Ranking the Ships You've Sailed - Favorite to Least-Favorite

This is going to be very subjective; everybody likes something different. How do you rank the ships you've sailed?

Liberty of the Seas

Monarch of the Seas

Coral Princess

Mariner of the Seas

Radiance of the Seas

Carnival Victory

Carnival Destiny

Norwegian Sun** & Celebrity Mercury (too close to call for last place)

**Shout out to the NCL Sun for having far and away the best service and most hospitable crew of any cruise we've ever taken, though. :)

Can't do it. Each vacation/cruise has a mixture of 'what I liked about the ship' and 'what I liked about the ports'. The best time might have been had on the crappiest ship. EM

Great topic idea! Of course we all should explain why we rank them how we do.

Sapphire Princess: By far the most beautiful, best food, and no kids in hot tubs.

Volendam: Computer/camera class teacher and magician were great, the buffet table service was amazing, and the bathroom has a great shower.

Carnival Sensation: The entertainment was good but the food was not and there were kids everywhere. I liked dancing waiters and towel animals.

Best ship: Oceania's Riviera

Worst ship: One of the older NCL ships, don't remember the name

Best cruise: Aranui in French Polynesia, coolest itinerary

Worst cruise: NCL's drunken passengers

Best ports: almost all

Worst ports: Princess private island in the Bahamas and Cozumel, both too crowded and rather boring

Great topic idea! Of course we all should explain why we rank them how we do.

 

Sapphire Princess: By far the most beautiful, best food, and no kids in hot tubs.

 

Volendam: Computer/camera class teacher and magician were great, the buffet table service was amazing, and the bathroom has a great shower.

 

Carnival Sensation: The entertainment was good but the food was not and there were kids everywhere. I liked dancing waiters and towel animals.

You're so right...my answer to the original question was based on the ships themselves.

Best Itinerary/Worst Itinerary

Carnival Victory/NCL Sun

Best Service/Worst Service

NCL Sun/Mariner of the Seas

Best MDR Food/Worst MDR Food

Celebrity Mercury/Coral Princess

Best Buffet/Worst Buffet

Coral Princess/Carnival Victory

Best Entertainment/Worst Entertainment

Coral Princess tied with Liberty of the Seas/Carnival Victory tied with Carnival Destiny

Ranking of Overall Vacation Experience:

1. Carnival Victory (special Anniversary celebration and wonderful "bucket list" ports)
   
2. Monarch of the Seas - x2 (our first cruise and the ship always had a special place in our hearts; fantastic tablemates both times)
   
3. Liberty of the Seas (loved the WOW factor of the ship, the ports and had great weather)
   
4. Coral Princess (a special girls-trip with my sister; fabulous entertainment every night)
   
5. Mariner of the Seas (our first time to the Caribbean)
   
6. Celebrity Mercury (easy travel to port, great price and we did really fun excursions)
   
7. Radiance of the Seas (Alaska was not exactly a dream destination for us and we missed the cruise-y vibe)
   
8. NCL Sun (really boring ship, mundane ports, grumpy travel companions)
   
9. Carnival Destiny (bad food, bad entertainment, bad weather and propulsion system conked out)
   

Best : Disney Magic

Worst: NCL Spirit of America.

Best: Hebridean Princess

Worst: NCL Southward

Best to worst:

Sea Cloud II (Lindblad)

Orion (Lindblad)

Silhouette (Celebrity)

Star Princess (Princess)

The Lindblad cruises are so different from the main line cruises that it's pointless to rank them by itinerary.

My itinerary rankings:

Alaska on the Volendam

West Coast on the Sapphire

Not worth mentioning the other one because it was the Hurricane Sandy cruise.

We have been on more then 60 different cruise ships and it is really impossible to rank them fairly. The problem is that our ships have varied from under 300 persons (and we are not counting the 20 person yacht cruise) to over 3200. But DW and I will always think fondly of the long gone Sun Viking. We also liked the Marco Polo when she was with Orient Lines. And the old Prinsendam remains one of our favorites. So you can probably tell that we like the smaller ships. As to larger ships we love the Celebrity Solstice class and RCI Radiance Class (although we no longer cruise on RCI because of other issues. And the Grand Class Princess ships are also among the vessels that we really enjoy.

Hank

We have been on more then 60 different cruise ships and it is really impossible to rank them fairly. The problem is that our ships have varied from under 300 persons (and we are not counting the 20 person yacht cruise) to over 3200. But DW and I will always think fondly of the long gone Sun Viking. We also liked the Marco Polo when she was with Orient Lines. And the old Prinsendam remains one of our favorites. So you can probably tell that we like the smaller ships. As to larger ships we love the Celebrity Solstice class and RCI Radiance Class (although we no longer cruise on RCI because of other issues. And the Grand Class Princess ships are also among the vessels that we really enjoy.

