Since there are many who wonder the difference between Carnival and Royal Caribbean, I will try to compare the two here. I just returned home yesterday from my cruise on the Rhapsody of the Seas out of Galveston. Our ports of call were Key West, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. Overall, I had a great time and would do it again. I decided to finally do a review since I get a lot out of these reviews when I read them.

My girlfriend and I have been on two previous cruises together, both aboard Carnival ships, one of them the Conquest which is also in Galveston (we were on it out of New Orleans in May 2005). This was my first Royal Caribbean cruise. We got our cruise for $499 plus tax, oceanview. This price raised quickly soon after we booked ours. I'm used to seeing 7 day RC cruises running about $200 more than Carnival in the $800 range for oceanview in the Western Caribbean. Maybe RC is having some bad press lately with the Brilliance ship and running specials? I don't know. I had always heard RC was better and I wanted to see for myself.

What is better than Carnival Conquest? Embarkation and the food. We arrived at 11 at the EZ cruise parking lot and were told it would be til 11:45 til they started taking passengers. We loaded up on the shuttle at noon, went to the port, got processed (do the online process beforehand) and were walking on board about 12:30. Incredibly fast compared to Carnival and their yellow chairs process. We weren't even forced to take pictures before going on, but we did anyway. The food was great. No complaints. Everything was very good. On Carnival at times I'd be at the buffet and not see anything I liked. Carnival had more to choose from, but the Rhapsody had better quality. Period. Carnival also seems afraid to put any spice in their food. Read more