CRUISE VACATIONS

Vacation cruises have seen rapid growth in recent years. People enjoy waking up to a new port-of-call adventure every day, without having to unpack and move all their belongings. New ships offer roomy accommodations, a feast of food options, and shipboard activities that boggle the mind. Indeed, many vacation cruise ships now are full-fledged vacation destinations all by themselves.

To be sure, the increased popularity of vacation cruises is also due in part to better affordability. Lower costs for cruises, and the all-inclusive nature of many cruise programs, prove an attractive option for many vacationers.

The internet is, of course, part of the reason for that affordability. Booking a cruise online can save you hundreds of dollars over traditional booking methods. When reviewing cruise booking sites, the following traits should factor prominently in your consideration:

•  Selection.  What good is a cruise booking site if it only gives you a few options? You want to see and compare the greatest number of destinations and cruise lines possible.

•  Cost.  One big reason for booking a cruise online is to save money. You want a site that reliably gives the best deals.

•  Information.  You may want to research the shipboard amenities, port of call excursions, or read other customer's reviews before booking a cruise. The best cruise sites give you this information and more.

TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best sites for booking your cruise online. We hope you find these reviews helpful in planning your next vacation!

 

As the name implies, this website only offers cruises - and does so better than any other site reviewed. In focusing on that narrow potential customer base, CruisesOnly.com surpasses those vacation sites which try to be all things to all people. Ease of use, low prices, and best guarantee combine to give this site our highest cruise vacation rating.

CruisesOnly.com is well-thought out, and its attractive page layout is easy to navigate. This site was rated in the top 35 best travel sites by Travel and Leisure magazine. They offer a 110 percent best price guarantee, matching the best we've seen. They also allow for quick "special interest" cruise searches, such as those for families and large groups.

You can search for available cruises by activities and by specific cruise line, but we loved the destination search - a map of the world appears and you can click where on the map you want to sail. A large number of cruise lines (17) and ships (over 130) are supported, including big-name cruise lines such as Carnival and Disney, as well as lesser known lines such as Seabourn and MSC.

Booking a cruise is easily accomplished, with a clear walk-though of the entire process. And if you are traveling with children or folks older than 55, you get immediate notification of whether the cruise line offers discounts for those passengers. Cruise lines that offer gifts and other promotions are clearly displayed as well.

We also liked some of the navigational features on the CruisesOnly.com website. One unique aspect to the site is that, when clicking on some of the hyperlinks, instead of loading a brand new page, a pop-up window appears. This allows shorter notes to be displayed, read, and closed without the hassle of having to click on a hyperlink, hit your "back" button and wait for the page to reload. We also liked that you can hover over the menu items at the top of the pages and select from there instead of having to bring another page up and then make your selection.

Customer service is 24-7 and were very responsive to both phone and email questions. Make sure you visit the website first and include the offer code indicated at the top of the webpage with your correspondence; this ensures you get the best possible price in case you end up booking with the agent. Cancellations are available but vary based on cruise line and type of cruise booked.

CruisesOnly.com does everything we want a cruise vacation website to do. Ease of navigation, low prices, and knowledgeable support give this site our highest rating.

 

Like most travel sites, VacationOutlet.com packs a lot of information, but we found it easy to navigate through to what we wanted. The search buttons are on the top left hand side, which is the first place most people look when reading, and that location is a nice change from some other sites we visited which bury the Search function at the bottom of the page.

You can search for eligible cruises by activities, specific cruise line, or destination map. The destination map works just like the one provided in our top-ranked site. By including other vacations on their site, there is an added bonus - the ability to shop for airfares to and from your port of call. VacationOutlet.com offers a large selection of cruise lines (both big and small), as well as ships. Once you decide on your cruise line, you are presented with a listing of all the ships available. You can read ship reviews and specifications, and can search/sort with a variety of options.

