2015 Editors' Picks Awards: River Cruise Lines

[Lois R]

I love Newyorker fights.... have you been on many river cruises.

 

Nuetrality.... I love Switzerland. I can't imagine having no opiinon in WWII like they did, but still neutrality is awesome.

 

I am pretty sure the hosts here don't work for the cruiselines. In the case of most hosts, they are not even paid. They volunteer to keep the crazies from killing each other. Not sure that they are successful, but you have to give them credit for trying....

 

just saying. Could care less who wins these stupid paid for awards, but that is just me.

 

jc:D

 

You are correct, all the hosts are volunteers......and I thought there

are fights/arguments/disagreements on every forum:eek:..

[TrulyBlonde]

I love Newyorker fights.... have you been on many river cruises.

 

Nuetrality.... I love Switzerland. I can't imagine having no opiinon in WWII like they did, but still neutrality is awesome.

 

I am pretty sure the hosts here don't work for the cruiselines. In the case of most hosts, they are not even paid. They volunteer to keep the crazies from killing each other. Not sure that they are successful, but you have to give them credit for trying....

 

just saying. Could care less who wins these stupid paid for awards, but that is just me.

 

jc:D

 

Actually, I am not a NYC girl...Upstate NY lake home for Summer. CO is my main residence for skiing.

As for cruises...at least 20 of them including 2 river cruises. We are leaving for OZ and NZ next week on Celebrity for a month. 2016 is 2 Oceania and 1 Tauck river cruise. As I stated, we have tried many lines and yesterday booked a Silversea for British Isles in 2017. Variety is the spice of life and I personally could care less who wins these awards too.

I think it is great these "Hosts" provide valuable info for all of us on CC. It is too bad this Host feels a need to indirectly bash another cruise line especially since this is a River cruise board. Enough said.

[JVilleGal]

Humm I could do the bashing instead [emoji6] Seems I've done a pretty good job so far and give our Dear Host a break !

 

Really bottom line, all the info on this board is valuable! whether you're happy with your experience or not. Every cruisers great and bad experience arms us all with the skills to deal with the wild and crazy world of cruising.

 

If you go back over the last 3ish years on this board and river cruising as reported here, you will see darn near every company has had great things and awful things happen.

 

Can we now get back to our regular programming (Rain Dancers get to work). [emoji4]

[capriccio]

It is too bad this Host feels a need to indirectly bash another cruise line especially since this is a River cruise board. Enough said.

 

I didn't interpret Jazz's comments as bashing another cruise line (indirectly or directly) at all; it was a comment about Oceania's fervent cruise critic fans. We all know that each cruise line board has them.

 

The beauty of this board is that it covers lots of different lines and while experienced river cruisers have their favorites, we are exposed to the good (and bad) of all the lines. We even have a number of locals who chime in with invaluable help and have never (or infrequently) taken a river cruise. That is something that doesn't normally happen on a board just dedicated to a single line.

Edited October 9, 2015 by capriccio

[TrulyBlonde]

I personally thought it was an unnecessary comment and just reminded me of teenagers in middle school gossiping or standing in line at the market reading The National Enquirer. Petty and childish and of no value to this board.

[xpcdoojk]

I personally thought it was an unnecessary comment and just reminded me of teenagers in middle school gossiping or standing in line at the market reading The National Enquirer. Petty and childish and of no value to this board.

 

Nobody calls you the peace maker, I am guessing.:cool::D

 

Every cruiseline has semi professional supporters and detractors. You should see how the Carnivores, Royals, Princess and Norweenies fight... :D

 

Remember the hosts are just posters who volunteer their time. Some are pretty good a few are awful, Jazz after reading this forum the last couple of years I am giving two thumbs up to.:)

 

jc

[TrulyBlonde]

I agree and always thought most of Jazz info was interesting and helpful. I made it clear what I did not like.

[caviargal]

When they're not bashing newbies who have the temerity to not love Oceania, the Oceania regulars have been complaining about cutbacks among themselves.]

 

We loved our Oceania cruise and will very likely choose them for future ocean cruises, should we do any. But I do not like that board much at all. Too much arrogance and condescension to others who have the temerity to question/criticize anything about the line. Unfortunate, really.

 

IMO, hosts have zero responsibility to be neutral. They are unpaid volunteers and are IMO just as entitled to express their opinions as anyone else. As someone who is a host (or Destination Expert as their title goes) of multiple destinations on another popular travel site, I have always expressed my personal opinions and will continue to do so.

Edited October 9, 2015 by caviargal

[Got2Cruise]

I personally thought it was an unnecessary comment and just reminded me of teenagers in middle school gossiping or standing in line at the market reading The National Enquirer. Petty and childish and of no value to this board.

 

I did find the comment valuable when taken in the context that every year, the CC Editors post their choices, and every year, there are groups of cruisers unhappy with the choices. Last year, I recall that Viking was chosen as the Number 1 River Cruise Line overall . . . that didn't go over very well with some posters. . .Cruise Critic isn't "factual" it is more water cooler talk about cruises. I have been here since AOL days. . .that's how it is, and that is why we love it.

[DrivesLikeMario]

Does anyone really choose a cruise line based on these slanted awards? :confused: They're all biased simply by their nature. They hit TAs and past cruisers up really hard. Even today, I received a request to vote for a particular cruise line and for voting for said cruise line, I'd be entered to win $100. :rolleyes:

 

I purposely never vote in any of these so-called contests. I hold so little stock in them, that it's just not worth my time.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Does anyone really choose a cruise line based on these slanted awards? :confused: They're all biased simply by their nature. They hit TAs and past cruisers up really hard. Even today, I received a request to vote for a particular cruise line and for voting for said cruise line, I'd be entered to win $100. :rolleyes:

 

I purposely never vote in any of these so-called contests. I hold so little stock in them, that it's just not worth my time.

 

This may not change your opinion, but this particular poll was NOT open to cruisers [or, as I pointed out in my original post, to Hosts] -- it was strictly the full-time Cruise Critic Editors, as explained in the Oceania forum:

 

Hello, I just want you to know that Cruise Critic editors take the time to read the boards when we can, and I felt it was important to clarify here how the awards are determined. Our staff of editors sits in a room and discusses our experiences from the past year sailing onboard these ships and based upon that discussion, we determine the year's winners. We try to be as objective as possible based on our collective experience, but as was mentioned before, we are a small group of human beings with unique opinions and biases. Unfortunately, it's not physically or logistically possible for every single staff member to sail onboard every single ship out there, so we pool our overall experience as an editorial staff when making these decisions to the best of our ability. They are not influenced by cruise lines, advertisers or a political agenda.

 

We appreciate healthy discussion by our members, and acknowledge that everyone's opinions differ and those might be different than our picks this year. I just hope this clarifies that the decision was ours and ours alone.

 

All the best,

 

~Brittany Chrusciel, Associate Editor, Cruise Critic

 

IMHO the analogy should be to the annual Automobile Magazine "10-best" issue. You may or may not care what their editors think, but that issue does seem to sell very well.