First time cruiser from India

[sharad]

We a group of 4 middle aged doctors from Mumbai India .We wish to cruise to alaska in june july 2007'
Is there a great difference in the quality of ship , food and service between
1) The Royal carribean and 2) The Carnival.
Most of the reviews are better for the Royal carribean while Carvnival is generally getting negative reviews. I plan to prefer The Carnival ships as a large number of Indians with Indian Food and entertainment is offered to us by the Maharaja cruise

[Raoul Fiebig]

sharad,

welcome to Cruise-Chat.com.

In my humble opinion, both Carnival and Royal Caribbean offer great mass-market products, and I wouldn't hesitate to book either of the two. If you think Carnival is better for you for a specific reason - go for it. But be warned: Cruising is addictive!

[VICSTER]

HELLO SHARAD..
IF YOU SEND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO:
itls@sbcglobal.net
i will forward your request over to alan....
and he will contact you directly about your cruise....
vic....

[sharad]

Dear Vicster,
MY email add is "sharadshinde@hotmail.com"

thanks

[Frase]

I have been on both a Royal Caribbean cruise and two Carnival cruises.

Based on my cruising experience, (which is probably much less than some other members here), I found that Royal Caribbean and Carnival were about equal in quality.

I did like the food a little better on Carnival than Royal Caribbean. It seemed that the food seemed fresher and had a better presentation on Carnival. During my cruises I ate only in the main dinning rooms. So, I can't speak for the quality of food in the alternative dinning places on the ships. Some ships have upscale 5 star restaurants onboard.

Royal Caribbean seems to have the largest and most modern cruise ships.

A third choice in cruiselines might be Princess. I heard good things about Princess. I also heard that many middle-age professionals liked Princess.

I have never been on a Northern/Alaska glacier cruise, so I can not help you with that. I heard that these cruises may only operate during short time during each year, when the weather and temperatures are most ideal.

On both cruise lines, I encountered allot of crewmembers that were from India. Especially in the dinning room. On all three cruises I was on, the top waiters or Maitre'Ds were all from India.