Before booking a cruise, a few words of advice

Los Angeles Times - Travel
By Beverly Beyette
03:04 PM PST, January 21, 2009

Match your ship to your personality and your needs
Reggae bands and singing waiters? Carnival. String quartets and serene service? Cunard.

Do you want new and flashy? As a rule, "short cruises [three to five days] are on older, less desirable ships," says Paul Motter, publisher and president of CruiseMates.com, an online community for cruise news and reviews. "To get to the newer, flashier ships you need to invest seven days." The ideal length depends on the destination. "Seven days in the Caribbean is enough," he says, but plan on at least 10 to 14 days in Europe.

A couple or a single looking for maximum adventure and minimal frill might consider a river cruise, a small ship coastal cruise or perhaps a tall sailing ship.

And for families? "The big ships have facilities for children that probably will keep them occupied without their going out and spending extra money," says Douglas Ward, author of Berlitz's "Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships 2009" and Insight Guides' "Cruising: All Questions Answered." "The ship that does that best is Disney. And Holland America's newer ships are very good."

Decide whether you want a ship experience or a destination experience
If it's the ship experience -- that is, long stretches of days at sea -- consider an Atlantic or Pacific crossing or a repositioning cruise. Otherwise, think the Caribbean, Alaska, the Mediterranean or Mexico.

"Celebrity and Cunard are ship experiences," Motter says, noting that the lines generally offer more at-sea days filled with onboard activities. By contrast, Oceania Cruises, a premium line whose ships sail worldwide, and Carnival are more focused on destination experiences and include lots of ports.

Consider using a travel agent
"Going to a specialized travel agent will save you lots of heartaches," Ward says. "They can get you deals that are not advertised on the Internet." And their expertise can keep you from ending up surrounded by cruisers chanting "To-ga! To-ga!"

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Choose your perfect cruise

How to find the trip that floats your boat
msnbc Travel

By Adam McCulloch

updated 11:19 a.m. ET Sept. 26, 2008
“Cruise ships used to be for the newlywed or nearly dead,” quips Carolyn Spencer-Brown, Editor in Chief of Cruisecritic.com, an authority on the cruise ship industry. For years these floating clichés offered bingo, buffets and boredom in the form of shore excursions adhering to a well-trampled tourist trail. Now there’s a cruise to suit every demographic, from intellectuals to adrenaline junkies, princes to paupers and everyone in between.

There are cruises catering to those with religious and academic interests, for single travelers and families, gay travelers, wandering gourmands, adventurers and more.

In part, the renaissance of cruise vacations has been the result of vastly better boats. “Ships have become bigger and more contemporary,” says Spencer- Brown, “they have the same features as land resorts like fitness centers, movie theaters, great shopping and kids clubs.” An impressive 12.5 million people took a cruise in 2008—according to a report issued by the industry’s regulatory body Cruise Lines International Association (C.L.I.A.)—and a whopping 51 million Americans indicated that they were intending to take a cruise in the next three years. The big dilemma: which one to choose.

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