Article by Thom Sanders

It’s a problem many people face when choosing a cruise holiday, finding the perfect cruise ship. Choosing the right ship can be likened to a speed date, where you have a limited time to pick based on first appearances but you don’t really get to know them. In addition to this is the complication of picking the cruise destination and filtering out all of the miss matches between ship and destination can be a time consuming process.

In addition to those two choices you have the extra layer of cruise line advertisement to get through. Heavily promoted ships will appear before you first but it’s often worth digging deeper to find the right combination. The cruise lines will do their best to convince you that they offer everything you could possibly need but often it’s better to go for something that fits your particular niche. You can have a typical cruise on a general, more all purpose ship, or you could pick a more specialist ship that focuses on one or two areas. It’s worth doing the research though as all the ships have their own pros and cons, because of this it’s worth keeping these tips in mind:

First up is the importance of research. While it may not be obvious what niche a cruise line experience is going for there are some great ways to find out. Looking around for cruise adverts in glossy magazines and online, searching for reviews and checking out travel and cruise forms are all great ways to find out more information.

Once you’ve settled on the cruise line it’s time to start looking through their ships to decide which sounds like the best match for you. Ship amenities and personalities can vary a lot throughout the fleet. For example a Fred Olsen cruise is well known for it’s traditional cruise experience, intimate settings and onboard entertainment but some of their smaller ships, like the Braemar cruise ship, may not have the full range of entertainment that the larger ships can pack in, although this is compensated for by the fact that the smaller ship makes for a more intimate space.

The final tip is to make sure you match the ship with the destination. A small ship travelling around Alaska or the Mediterranean would make for a fantastic peaceful experience for a couple, but the same boat on a summer trip to America would be more family orientated and so might well feel cramped.

About the Author

Reader offers have an extensive range of Fred Olsen cruise adventures including their fantastic Braemar cruise ship.

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