Also is pic rel accurate? Thinking about taking a cruise to go to places that are hard to get to by air
>>2890871All the “ultra luxury” ones are complete scams. With the prices you pay for them you could rent your own private yacht with crew
>>2890875>t. Someone who has never chartered a yacht for a week +The Ritz one is like $20k a week, you’re not chartering a crewed vessel for anything near that.
all of them are scammy you are better doing a land tourthe problem is you have to be with at least 100, if not thousands of other people, all of whom have to get off and on the ship at the same time, through security and customs, and who all want to see the same things at the same time. If you do a big ship, it will be crowded no matter what. Even 1000 people, a small ship is a ton of people if everyone wants to see a museum or a church. If you are rich I recommend trying the newest, smallest ships possible. But really you should just do land tours unless it's something like the Galapagos where it's an island chain or you specifically want a sailing/small boat experience. You simply don't get much time in port because if you book your own tours, you have to wait for all the cruise line tours to depart first before you can tender ashore.The least scammy cruiseline seems to be Swan Hellenic. Expensive, about 200 people per boat. Not a luxury ship, but not crude either. Good reviews. Theoretically British owner, I think it might be secretly owned by Russians who claimed to divest from it when the war with Ukraine started. You may be sharing the boat with Russian passengers, but that seems not so bad to me. Second best seems to be Atlas Ocean Voyages. Same deal, expensive, small ships, Portugese owned. Bad news: the owners are rude, they stay on the ships sometimes and are ill mannered and the staff ignores paying customers to dote on them, which doesn't bode well for management in general. Attracts lots of Chinese (not great, not considerate), esp if you go to "marquee" destinations like Antarctica. Ponant is nice but really expensive, French, tiny ships.
>>2890906They aren't really Ritz Carlton ships. The hotel company has nothing to do with the running of the ships. It's just intellectual property. It's run by Chinese businessmen through Genting corporation which used to have "Dream" cruises which ran basically gambling ships in international waters before covid. The reviews are horrendous, its a scam lol. >>2890875Explora (MSC cruises luxury division basically, smaller version of budget Italian megaships) is new and the least scammy of the bunch. Esp. if you have kids it's a good choice. It's 1000 people per ship, expensive, but not as much I think as Silversea or Seabourn. They are bigger than true luxury ships and the standard rooms are smol (mini-suite size) but its definitely the least bad of the luxury options. You should always check who ACTUALLY owns the cruise line you take. Norwegian is Jews (the richest Jewish woman in Israel is the wife of the guy who owns it I wanna say)carnival is jews royal caribbean is actually norwegians (funny, right?) tho they are scammy af just slightly less so than the other two european run cruises are the best of the bunchamerican cruise lines (well there's only one now) are horrendous because of port law they have to have american crews to sail only american ports so they hire blacks and the service is terrible and the boats are like cheap motels but you pay 10,000 for a week nonetheless. t. reads cruise critic weekly for fun since 2007
>>2890875You absolutely cannot charter a yacht for the price of those cruises.
>>2890927you can get a nice room on a yacht with 20 other people vs 2000
Anyone go on one of those 10 day luxury river cruises in china? TikTok makes them seen nice
>>2890912>t. neversailed
>>2890912>promoting non-American Uh no I'm not getting raped
>>2890912Megaships always have busy choke points (main buffet, main theatre) but as with every ship, it's all about passengers per sqm and passengers per staff.I went on the MSC Euribia and it was miserable. All the bars were way too small so you struggled to get a seat to relax and the buffet was hell on Earth. Did P&O Iona with a only slightly smaller ship but 1000 less passengers and it was night and day better, much less stressful and plenty of space to relax. Since I've been on those though there have been another 2 sizes above them. Would like to get on one of the Royal Carribean megaships but none of them sail from the UK and flying to somewhere is expensive and a hassle.
>>2890871where does>Quark Expeditionsfit on this scale?also>Lindblad Expeditionsis missingthey do the National Geographic expedition cruisesprobably both premium or luxury, but never been on any of the ones mentioned in your listyou missed all the actually cool cruise lines / brandsthese are just the boring oneswhen I go on a cruise I want to do something or go somewhere I couldn't without a boatotherwise just book a normal luxury resort or amusement parkwhy accept the disadvantages of a ship then?
