NCL? I have not cruised on
them since a few months after Katrina, and I was not impressed. I was
thinking about trying them again. One of my neighbors just came home
from a cruise on NCL and he loved it.

Becca


On 5/4/2010 7:55 AM, Sandy wrote:
You know cruise ships have changed a lot since our first honey moon cruise
in 67. It was on NCL's Sunward. I don't think any cruise since then can
match that wonderful experience.

Since then we have taken,
1 Asmerilda with International Expeditions on the Amazon River.
1 on a 40 passenger ship to the Galapagos Islands, and the name of that tour
and ship escapes me right now, although it was wonderful as well.
Those two were in the 90s.

Since 2000
We have taken the following,

5 RCI,
7 Carnival
1 NCL,
1 Celebrity

We liked them all but especially RCI and Carnival.

Sandy

"George wrote in message
...

My first cruises we

Royal Caribbean (Song of America)
Royal Caribbean (Sovereign of the Seas)
NCL (Dreamward)
Princess (Crown Princess... the old one)
Carnival (Fantasy)

My favorite cruise lines:

Princess.... doesn't do anything exceptional, but does everything well and
I feel "at home" on their ships.
Royal Caribbean..... best mass market ships in the industry
Celebrity.... has come a long way in my opinion over the years. Most
"relaxing" ships I have been on.

That said, this Saturday if the spill doesn't block the Mississippi, I
will be getting on the Carnival Triumph out of New Orleans.

--

George Leppla

Countryside Travel http://www.CruiseMaster.com
Blog http://cruisemaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CruiseMaster

Becca,
Let's see, I guess our last NCL cruise was in 2004. It was on The Sun. To
be honest, I wasn't crazy about the lay out of the ship. Also, there were a
few other things that have put it at the bottom of my list.

We love RCI, everything about it, itinerary, service, food and
accommodations.

Our next cruise is 12/6/10. This will just be a 5 nighter out of
Jacksonville with our daughter and her family. I believe it is the
Carnival Fascination. It is one of the smaller ships but one we really
like. It will be our grand daughters, Emerald 4 and Amethyst 3's first
cruise and we wanted to make it a short one to see how they do.

Sandy
"Becca" wrote in message
...
Sandy, it is hard for me to choose a favorite cruise line, because like
you said, the cruise lines keep changing. You like Royal Caribbean and
Carnival, and so do I, we will be cruising on the Triumph this Saturday.
Celebrity may be my new favorite cruise line.

How long has it been since you cruised on NCL? I have not cruised on them
since a few months after Katrina, and I was not impressed. I was thinking
about trying them again. One of my neighbors just came home from a cruise
on NCL and he loved it.

Becca


On 5/4/2010 7:55 AM, Sandy wrote:
You know cruise ships have changed a lot since our first honey moon
cruise
in 67. It was on NCL's Sunward. I don't think any cruise since then
can
match that wonderful experience.

Since then we have taken,
1 Asmerilda with International Expeditions on the Amazon River.
1 on a 40 passenger ship to the Galapagos Islands, and the name of that
tour
and ship escapes me right now, although it was wonderful as well.
Those two were in the 90s.

Since 2000
We have taken the following,

5 RCI,
7 Carnival
1 NCL,
1 Celebrity

We liked them all but especially RCI and Carnival.

Sandy

"George wrote in message
...

My first cruises we

Royal Caribbean (Song of America)
Royal Caribbean (Sovereign of the Seas)
NCL (Dreamward)
Princess (Crown Princess... the old one)
Carnival (Fantasy)

My favorite cruise lines:

Princess.... doesn't do anything exceptional, but does everything well
and
I feel "at home" on their ships.
Royal Caribbean..... best mass market ships in the industry
Celebrity.... has come a long way in my opinion over the years. Most
"relaxing" ships I have been on.

That said, this Saturday if the spill doesn't block the Mississippi, I
will be getting on the Carnival Triumph out of New Orleans.

--

George Leppla

Countryside Travel http://www.CruiseMaster.com
Blog http://cruisemaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CruiseMaster