A detailed FAQ assists shoppers with answers to many questions that can arise before booking a cruise. Free gifts and promotions offered by the cruise lines are clearly stated when shopping, and VacationOutlet.com offers a best price guarantee - if you purchase a cruise from them, and find a better price elsewhere for the same ship, sailing dates, and stateroom category, they'll refund 100 percent of your money. Shoppers can email or call VacationOutlet.com 24 x 7, but to ensure you get the best possible price for your cruise, you'll want to visit the website first and jot down the offer code indicated at the top of the webpage.

VacationOutlet.com provides good information, low prices, and simple navigational structure. These have combined to give this site one of our highest scores.

 

Travelocity.com's cruise area is intuitive, easy to navigate, and walks you through the myriad of questions that need answers when deciding on a cruise. For example, you'll need to know when you want to leave and where you want to go. To facilitate this, Travelocity.com offers a map with all the destinations clearly marked. Click on Mexican Riviera, for example, and you're whisked away to a page that lists the Ports of Call and the departure ports for cruises that sail there. A very handy matrix lists cruise lines and the months that they sail to each destination. No more wandering around a site and clicking on a cruise line only to discover that they don't sail where or when you want to go. You can also take a "snapshot" of your cruise destination - making it very easy to decide whether a "lively nightlife" is really what you want.

Travelocity.com allows you to search by destination, cruise line, top deals, and even by ship. When you choose Ship Finder, you see a matrix which lists the ships, (more than 100) and the cruise lines (13) - a few less choices than our top-ranked selections. The matrix shows helpful information such as Cruise Critic Rating, Services Entry Date (when the ship took its first trip), number of swimming pools, how many internet cafes and theaters there are, and so on. You can also drill down deeper into each ship's offerings. One feature we would like to see on this page is the ability to display and sort the shipboard activities that are offered. Perhaps you won't sail without a casino but couldn't care less about an internet café? Unfortunately, you have to spend extra time weeding out the ships that don't have the amenities you want. For support, customers can call Travelocity.com 24 x 7.

Travelocity.com advertises their catch-phrase very prominently -- "You'll Never Roam Alone." One of the best parts about using Travelocity.com is their name-recognition -when a cruise line gets a call from an irate passenger who got an interior room instead of a window-view, there is a lot of clout behind the company. Their dependability, support, and affordable prices make Travelocity.com one of our top selections.

 

Forbes rated Priceline.com as one of the best travel sites for 2006, saying that Priceline.com is the best place to get a luxury hotel inexpensively. And although hotels are not what we need when booking a cruise, we hoped that the good vibes from Forbes would pass over to their cruise area.

We were not disappointed. The destination search, cruise line search and last-minute cruise search were all easy to use and similar to our other top-ranked sites. The 110% best price guarantee is also a welcome feature, but also matched by our top-ranked selection CruisesOnly.com. The most distinguishing feature about this site is that if you already know what cruise line you want to take -- say Carnival, for example -- you can see immediately from the main page if Carnival is offering any deals, such as free upgrades. Other sites require you to drill down much further before you get this information.

Unfortunately there is no direct way to get to "special interest" cruises if you have a particular type in mind. The Customer Service area has a familiar setup as with our other top-ranked cruise vacations - again, makes sure you jot down the offer code. The FAQ section displays good, if not general information. Cancellations are available but vary based on cruise line and type of cruise you booked.

Another plus for Priceline.com is that making air reservations to get to the cruise is easy since you're already at a full-featured travel site. This holds true for hotels as well - if you want to stay in your home port before or after you sail.

The convenience that a full travel site brings, plus Priceline.com's legendary affordability, make this a very strong offering.

 

eCruises.com is better looking than some of our other entries in cruise line vacation sites, in spite of our initial impression that it was a step above fly-by-night. However, we became more impressed as our research continued. Searching for a cruise was painless, if uninspiring. Enter your sailing date (month only) and destination, along with various other optional parameters to view your results. We chose "Mexico" in August. A list of cruises appears, grouped by line and ship. Selecting the itinerary is simple, based on date and price. Any promotions that the cruise line offers are prominently displayed. One click on the ship's name loads another page chock-full of information about the shipboard amenities. A handy sidebar lists everything we'd ever need to know about the ship, including items sometimes missed by other sites -- dress code, tipping percent, and one we especially liked - ship stability rating. You can also find Hot Deals and Last Minute Deals easily on the home page. And what if you decide that taking a cruise is not your cup of tea? eCruises.com also allows vacation package bookings and airline reservations.

