At the end of last month, I had the opportunity to take a Carnival cruise from New Orleans to Cozumel.  Now, I know we normally talk about Disney on this blog so I thought we could compare Disney Cruise Lines to Carnival Cruise Lines just a bit.

Now, I’m a die-hard devotee to DCL, but they don’t sail out of New Orleans at present, but Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian do.  And this Carnival cruise was cheap!  It cost us $600 including travel insurance for two adults for a 4 night cruise!  You can’t beat it!  Disney Cruise Lines would have cost us a lot more, not only for the cruise itself, but because we would have had travel costs to Florida as well.

In this installment, we will just discuss the staterooms.  Our ship was the Elation and our room was an Oceanview on Deck 5 (Main).

Room size

The Elation rooms in this category around approximately 185 sq ft and slept 2 people.

A similar Oceanview stateroom on DCL is approximately 214 sq ft and sleeps either 3 or 4, depending on the ship.
Advantage: DCL

Bed Arrangement

In this particular stateroom you could have either twin beds or you could have them pushed together to make a king.  While my husband and I prefer a king, I hate how the beds separate in the night leaving a crack down between the two beds.  On the Disney ships, this category room would come with a queen bed and a sleeper sofa.

Advantage: Draw – My husband and I prefer the king, but hate the beds separating. Disney has an actual queen bed.

Bathroom

Carnival only has one bathroom in their staterooms and they are teeny tiny.  Disney has split baths, meaning there are two rooms.  One houses a toilet and a sink, while the other has either a shower or a tub/shower combo and a sink.  This gives you more space and allows more than one person to dress at a time.  While the Carnival was adequate for me and my husband, if we’d had our kids with us, the split bath would be preferable

Advantage: DCL

Room Setup and Amenities

Our Carnival room did not have a sitting area other than the bed, and a stool at the vanity.  A comparable DCL room would have had a sofa.

Our Carnival room had an old style tube TV that felt very dated, while all the DCL fleet have flat screens.

Storage in the Carnival room was adequate.  We were able to store our empty luggage under the bed until it was time to repack.  Same goes for DCL.

Room service is available free of charge on both ships.  Both had nightly turn down with towel animals and chocolates.

Both fleets have very well-maintained rooms by friendly staff.

Advantage: DCL, just for sitting area and TVs.

I think what we can take away from this is that, while DCL is preferable and more spacious and luxurious, Carnival is not to be written off completely.  We had a great time and our room was adequate for our needs at a price we could afford.