Royal Caribbean cruises: Are they worth the price?

Recently, we have noticed very large price increases in most of Royal Caribbean Cruises. This undoubtedly is due to the huge repeat business that Royal Caribbean enjoys from past clients. As the internet's premier cruise specialists, we think it wise to tell all of our prospective clients to do comparison shopping before choosing any cruise.

When searching for a particular cruise line, always check a second or third cruise line departing on the same date and departing from the same port. Make sure that you compare the ships (launched around the same time) so as to get an "apples-to-apples" price comparison. Normal price differences between comparable cruise lines should average around $200-$500 dollars. If you are getting a difference of more than $500 dollars, you might want to consider the lower rate because the difference between the comparable cruise lines is not worth that much money.

By comparable, we mean Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian.

All 3 of these cruise lines compete head-to-head and the differences among them are not that great-regardless of what you read. This is by and large the way it is. All 3 of these cruise lines operate identical business models. All of them compete for the family market and with the exception of the ships themselves, they are very comparable to each other.

An unfair comparison would be comparing either Royal Caribbean or Carnival Cruises with, let's say, Holland America . Holland America is know as a premium line and caters to the 55 and older age group. A young family would more than likely not choose a Holland America cruise to take their family vacation on.

When choosing a cruise specialist to help you, ask them if they've been on the ships themselves. If they haven't, how can they possibly know how good the ship is? If you are going to base your choice on so-called "reviews", remember to take them with a grain of salt. There are a lot of paid reviews out there that can't be trusted. Find a specialist that makes you feel comfortable to ask questions and offers experienced responses to your questions.