The top-selling Costco cruises are hard to determine. This is true not only because Costco does not list how many people book any given cruise, but also because a top-selling or best-selling cruise is a somewhat slippery concept. No doubt a number of the thousands of Costco cruises sell-out each year, and how do you compare sold-out cruises to one another? The top-selling Costco cruises might also be defined as the most popular cruise itineraries offered by Costco, but this too would be hard to determine, as some cruises are offered frequently, perhaps even all year, whereas others are offered only a handful of times during a season, and obviously the cruises that sail the most will be booked by more people. It is therefore hard to say what are objectively the top-selling Costco cruises; however, Costco does have a list of four top-selling cruises on their site, and while it is unclear exactly how these cruises came to be deemed “top-selling,” they are clearly popular cruises, and thus are worth examining.
We’ll begin by pointing out that just because a cruise is top-selling doesn’t necessarily mean that it is any better than a cruise that isn’t a best-seller. This is obvious, and it is equally obvious to say that a top-selling cruise might not be right for you, despite its popularity among other vacationers. However, there is generally some wisdom in numbers, and cruises become popular for a reason – they are affordable, go to desirable locations, etc. – so the top-selling cruises shouldn’t be ignored altogether. If so many people take the cruise, there must be something attractive about it. (As with anything advertised as top-selling, though, it is worth asking how many people book the cruise precisely because it is listed as top-selling. Once a cruise becomes top-selling for whatever reason, it might retain this position only because it is top-selling, in the same way that a popular video on YouTube keeps garnering more views because it is a popular video on YouTube. Top-selling cruises, in other words, might be the beneficiaries of a virtuous circle.)
In order to find Costco’s top-selling cruises, you have to go to the “Cruises” section of the Costco Travel website. On this page, right below the world map that allows you to “browse by cruise destination,” the top-selling cruises are listed by cruise ship: Disney Fantasy, Norwegian Getaway, Allure of the Seas, and Grand Princess. So, each top-selling cruise is offered by a different cruise line (Disney, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and Princess, respectively). Of the four cruises, three go the Caribbean, which is a testament to just how popular the Caribbean is as a cruise destination, and the fourth cruise goes to another extremely popular destination, Alaska. The three Caribbean cruises embark and disembark from Florida ports, and the Alaska cruise is out of Seattle. All of the cruises have week-long itineraries, which is to be expected, as seven days is the ideal length of a sailing from the cruise line’s perspective, and thus are offered with the most frequency. A cruise line can offer the same cruise week after week, concluding one voyage the same day it begins another, wasting no time in between. All of the Costco top-selling cruises are offered multiple times. The Norwegian Getaway and the Grand Princess are listed every week, and the other two vessels’ top-selling cruise is offered every other week. (The itineraries aren’t the same each week on Allure of the Seas or Disney Fantasy, so the top-selling itinerary is offered every two weeks instead of every week.)
We’ll conclude by noting that the top-selling Costco cruises will change, not only because different cruises will presumably become top-sellers, but also because the top-selling cruises won’t remain the same. The Allure of the Seas, for example, will continue to cruise in the Caribbean for the next several months, but it is scheduled to go to the Mediterranean next year, so obviously the Allure of the Seas’ seven-night cruise to the Caribbean can’t always be a Costco Top-Selling cruise, as it won’t exist forever. That said, unless Costco ceases to market top-selling cruises altogether, there will always be best-sellers, and these are worth checking out. If they are popular, they probably have something going for them.