It's here that eCruises.com starts to slide in quality and professionalism. When booking a cruise, you'll invariably need to book a flight to your port of departure. While handy to have this ability on the site, the flight search was clunky. We searched for a flight from Kansas City to Miami, leaving the default dates in the calendar. We typed in both city names. The search recognized Kansas City as being the departure city, but then listed 8 or 9 airports "within an 80 mile radius." That's great, but one location was Asheville Municipal Airport in North Carolina, listed at only 53 miles away, and Portland International Airport at just 27 miles away. The destination search returned similar results - all of a sudden, the National Airport in Brussels, Belgium has become 76 miles away from Miami! Searching with the 3-letter airport codes worked fine, and luckily, eCruises.com has a selection tool to find your particular code. The FAQ area is adequate. The Contact Us link is buried with many other options on the left side of the page. You can call for "advice" during certain set hours. No guarantee is advertised.

Although eCruises.com offers good information on cruises and ships, it falls down when using its other travel-related features. For booking your vacation package, we recommend one of our top-ranked sites.

 

LastMinuteTravel.com boasts that it's claim to fame is booking and getting great prices at the last minute. However, when we compared their cruise prices with top-rated CruisesOnly (same ship, same itinerary, same timeframe), we discovered that LastMinuteTravel.com was higher by $80 for the interior cabin and $50 for the oceanview. Suite prices were exactly the same. Priceline and Vacation Outlet had the same prices as CruisesOnly.com.

OK, we thought, so maybe this isn't the best place to get a great deal on a cruise. After all, every site we visited had a heading for "Last Minute Deals" or something similar. So for grins, we tried comparing airfares. The criteria was a next day flight (you can't get anymore last minute than that!) flight from various cities across the country. Priceline consistently found cheaper airline flights, averaging $86 less. And even when comparing the same flight - airline and destination - Priceline was, on average, $60 less expensive.

So we ask you: If you don't get the best prices on cruises at LastMinuteTravel.com, and you don't get the best price on airfare at LastMinuteTravel.com, then why should you bother going there?

 

When we first encountered 4Cruises.com, we hoped that great prices would overcome a confusing and frustrating website. Unfortunately, our frustration only mounted because - try as we might, we couldn't get any exact prices. You cannot get dates for your trip and an exact price unless you submit your name, address, phone number, and other personal information for a No Obligation Quote. But when we tried to fill in a field, which was supposed to be a drop-down for the cabin type, the drop down didn't work. Furthermore, we had to enter the departure city, which we had to go elsewhere to find. Worse still, we had to have the exact date we wanted to cruise in mm/dd/yyyy format - and again, we had to know exactly which cruise we wanted.

This site is not for the casual browser or for doing research - you can't get any specific answers without submitting a "form". Amusingly, 4Cruises.com promotes itself on its site by saying, "No more endless frustrating searches on the Internet. You'll find everything you're looking for right here. Our experts gather the best offers from the top cruise lines as soon as they arrive. These specials are then placed directly on our website - you see what we see." Regrettably, they must not get many questions, because there is no FAQ page. We also couldn't find a way to get in touch with customer service either.

Interestingly, if there is one redeeming aspect of the 4Cruises.com site, it lies in a simplified navigational structure. On the home page there are tabs that have the names of the most popular cruise lines. Click on the cruise line you want, and you get a long list of available cruises. This feature is handy if you know exactly the trip you want to take.

Sadly, 4Cruises.com was an exercise in frustration. If you don't know what you want, exactly where you want go, and when you want to go, this site is not for you. There are far better alternatives available.