Budget Travel: Magazine names best cruise lines

By Arthur Frommer

If you have ever been on a cruise, you have greatly affected the contents of your mailbox. Most of the cruise lines spend large sums buying the lists of cruise passengers, and for years to come, they will constantly send you colorful brochures asking you to book a cruise on one of their ships.

But which ship should you choose? All of the brochures seem alike, and all of them include praise for their food, service, itineraries, cabins and recreational features. And numerous travel journalists respond with articles praising a particular ship or ships above all others.

Of these many reports, the one issued each year by the magazine U.S. News and World Report seems, to me, the most authoritative and best supported by the judgments of multiple experts. Here’s what it has currently chosen as the best cruise lines for people in various categories:

Best cruise ship supplying value for money spent: Celebrity Cruises, a line of 10 fairly large ships carrying between 2,000-3,000 passengers apiece. Though Celebrity charges slightly more than the mass-volume ships (Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSC and Norwegian), their cruise features (food, service, cabins, entertainment, extras), according to U.S. News, are well worth the extra outlay. Runner-up? Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.

Best cruise line for families: Disney cruises, even though Disney tends to charge more than others (and is not as suitable for teenagers). Runner-up, in second position: Royal Caribbean. In third position: Carnival Cruises.

Best for luxury cruises: Crystal Cruises, with its staff-to-passenger ratio of one to one; its nine restaurants per ship, its lectures on art and history; its language classes and computer-skills instruction — which all are complimentary. (Though the new Viking Cruises is seen as an eventual contender in this category, it is too new to be considered.) In second position: Regent Seven Seas. In third: Oceania Cruises.

Best line for cruising in various regions: Celebrity Cruises (for sailings in the Mediterranean, it supposedly is a better choice than costlier lines for that area). For cruising in the Caribbean: Disney Cruises once again!

And if your cruise plans are a year in the future, you might wait to book until U.S. News and World Report again publishes its choices in 2017.

— Arthur Frommer is the pioneering founder of the Frommer’s Travel Guide book series. He co-hosts the radio program, The Travel Show, with his travel correspondent daughter Pauline Frommer. Find more destinations online and read Arthur Frommer’s blog at frommers.com.