The first person whose great cruise plans crashed against the harsh waves of reality was Christopher Columbus. Being seduced by the colorful description of India’s rich gems and fragrant spices in advertising brochures, he jumped on the first ship and went on a cruise to its picturesque shores (hoping to have an interesting and entertaining vacation).
But either the skipper’s cards were pirated instead of licensed, or the magnetic storms disrupted the GPS navigator, or maybe Christopher Dominicovich himself confused the ships, but with a cruise a total epic file came out. And Christopher, so to speak, our Columbus had to spend his vacation not on the alluring shores of rich and civilized India, but in the impenetrable jungles of some third world banana republic, where there are many, many wild monkeys.
How not to be like Columbus and make the right choice of a cruise, in which reality coincides with your expectations?
The answer is at the same time as simple as scrambled eggs and as complicated as quantum mechanics for the humanities: understand what you exactly want and choose what suits your desires.
It sounds long, like the election promises of deputies, right? But we, unlike deputies, have a detailed program of what to do to raise Russia from its knees cruises didn’t disappoint.
7 simple steps for choosing a cruise:
1. clearly formulate your wishes for the holidays;
2. study what cruise companies offer;
3. match your expectations with the realities of cruise offers;
4. choose the cruise company that suits you best;
5. select the region, date and duration of the cruise, estimate your budget;
6. determine the type of cabin on the ship;
7. pick up a cruise and flight;
1. We formulate wishes and set goals.
At first, it’s not so easy to decide on your requirements for rest: you want a lot and everything. But at the same time to look at the penguins and to sunbathe on the beach will not work, therefore it is very IMPORTANT to separate the flies from the cutlets and the priority desires from the secondary ones.
To make it easier for you to get started, we have made for you a special «Wishcometer» sign: in it you can evaluate your needs and understand what you want most on a cruise.
It is quite easy to use. In the first column we collected the most common requirements and criteria for the selection of tourists (entertainment, food, parties, etc.). In the second, you need to evaluate how important this or that parameter is for you on a 4-point scale: “I don’t want,” “not necessarily”, “it would be nice” and “I don’t want to” (you can think up your gradation, we don’t mind) .
For example, a wish list of a young couple with a 5 year old child might look like this:
Try to determine as precisely as possible, because in order to try everything and immediately you will have to book several cruises, a length of several years. Then you simply delete from the list everything that got into the column «I do not want» and «not necessarily.»
In our example it turned out like this:
As you can see, of the 14 desires, only 5 remain. It is already easier to decide, right?
2. Изучаем предложения круизных компаний.
Next we need to choose a cruise company that matches our style of rest. How to do it? See our analysis of cruise companies by their specializations «How to choose a cruise company for yourself.»
Yes, cruise companies have their own characteristics and specialization: some offer quiet and measured rest, others attract lovers of a healthy lifestyle and spa, others — unbridled fun and musical parties … There are even cruise companies specializing in holidays with children (such as Disney or Royal Caribbean) and vice versa — in the age category.
3. Compare your expectations with the proposals of the companies and select the appropriate one.
Well, you have read our review of cruise companies and now you know which one of them offers what we like most. It remains to add their names to the following table …
We have 14 on the list: Star Clippers, AIDA, MSC, Costa, NCL, Carnival, RCC, Disney, Celestyal, Regent Seven Seas, Crystal.
Lot? Do not worry, in the next step we will eliminate another part.
4. Determined with the budget.
With the budget, too, not everything is simple: there are many hidden fees on cruises that are not included in the price and are not indicated when booking. We strongly recommend at this stage to read our article «Hidden payments on cruises and how to deal with them.» And do not forget to take into account that most of the ports of departure of cruise liners are abroad, so when planning a budget for a cruise, consider the necessary expenses for the flight (by the way, they can be counted directly on our website).
Suppose that our family is not from the Rockefeller family, therefore the premium cruises from Star Clippers, Regent Seven Seas and Crystal fall away.
5. Select the region, date, duration of the cruise.
Not only the weather depends on the cruise itinerary, but also how your vacation will be. Cruises on the European coast involve a lot of excursions, a cruise to the Emirates is the sea, the sun and shopping, and a cruise to the Caribbean includes beaches, exotic and noisy parties. How to determine the region of navigation, see our review «Choosing a route and region of the cruise.»
6. Determine the cabin.
The cost of the same cruise may vary significantly, depending on the type of cabin. There are 4 main types of cabins in total:
1. Internal.
2. With a window.
3. Cabins with a balcony.
4. Suites.
You probably already guessed that the most expensive ones are luxury cabins, and the most budget ones are internal ones. In addition, there are various subclasses of cabins, and there are also enough nuances when choosing. To make the right choice of cabins: do not overpay, and do not feel uncomfortable during the cruise — read our guide on the choice of the cabin.
7. Choose a cruise.
Congratulations! So you got to the last step of the quest «Choose the cruise of your dreams.» After the cruise companies, dates, itinerary and amount you are ready to spend, it’s time to get down to the most interesting part — choosing the cruise itself. On the Cruiseradar.ru website, it is enough to enter all the initial data and get a selection of cruises that fit your interests: the region and route of the cruise, duration, budget, cruise companies and even specific liners.
In addition to the cruise itself, you can pick up a flight and a hotel to wait for boarding the liner. Most likely, it’s impossible to decide on a cruise in one day: there are still a lot of offers and it will take some time to get to know each of them in detail (visiting ports, cabins, sightseeing programs, etc.). And in order not to forget and not «lose» the necessary information about cruises, create a personal account and save your favorite offers to «Favorites.» Another advantage of a personal account is access to the hot offers of cruise companies 24/7.
