Cruising Magazines?

[wezie]

Hi. I was looking to subscribe to a good cruising magazine. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[AdrenalineRush]

Many like Porthole magazine.

 

http://www.porthole.com/

[092306]

Porthole and Cruise Travel are both good. Cruise Travel tends to have more articles and info about the industry overall, but Porthole usually does a nice feature in each issue on one particular ship.

[CascaisCruiser]

I'll second Cruise Travel. It's full of great and interesting information.

[lsbgvaguy]

We get both Cruise Travel and Porthole and really like them both.

[My4Grandsons]

I too get both magazines. I have been reading Cruise Travel since its beginning.

[sail7seas]

We got Cruise Travel for years and finally let our subscription run out. The magazine got thinner and there got so there were so many ads, there was hardly anything to read. It seemed they 'recycled' the same story topics again and again and I got bored with it.

 

If folks are saying good things about it, maybe we'll give it another try. :)

[Erik101]

We got Cruise Travel for years and finally let our subscription run out. The magazine got thinner and there got so there were so many ads, there was hardly anything to read. It seemed they 'recycled' the same story topics again and again and I got bored with it.

 

If folks are saying good things about it, maybe we'll give it another try. :)

 

I've read a couple of Porthole magazines and I've found more info on cruise critic than the magazine. You are right! There are a bunch of ads and even though CC has them, I find it easier to ignore the ads online.

[Keith1010]

I used to get each of the magazines that people mentioned.

 

I cancelled both.

 

I found their reviews to only highlight the positives and while I am one of the most positive people you will meet I didn't get much from the write ups.

 

I truly believe you can get much more valuable information from Cruise Critic and from other sites on the internet.

 

Now, a book I can recommend that to me is the encyclopedia of all cruise books is the annual book (2013 will be out soon) on Cruising and Cruise Ships written by Douglas Ward and published by Berlitz. I would put my money there and not on the magazines that have been mentioned.

 

Keith

[Krazy Kruizers]

We used to get Cruise Travel, Porthole and World Ocean & Cruise News.

We have let all subscriptions go.

Port hole had too many advertisements.

Cruise Travel years ago was very thick -- lots of articles. Now I can read it in a couple of hours.

World Ocean and Cruise News -- the material was already old by the time we got it.

Lots more information here.

[RWolver672]

I would definately stay away from Conde Nast. They don't even mention Carnival in their articles. Too snobbish.

 

I like Budget Travel. It spotlights a different ship each time it comes out. There's plenty of pictures of the ship and even has a deck plan. Lots of nice articles about the ports of call.

[Bookish Angel]

but Conde Nast Traveler is a good travel magazine that give lots of good destination info as I overwhelmingly choose new destinations over ship 99% of the time. Also, if you are cruisng for only part of your vacation, you will get good info about places cruise ships don't go.

 

National Geographic is another magazine that highlights destinations. Once you have decided on a destination you can find out if a cruise can be part of the trip.

[paul929207]

Like many of the above, I used to take Cruise Travel, but dropped it. There was very little I cared about that was not on these boards months before it showed up in the magazine. I guess much of their problem is the frequency you get their info. It is published every other month. So some of the info is a minimum of 2 months old.

[sail7seas]

I used to get each of the magazines that people mentioned.

 

I cancelled both.

 

I found their reviews to only highlight the positives and while I am one of the most positive people you will meet I didn't get much from the write ups.

 

I truly believe you can get much more valuable information from Cruise Critic and from other sites on the internet.

 

Now, a book I can recommend that to me is the encyclopedia of all cruise books is the annual book (2013 will be out soon) on Cruising and Cruise Ships written by Douglas Ward and published by Berlitz. I would put my money there and not on the magazines that have been mentioned.

 

Keith

 

The last few times I looked at Berlitz, I found some of the information was woefully out of date. Maybe I just happened upon the few things that weren't updated but it turned me off.

 

[Keith1010]

The last few times I looked at Berlitz, I found some of the information was woefully out of date. Maybe I just happened upon the few things that weren't updated but it turned me off.

 

 

I've been using the books for well over 20 years and find them a great source of information.

 

Sure the challenge is you don't update them the day you go to print so some of the narratives might not be 100% up to date but to me it is one source that you can quickly get a nice overview of just about every cruise ship.

 

Nothing is perfect but I think they do a very nice job.

 

Keith

[shipgeeks]

Power Ships, published by the Steamship Historical Society of America, is very good if you have an interest in the history of ships, as well as current worldwide cruiseship information. It is not intended as a resource for choosing a cruise, but is nonetheless, very informative and interesting.

[rkacruiser]

I subscribe to Ocean and Cruise News, Cruise Travel, and Porthole and find them informative in their own way. For more behind the scenes information and industry news, Cruise Industry News is hard to beat, I think. Captain Hans Mateboer, a HAL Captain and, I think, one of the current Masters of the Noordam, writes an entertaining article for the magazine. His past articles form the basis for his book, The Captain's Log.

[sail7seas]

I'm thinking about a subscription to Cruise Industry News. I think that could be interesting reading.

 

I see the one mention of it above......

Anyone else subscribe to it?

 

[sjcruiser]

Cruise Travel and Porthole have turned mainly into advertisements, so I stopped subscribing. You can get more information from cruise critic and also Travel Weekly.

[Cruisin' Chick]

I too had subscribed to Cruise Travel and then let my subscription lapse. It sometimes had some features on new ships, but most of the time it seemed too thin on real info and the cruise calendar seemed inadequate or out of date (and besides, one can find more up to date info online). Porthole seemed too expensive. When Borders was still open, I would check their magazine racks to see if there was a copy of the magazine that I could flick through. But it was usually not compelling enough to buy.

 

The Berlitz book struck me as being on the snobby side.

 

I do like the Budget Travel magazine, even though I let that subscription lapse too, because I don't do enough regular travel to really benefit from the info.

[wrigley80]

I can't find Porthole magazine anywhere.....in book stores, on my Nook Color, or on my iPhone. Is that magazine still published??? :confused: :confused: :confused:

[TeaBag]

I dropped Cruise Travel too because I found Cruise Critic to contain lots of the info I need. In fact, I just put about 10 years of the magazines in the recycling bin this week.

[paul929207]

I can't find Porthole magazine anywhere.....in book stores, on my Nook Color, or on my iPhone. Is that magazine still published??? :confused: :confused: :confused:

Here is their website

 

http://www.porthole.com/

[sail7seas]

Now that you mention it, I don't usually see Porthole at a newstand I visit from time to time.