Good point, but you can still have a favorite cruise line. Which one did you book the most cruises with?

Without a shadow of a doubt Pacific Princess is number one. For us she was just right, not too small not too large, also not for everyone.

Itinerary, well considering we've got our 6th booked to Tamania ...

But part of that is because we love Tassie and it is a shortish cruise 7 or 8 days as a rule so we can squeeze it in.

Ranging from Prinsendam down to Norwegian Sea.

Good point, but you can still have a favorite cruise line. Which one did you book the most cruises with?

Excellent question. We have been cruising for about forty years and the cruise industry has undergone massive changes in that time period. Our first cruise was on the Sunward II which was a 14,000 ton ship considered a normal size in those days. Our personal preference has changed for multiple reasons including changes in the cruise lines, our age, our ability to take longer cruises (60 days is nice for us now), budget and itinerary. So in the early days we wanted low cost cruises to the Caribbean. Now, we love doing long cruises so our taste has changed. When young our most cruises were with RCCL (now RCI). But in the past 15 years we have favored Celebrity, HAL, and Princess along with a few other smaller ship lines like Azamara.

These days we try to avoid anything shorter then 14 days and prefer cruises at least a month. Longer cruises have a totally different atmosphere then the typical 7 day cruise.

Hank

Love anything that is NOT Carnival....:eek:

My list would be too long and difficult to make, so I'll just name my favorite and least favorite.

Favorite: Tie between Allure of the Seas and Celebrity Solstice...for different reasons, of course.

Least Favorite: Norwegian Dawn

Disney Wonder

Golden Princess

HAL - Zaandam

Carnival Destiny

Big Red Boat

NCL Starward

My favorite itineraries were both in Alaska. On the Zaandam we did Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka and Victoria and on the Golden Princess we did Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway and Victoria.

Carnival Glory

Carnival Splendor

Carnival Pride

Carnival Elation

Carnival Victory

Carnival Magic

Carnival Miracle

Carnival Sensation

The only one I would not consider again is the Sensation. Note that we are now going to HAL. This is account itinerary and cost.

Best: Old Royal Princess

Worst: Carnival Fantasy

Best: Liberty of the Sea

Jewel of the Seas

Carnival Miracle

Norwegian Sky

Carnival Imagination

Worst: Carnival Glory. It was after sailing the Glory that I knew Carnival was not the line for me.

We enjoyed all our trips though :)

Just about the ship, my favorite is a toss up between Celebrity Solstice Class and RCI's Oasis and Quantum Class ships. I really can't decide which is my favorite.

My least favorite is easy. There's 2 of them. Carnival Destiny and NCL Pride of America. It comes as absolutely no surprise to me that the theme of least favorites so far on this thread are Carnival and NCL ships.

Have enjoyed all our cruises. our first was 1999 on RCI Enchantment of the Seas, we sailed RCI a few years later on Ryandam and it was ok. but not so good. Overall our number 1 is Holland America, feels more upmarket, better suite perks, food and service. Least favourite was Emerald princess, nice ship but smallish cabin and everywhere seemed overcrowded, never managed to get a seat in any of the bars. Sailed on Carnival a few years ago and enjoyed it, not many children and cabins are larger, trying them again this year because we wanted the Southern caribbean from Puerto Rico.

My Ratings

Holland America...Westerdam

Cunard.....Queen Mary

Carnival.....victory

RCI

Princess

Best was NCL Gem. Lots of fun and great staff and crew.

Worst: HAL Zaandam. Dark, depressing, worst food EVER, no AC in our cabin. Useless and unhelpful staff.

Lots in between.

So far, worst experiences on HAL dealing with staff when there have been issues. Best have been on RCI and Carnival. Gold star to Carnival for helping a group cruise that I was on - they helped several folks in the group and went above and beyond, long story, but the front desk staff were amazing.

Celebrity Zenith

Celebrity Horizon

Grand Princess

Explorer of the Seas

Carnival Fantasy (went on this when it was brand spanking new, largest at sea at the time)

NCL Gem

Carnival Fascination

SS Carnivale (1st cruise)

Celebrity Meridian (mainly due to age of the ship, was a great trip)

US Constitution (was a small old ship that sailed Hawaii until the late 90's, early 00's)

Have enjoyed all our cruises. our first was 1999 on RCI Enchantment of the Seas, we sailed RCI a few years later on Ryandam and it was ok. but not so good. Overall our number 1 is Holland America, feels more upmarket, better suite perks, food and service.

I think you mis-typed something here. Ryndam is a Holland America ship, not RCI.