OUR GROUP: My husband and I are in our late 20s. We traveled with another couple our age and my mother and aunt (50-60). This was the third cruise for Mr. and Mrs. Feisty, second for our friends, and first for my mom and aunt. Our past cruises were in the Caribbean on Carnival Destiny and Carnival Valor. We loved those cruises - fair to good food, excellent service, and fun ports. Everyone in our group ordinarily does land vacations and has done many, including in Europe.

THE RUMOR: "You'll love RCI! It's so much better than Carnival. Carnival is full of drunken partiers and has terrible food and mediocre service. RCI has much nicer people and great food and service."

THE TRUTH: I was delighted to find drunken partiers on RCI's Splendour since I hadn't found them on either our Carnival cruises. (The "drunken partiers" were charming and a lot of fun, so this is definitely a point in RCI's favor over Carnival.) We were, however, very disappointed with the food and service on Splendour, which was severely lacking in comparison to our Carnival cruises. EMBARKATION/DEBARKATION: A++ on both ends. RCI had a free shuttle to/from Piazzale Roma (it's a bright orange bus with a small "Port of Venice" sign in the front and no RCI signs; confirm that you're being taken to the Splendour before you load up though), which made things easy. We got to the dock around 2pm and absolutely flew through the "line." Our cabins were ready, and our luggage arrived in plenty of time before dinner (9pm). Since we had an early flight (11:30am), we dragged our own luggage off at about 7:15am and arrived at the airport a bit after 8am (free shuttle to Piazzale Roma, number 5 bus to airport). It was all very easy. Read more