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New Cruisers Tip #7: Ship Size
By Dave | June 26, 2008
As a new cruiser, you might think all ships are about the same. That’s not the case though. Cruise ships come in many different sizes. And those different sizes correlate with different atmospheres onboard. Cruise ships can be relatively small (<50,000 gross tons) to huge (>150,000 GT). There are many in between as well.
The basic rule of thumb is this: the smaller the ship, the more intimate the atmosphere. You don’t have to take “intimiate” in a romantic sense, although you can. By intimate, that means there will obviously be less guests on board, which means smaller venues onboard, shorter lines overall, and a greater chance of you seeing someone quite often throughout the ship. If you’re on Carnival’s 46,000 GT Holiday (their oldest still-active ship by the way), you’ll experience something completely different than if you were to travel on Royal Caribbean’s upcoming 200,000+ GT Oasis of the Seas.
Each size ship has its pros and cons. A smaller ship, as I mentioned, is more intimate. However, a smaller ship will typically have a lot less to do. Don’t expect to find 5 different restaurants or the latest and greatest at-sea amenities. This leads me to my next point. Typically — although certainly not always — the smaller a ship is, the older it is, as compared to other ships within the same company. So RCCL’s Sovereign of the Seas is smaller and older than Voyager of the Seas, which is smaller and older than Freedom of the Seas. See the relationship between age and size? However, this is not always applicable. For example, Carnival’s Spirit-class is newer than the Destiny-class, yet they are smaller than the Destiny-class of ships. That would be the exception though, not the rule.
Anyway, larger ships have their pros and cons as well. For starters, they have a lot more to do. If you’re interested in those “latest and greatest” features I mentioned earlier, take a look a larger ship. However, you might have to wait in much longer lines to get to those cool areas. That’s the downside to larger ships. There are a lot more people on them. Let’s take embarkation for example. The line at embarkation for a smaller ship might only consist of less than 1,500 people. You might say that’s a lot. Well that’s true. It is a lot. But not compared to a larger cruise ship with nearly 4,000 passengers (or more!). See what I’m saying?
When booking a cruise, you not only need to consider which line to choose, or where to go, but the ship you want to travel on. Not all ships are created equally.
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Topics: Tips for New Cruisers |