What is important to you?

[Sky Sweet]

When chosing a cruise, what factors are important to you?

 

Do you put more weight on professional reviews, cruise critic reviews, a travel agent's recommendations, or feedback from friends?

[Sky Sweet]

These are the factors that are most important to us:

 

Favorable passenger to space ratio so the ship does not feel overcrowded.

 

Favorable crew to passenger ratio to enhance service.

 

A good mix of sea and port days.

 

Close to peak time for an itineray to improve the odds of having good weather, but not at its peak to minimize the possibility of having too many cabins with three and four passengers in them.

 

Quality and preparation of food.

[Oslo Dutch]

For me it's kind of feeling between the lines really. As far as travellers reviews you can touch and feel if their opinions are inportant or not.

I tend to smile when I read raving reviews from first time cruisers. Still very nice to read even though it might not give me the information I am looking for. As far a bad reviews I tend to take them with a grain of salt. Sometimes people are put in a bad mood before stepping onbaord and they end up in an avalanche effect of sol called bad experiences. Most of the times they seem to come onboard with wrong expectations. Or their Travel Agent simply booked the wrong cruiseline, ship or itinerary. (Here in europe, agent's general knowlege of cruises is extremely poor)

 

It's for everybody a very personal experience.

[Leela]

When choosing a cruise, I mostly depend on what cabins are available at what price on what dates. I read reviews, but honestly they have had little or no effect on my choices.

[Karynanne]

The past couple of years, we've travelled with friends. These are friends that we've met through our cruising experiences.

 

We've choosen cruises for a variety of reasons. Some, just because we all want to relax and enjoy the ship and ports (Hawaii)...some to experience the allure of a Transatlantic...and some to see new countries, that we know won't be on our yearly cruising schedule (Australia, New Zealand).

 

We have been cruising exclusively with Celebrity, and enjoy the experience. We have our favorite cabins, know what to expect, as far as service, and IF something should go awry...we know that this is not a reason to definately ban a certain itinerary, or a certain ship.

 

We're flexible...we keep an open mind...and enjoy it all....

 

Karyn

[bobbyleduck]

Here's a good question for people. How many people depend upon their travel agent for where, when and how they vacation? I have never done so, because the one time I tried, the TA couldn't get her mind around the idea that I didn't necessarily want to do what she wanted. This was a TA with more than 15 years in the business, but I guess she was used to dealing with people who needed to be led around by the nose. Either that or that was how she vacationed on the cheap. She'd get a lot of people to go where she wanted and she'd get the trip for free.

 

My wife and I are flexible. How do I know my wife of 31 years is flexible, because she travels to all the places that I choose and when pressed she will come up with good ideas of her own, and I gladly accompany her. The only vacation, just as with the only cruise, I didn't enjoy was the one I didn't take.

 

As for cruising, the number one concern for me is cost. I am frugal with a capital "F" and cost matters. Second, I want to have fun, and by fun I mean enjoy the little things in life. We don't drink and we're not party animals, but given the right price, and itinerary we are not opposed to sailing any cruiseline (you all know what I'm talking about). Third, we enjoy meeting new people and making new friendships -- even people from around the world. Cruising makes it possible to get together, rather easily, with these new friends and that's the case with our next cruise aboard Millenium in December. We will get to renew friendships (with nearly a dozen people) that were begun aboard Infinity in March.

 

When it comes to itinerary, we enjoy new places. We've been on four cruises and only visited one port (Cabo) twice. After our next cruise it will be five cruises and two ports (Fort Lauderdale, one beginning and one end).

 

We have tended to enjoy most of the places we've visited, whether by land or sea, but other than Hawaii, Las Vegas and San Francisco we rarely visit the same place more than once. There are just too many places to visit. I guess that's why the idea of a Timeshare or similar type of thing has never appealed to us, and the idea of cruising is so great. So many ports to visit, so little time. I would enjoy staying in places a little longer, but generally not at the expense of seeing more places.

 

Back to reasons for choosing a cruise (any cruise). Food is way up on the list, but so far we haven't been disappointed with the food on any of our cruises, so I've come to expect that the food will meet our desires.

 

As others have said, a good mix of sea days and ports are important, although, as I am getting older more sea days is inching ahead. I am not old (52), by any means, but during the past 16 years I have learned to appreciate the serenity of the sea days, and no longer need as many ports to make the cruise seem worthwhile.

 

Happy cruising to all!

