Who can you trust for accurate and unbiased cruise ship ratings? The cruise line or real live passengers? If you guessed real live passengers, you’re right! There are several very informative websites available today offering everything from ratings and reviews to feature articles, on just about every cruise line across the country, if not the world. Cruise ship ratings are great tool to use before you choose a cruise line or cruise ship. This is an especially important tool for first time cruisers, as ratings can give you an excellent idea of what to expect before you board.
Cruise ship ratings take a wide variety of elements into account including: type of ship, size of ship, destinations, accommodations, amenities, activities, entertainment, price, service, excursions, ports of call, passengers, etc. In most cases the rating system is on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 meaning “Outstanding.� In other cases, stars are used to rate cruise ships. Five star cruise ships offer the utmost in luxury.
Some of the top sites for cruise ship ratings are: Cruisecritic.com, Cruisereviewsonline.com, Cruisereport.com, Cruisedirectonline.com, and Cruisemates.com.
Cruisecritic.com offers more than just ratings and reviews, this site has several search functions to help you find everything from bargains and discounts to theme cruises, and exotic itineraries. The site also includes features, news, planning tools, and a variety of cruise message boards where fellow cruisers can exchange stories and information.
Cruisemates.com offers two types of ratings: star ratings and value ratings. Star ratings are based on one question — “how good is this ship?” One star is the worst, five stars is the best. Cruisemates.com takes everything from age and accommodations to food, service, and entertainment into account when rating the worlds cruise ships. Value ratings or “thumbs upâ€? ratings are all about the “Bang for your Buck.” Five thumbs up means the ship is an excellent value while one thumb up means you won’t find much of anything that resembles a value here.
Ratings, rankings, and popularity contests — at Cruisereviewsonline.com find out which cruise ships are at the top and which ones are not. Get other information on cruise lines, as well as information, ratings and rankings on embarkation ports, and ports of call.
Cruisereport.com offers the lowdown on cruise lines from A to Z. Unbiased reviews, cruise searches, quotes, and feature articles are just a few of the sites extras. You can also search for “the perfect cruise,� and browse through news pieces about cruising. After checking out their ratings and reviews, you can also search for discounts and deals. With more than 50,000 visitors per month, Cruisereport.com has information on roughly 8,500 current sailings.
Cruisedirectonline.com relies on reader surveys to help keep ratings in check. In addition to cruise ship ratings, visitors to the site will find top ten and top thirty lists, as well as feature articles about the best of the best in the world of cruises. The site has other information about discounts, as well as information on roughly 12,000 sailings. Cruise Direct Online has been featured in Frommer’s Budget Travel Magazine, and on MSNBC, CNBC, MSN Money, and more.