Cruise.co.uk has revealed the best cruise lines and ships as voted in January 2009 by the consumer reviews posted on its site. The results are interesting and will make some cruise lines very happy and others wonder why they bother. Here are some of the highlights.
* Three awards for Oceania - Best Ship, Best Food and Best Service.
* Best Cruise Line goes to Cunard.
* Princess Cruises wins Best Shore Excursion and comes sixth and 10th in the same award.
* Royal Caribbean International's Independence of the Seas is named Best for Families. P&O Cruises takes the next four places with family ship Ventura the least favourite of the four.
Cruise.co.uk says the survey is based on 12,000 reviews on the site and that the awards are based on a minimum 50 votes for cruise lines, 20 votes for ships. Not a huge number out of 12,000.
They are fine. What worries me is that is you click the "NEW - Official Cruise Passenger Ratings" button in the site - which most people will - you get some meaningless results.
Viking River Cruises becomes the Best Cruise Line based on two reviews. Hebridean is in second place with one review.
Change the criteria and ask for best cruise ship in all age ranges and the winner is Wind Star with two reviews. Discover Egypt's river cruise boat Beau Soleil comes third with - yes you guessed it - one review. Thing is, if you look on the Discover Egypt site, there is no Beau Soleil.
In 11th place there's F3. Um. But's that being built. Doesn't launch until next year. In 15th place comes P&O Cruises Adonia. But that became Sea Princess in 2005.
Drill down through the ages and you get some even more fantastic results - Carnival ahead of Fred Olsen in the 56-65 age group, Viking River Cruises and Spirit of Adventure top in the 36-45 year-old category.
Just to make things even more interesting, the results change every time I look. So forgive me if you see different ships in different places. That's the reason.
I've had hours of fun playing with this, but that's not really the point. Cruise.co.uk needs to do more work on the survey - don't let any entry in with fewer than 10 votes (20 would be better) and take out all the rogue reviews. Then we'll start to have some really valid ratings.
Here's the full list of January 2009's top performers with scores:
Best Ship: Oceania Insignia - score 4.55 out of 5
Best Cruise Line: Cunard - 4.36 out of 5
Best Accommodation: Costa Mediterranea - 4.75 out of 5
Best Entertainment: Independence of Seas - 4.37 out of 5
Best Food: Oceania Insignia - 4.77 out of 5
Best Service: Oceania Insignia - 4.86 out of 5
Best for Families: Independence of the Seas- 4.28 out of 5
Best Shore Excursion: Star Princess - 4.22 out of 5.
Jane Archer