 

Bob

[leoandhugh]

we certainly do not rely on "professional" reviewers or travel agent's recommendations, because we do not believe either one comes without bias such as previous "freebies" We rely on our own experience and that of friends who also do a lot of cruising. also we have found that so-called reviews posted on CC often come with a lot of personal judgment which is without much meaning unless you know the person. For instance, someone who complains about the food - you have no way of knowing that persons likes and dislikes.

[Tatka]

After sailing with many lines (almost every mass market one), we don't really rely on reviews anymore.

 

For us it's combination of price and our(our son's) available time, overall ambience (service, pax mix).

 

Importancy of ports really depends of what kind of vacation it is. If it's Europe or some specific itin, than we do care about them, if it's just to relax, not that much. I prefer Eastern Caribbeans, but we always can find what to do on Western itinerary.

 

Also our son usually can find friends and has a good time on any cruises, but we do try to choose lines where there is a better chance of good teen club.

[amagar]

We absolutely depend on professional reviewers. And by professional, I mean mainstream reporters who work for large newspapers. The newspapers pay for their travel so it limits the possibility of payola, etc. Also, a professional travel writer has a vast amount of experience to make informed comparisons and value judgments. A first-time cruiser can offer impressions that may help others, but this gentle cruiser has nothing to stack his/her experience against. Remember your first cruise and how everything seemed perfect?

 

That said, professional reviews are only a base line. Then we rely on these boards. Surely the quality of the ship's interior and staffing (and even mechanical) changes...so cruisecritic is a wonderful resource for rounding out...and bringing to date reviews...particularly with different itineraries.

 

Finally, we don't rely on travel agents. I'm sure there are many -- particularly agency owners -- who could steer you in the right direction. But my guess is that you and your friends have traveled more than many of the travel agents you deal with. Many of them are relying on brochures and scant feedback from customers. If anyone has an agenda, I would guess it would be an agent....because his/her paycheck is tied to how much he/she sells. Selling a Porsche certainly earns them more than selling a Yugo...but if Yugo is offering a bonus to agents...the tables change...and the traveler could be the loser in the deal.

[Keith1010]

If it involved cruising on a cruise line that we have never cruised with before we do the following;

 

We talk to people who we know who we highly respect when it comes to crusing to get their opinions.

 

There is a book called Ocean Cruising written by Douglas Ward and published by Berlitz that is updated each year and providea a nice two or three page summary on just about all of the cruise ships. We read that.

 

We talk with our TA to see if they have first hand knowledge of the cruise line.

 

We read cruise critic and look for common views on the cruise line. If 80%+ of the people say this is good and this is bad about the cruise line we make the assumption that is correct. We realize that we might fall in the 20% category but since we haven't sailed the cruise line we can only assume the 80%+.

 

Keith

[twocc's]

We read, listen to cruisers and are very price driven. We have 9 cruises this year so we spend a lot of time in research. We do not pay attention to travel agents because what they say is influenced by so many factors and may not fit our lifestyle. But for people who do not have the time to research, travel agents are probably good to rely on, it they have cruised a lot.

[TeaBag]

The itinerary is important to us. Also, the food and the price.

[geoherb]

I am looking for a cruise for this Christmas. I want a bargain--but not so much that I'll settle for a Carnival or NCL ship. None of the things listed (professional reviews, cruise critic reviews, a travel agent's recommendations, or feedback from friends) will affect which cruise I choose unless it's on a different cruiseline than what we've sailed on. Right now, there are several cruises in contention, including X, Princess, HAL, and RCI.

 

The price and itinerary are my biggest considerations. Since my DH can't take vacation during the school year except for holidays, finding a cruise that fits our budget and the dates he can take off is most important.

[Drew B]

Pleasant, happy people on board is by far the most important thing to me. I hope I never again wind up on a ship filled with bitter, angry passengers!

[Ask4Jay]

What factors are important to us?

Itinerary (Best: departure port to destination port, non-stop. Next best: OK, a couple of stops in between)

We prefer trans Atlantic crossings; small ship is better than large ship.

Cruise Line must have “Freestyle-type” dining arrangement. (No table of 8 for us, early or late dining.)

Cabin location: Must be in an aft cabin with balcony. No aft cabin/balcony available = no cruise.

The weather, fellow passengers, other people’s opinions, food on board? Eh. Not important.

As soon as 2009 itineraries are out, we’ll try to snag an aft cabin USA-Europe and Europe-USA.

We did our sightseeing in my 30+ years in the airline business. Now we want to relax and experience the sea.

[hajekfam]

We look at what Celebrity is offering at a price we are willing to pay with an itinerary that we would enjoy. For us the ship is our destination.