This was my first Royal Caribbean cruise, although members of my familly have cruised with them before. My four previous cruises were all with Carnival, and I have to say that even though the cabin was nicer on Royal Caribbean, the overall cruising experience was better with Carnival. We were a family party of 10--the two of us (my husband and me) in a junior suite, my mother-in-law and a friend of hers in the junior suite next door, and my brother and grandson in a premium balcony room on our other side, and next to them our daughter, her husband, and their two children. So we had three children, ages 13, 10, and 2. Our 13-year-old grandson has cruised with us twice and didn't like anything about the children's program on this cruise. He wouldn't participate at all. The ten-year-old, a real little joiner generally, felt the same. We were also very disappointed that there was no nursery or even paid babysitting we could book for the 2-year-old. (She was only a month shy of 3). The two boys (13 and 10) felt like the ship had lots of bars but not much for them. The 12th floor with the rock climbing wall and mini-golf was closed for high winds during most of the sea days.

My husband complained that there weren't enough stations with lemonade, iced tea, fruit punch (basically free drinks) available. We don't like carbonated drinks, but were pretty much forced into getting a soft drink stamp on our card for an additional fee.

The food was really good and the best part of our cruise was dinner each day (our waiters made it fun), but still, there weren't the kid-friendly dishes our grandsons liked and expected. On Carnival they have shrimp cocktail and chocolate melting cake every night--shrimp cocktail only once on RC. Read more