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View Full Version : R Family Cruise Does it Right


cwoolson
01-18-2006, 02:22 PM
My partner and I were on last year's cruise (2005) and it was Bob's first cruise -- I was nervous that he wouldn't handle the confined space, set itinerary and well... the boat. Turns out he became quite the fan and we booked for Alaska right away.

In the interim, we received a free cruise after purchasing a house and just got back a few days ago. Yes, it was a big ship -- big name -- CARNIVAL to be exact. Needless to say we were very unimpressed and would never do another cruise with them again... but we weren't sure if R Family had set the bar so high and we were truly biases or did we not enjoy the cruise as most would have.

No doubt, R Family entertainment is top-notch -- you won't find that kind of entertainment on ANY cruise line in the world I'm afraid. Cyndi, Melissa, Rosie and the countless others from Broadway and elsewhere -- it just won't happen. We decided we couldn't compare golden apples to pears ... suffice it to say, the entertainment, on any level, is sub-par.

The food was tremendously better on R Family (i.e. Norwegian) than Carnival and the Freestyle Dining is much better than pre-assigned seats ... where you could get stuck with people you have absolutely nothing in common with (though we did meet a very nice couple who we did enjoy.)

Parents - YOUR KIDS ARE ANGELS! They truly are and we were told that the children on R Family were a blessing for the cruise staff and now we understand why. Our cruise was full of children ... unattended and roaming the ship without parents. Yep, the parents take this cruise to get rid of the kids while they enjoy their time ... and kids do pretty much anything they want until a staff member stops them.

Thankfully we went with R Family first or we might not be doing another cruise -- and we're counting down the days for Alaska!!

Cheers,
Chris

tofer610
01-18-2006, 07:31 PM
i can not agree with you more...my partner and I cruise alot with our families and last year's cruise blew us away...there is nothing else out there like the rfamily cruise...we still go on our family cruises but we will always save time for the rfamily cruise...

24601
03-04-2006, 04:52 PM
i can not agree with you more...my partner and I cruise alot with our families and last year's cruise blew us away...there is nothing else out there like the rfamily cruise...we still go on our family cruises but we will always save time for the rfamily cruise...

Our problem is that we are now spoiled...I can't imagine ever doing a "regular" cruise again. We had previously taken 8 cruises, and after the R Family experience, the shortcomings of those other vacations were terribly obvious. Mostly, it's because on an enclosed place like a ship, the behavior of your fellow passengers is very important to your experience. On main stream cruises, you run into all sorts of people, from those who ignore their children and let them run wild around the ship, to those who get drunk and use bad language regardless of who may be listening, to just plain rude behavior that indicates many people don't have any regard for others. I have to say that the people on "R" cruise where just so wonderful...the kids were well behaved, and everyone seemed to care about their fellow passengers.

The only possible downside I could find is that the shear number of children onboard seemed to overwhelm the kids program, but with three kids, we never get time alone anyway (what are the odds they all want to be in the kids program at the same time?!), so it really didn't make that much of a difference if we had one kid with us or three.