Just saw this on News Feed?

[asctony]

https://bestlifeonline.com/worst-cruise-line/

Didn't read it yet, but headline is totally wrong! JMHO 

[Reds4life]

Apparently the "Which?" website didn't rank Carnival?  Maybe the question mark after Which is appropriate because I have never heard of it. 

[xriva]

This was discussed on another board. All the major mass-market cruise lines were at the bottom, very small, exclusive cruise lines were at the top. So, they only interviewed people whose yachts were in the shop and had to take a ship. As I recall, the survey size was laughably small, as well. 

[SeaTheW0rld]

Can't compare luxury and value lines, except in a very broad sense.

[Omega1]

Which? is a well respected UK based, consumers' association - so no surprises you haven't heard of it. Their product testing of electrical appliances and general consumer products etc is excellent - not sure about their methodology for the cruise line survey, I've not read it.

https://www.which.co.uk/about-which/who-we-are

 

[XLVIII]

A little like saying the Rolls Royce is the best family car and the Toyota Corolla is the worst.  

[Host Jazzbeau]

I have lost respect for most 'consumer advocate' magazines.  The leading one in the US just did a long article about mattresses – which showed only that their engineers prefer foam mattresses that are as hard as possible.  If you know that you don't like that type, the article was completely useless.  They are so proud that they are 'unbiased' that they can't see their very strong biases.

[CGTNORMANDIE]

9 hours ago, XLVIII said:

A little like saying the Rolls Royce is the best family car and the Toyota Corolla is the worst.  

 

Spot on...comparing  luxury lines in the same “survey” exposes this article for what it is.  Just another attempt to write about cruising by alleged journalists who know nothing about their subject and have no clue how to properly research it.

[neptuno]

We as a family came back to MSC for the value.  Having said that, it was MSC that introduced our family to cruising. "Kids Sail Free" caught my eye.  However, you pay for what you get, (if you are astute).

[diesel1973]

After my cruise experience with MSC I think the article is spot on!

[asctony]

22 minutes ago, diesel1973 said:

After my cruise experience with MSC I think the article is spot on!

What was wrong/ bad with your cruise? We'r should like to hear your side. 

Thank you! 

[Omega1]

I have just read the report on the Which? website. It is the outcome of an annual survey, which they state is statistically valid - interestingly some categories for some cruise lines were not included because they were not statistically valid. As others have said it’s not surprising that certain cruise lines come out on top, but what surprised me was that MSC was so far behind other ‘mass market’ cruise lines in overall satisfaction.

[diesel1973]

8 minutes ago, asctony said:

What was wrong/ bad with your cruise? We'r should like to hear your side. 

Thank you! 

I have done numerous posts on this site about all the problems I had on my cruise on the Seaside. The only thing they have going for them is it is a beautiful ship. Everything else is either bad or terrible. One and done!

[asctony]

47 minutes ago, diesel1973 said:

I have done numerous posts on this site about all the problems I had on my cruise on the Seaside. The only thing they have going for them is it is a beautiful ship. Everything else is either bad or terrible. One and done!

I will search for them. Thanks!

We were on the Seaside in Nov 2018 and the only real complaint we had was the food was OK. Never hot regardless of being in the MDR or Buffet. Other than that we do like MSC as they provide just a little different cruise. In fact, we are back on the Seaside in Nov 2019, then Ballissami Mar 2020.

[Hlitner]

Interesting article.   The problem with surveys is that the result is driven by the selection of the consumers.  Consider MSC.  Suppose you survey 100 cruisers, all of whom were booked into the Bella or Fantastica Experience.  You would get a certain result.  But choose 100 from the Yacht Club and Aurea Experience and you would likely get an entirely different result.  We cruised the Divina in the YC and loved it (and booked another YC cruise).  But DW and I realized that on MSC we would likely not be happy in anything but the YC.  Saga and Hurtigruten (neither well known in North America) are an entirely different product with a higher price point.  We have a lot of cruise experience (over 1000 days on 15 lines) and do not think there is anyway to compare a mass market cruise line to a more expensive higher-end line.  MSC is somewhat unique (along with NCL and Cunard) with their ship within a ship YC!  

 

Personally, with over forty years of extensive cruising experience we would generally agree with the basic statement that a cruise on a ultra-luxury small ship line is going to be a more satisfying product then a cruise on a crowded mass market line.  But those small ship lines might cost you $500 - $1000+ per passenger day...as compared to under $200 a passenger day for a mass market line.  Hard to compare value.

 

Hank 

[deliver42]

I've been on MSC twice, and couldn't disagree more. I've never been pressured to purchase anything. The only thing I do agree with is the confusion of drink pkgs. Both cruises were excellent in my opinion.

[Markanddonna]

What a trashy article.  Maybe I should start a consumer group and write silly articles like this. We always need to be aware of the evaluator's or author's situation. Apples to oranges for sure!

[uberdentraum]

In 2018 the cruisers were more than 27.000.000. Interviewing a number of 2500 is simply not representative, and even less representative for big cruise lines. 20 companies/2500 interviews means 125 interviews per company. MSC fleet consists of 18 ship, so just 7 passengers have been interviewed for each ship, in a whole year. The result is obviously a fortuity. This is not statistics, this is marketing. Sorry for my bad english. 

Edited March 3, 2019 by uberdentraum

[Skier52]

As a Brit I have a reasonable knowledge of WHICH magazine. it attracts a certain type of person to it's readership

. Certainly doesn't appeal to  a wide spread of the UK population, so in itself the people who answer the surveys, who are all subscribers to WHICH , are a selected and biased sample , by virtue of being active subscribers . So no wonder you get a skewed poll, with anomalous results. Certainly the demographics of  MSC guests are unlikely to fit with the demographics of a WHICH subscriber.

 

Just my opinion on why some  WHICH reports are biased . but for everyday items like electrical items give some good surveys with useful comparisons, but cruising is not a good topic for them to tackle.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Skier52