Finished a 6 night Southern Caribbean cruise with RCI on the Jewel of the Seas. Spent a few days in Miami and then on to the Bahamas with Norwegian on the Sky. Let me start this off by saying we had not been on a cruise before the Royal Caribbean trip, so we didn't know what to expect. A few of the people on the RCI trip were bashing RCI but we thought it was great. Very nice and personable crew, great food, clean, well maintained boat. Couldn't see anything to complain about there.

Norwegian Sky was a different story.

The crew... We didn't meet our room attendant until we basically hunted him down on the 3rd day to get some ice. Nice enough guy but we knew our gal on RCL pretty much right away as she introduced herself, told us a bit about her growing up in the islands, left a card. We talked w her every day. All the crew on RCL is personable, attentive, accessible right up to the captain. Never really met any of the crew on the Norwegian Sky. Don't know about the officers who appeared to be Europeans, the rest of the crew was basically Filipino who while nice are basically invisible. The "islands" crew on the Jewel were not invisible. Possibly a cultural deal? Read more