I have been on other cruise lines... to be specific, carnival. Overall, this was a decent cruise line that was satisfactory in many ways. However, I would not recommend this cruise line to others knowing that I've had better experiences on Carnival. One of the biggest reasons I would not recommend Royal Caribbean to a friend or family member is because of food choices and hours the food is available. Remember, I'm comparing everything to carnival cruise lines. The windjammer (royal Caribbean buffet) pretty much had the same lunch choice selection every day with the food being very mediocre and bland. Carnival had several choices at lunch aside from the buffet which was a huge step up from the level of royal caribbeans buffet...carnival has the "guys burger joint"....the blue iguana Mexican bar...Indian station...Mongolian BBQ....sandwich bar...all of these options free of charge. The only choice with royal Caribbean (that was free of charge) was the windjammer Buffett (and of course the dining room). Johnny rockets was another option but with a surcharge. Carnivals pizza bar was way better pizza (thick brick oven pizza vs thin stale pizza on royal Caribbean) .Royal Caribbeans self serve ice cream closed at 9pm and carnival had it open 24 hours/day. The first evening on this ship I went to the windjammer(royal Caribbean buffet) to get a later evening meal (after 9pm) and it was CLOSED! carnival has midnight buffets around the clock, at least until midnight. The dining room experience in the evenings was more comparable to carnivals level of taste but id still give the advantage in taste and quality in the dining room to carnival. Room service has a charge on royal Caribbean, carnivals was free. Carnival had self serve laundry facilities on their ship...royal Caribbean you had to pay for each item a la carte with the dry cleaning service.

We've gone on 5 carnival cruises and this was our first royal Caribbean. All we heard before this trip was how much "classier" and "better" this was than carnival. We had the opposite experience and were just shocked when we experienced differently.

So to summarize, carnival has more food options throughout day with no required upcharge, better quality food in the buffet, the availability of food 24 hrs a day, and there isn't as many upcharges that royal Caribbean had (no laundry, pay for room service, etc). The public bathrooms throughout ship were very poorly maintained and reeked of urine. We've always heard that carnival was a party ship vs royal Caribbean...that the people were classier...our experience was that both ships had people partying and the same level of class. So those are my reasons. I wish I felt differently but the differences were clear as day. I'm glad i know for myself now.