Cruise line with most destinations?

[Arthur89]

Hi everyone,

 

I have been reading Cruise Critic boards for a while, and I registered to ask a general question concerning all cruise lines and destinations. (I saw no better category to fit the question; if there is, my apologies.)

 

So, as simple as the title suggests, which cruise line sails the most destinations? Silversea's webpage says they sail to over 900 destinations, does any other best that? Wonder if Viking might, counting River, Ocean and Expedition cruises. Does not seem that easy to find an answer, as obviously each liner will not tell you how many the others sail to, and many do not even tell you how many they sail to.

 

Thanks!

[zqvol]

Most of the luxury lines sail to as many destinations as Silversea. The mass market lines are no where near those numbers because their ships are simply too big to fit in the places the small luxury ships can go.

[CruiserBruce]

31 minutes ago, zqvol said:

Most of the luxury lines sail to as many destinations as Silversea. The mass market lines are no where near those numbers because their ships are simply too big to fit in the places the small luxury ships can go.

While I agree with the ideas expressed here, first, I always take these sort of claims with a grain of salt. After all, who is going to count them?

 

And yes, luxury cruise lines can go to ports that mass market lines usually can't, and that is a definite plus. But how often do they go? Some of those "900 ports" they might only visit once a year, or every other year, or something like that. Or, have they only visited a given port once, and they put the notch on their belt. So if you want to a port intensive cruise in a given area, they might only hit that area once in a while, and if you can't sail then, you are out of luck.

 

But for absolute variety in ports, luxury cruise lines are the way to go.

[LHT28]

many premium lines  seem to have more port intensive  cruise  as do the Luxury line

 Pick the ports you want to visit  & see who sails there

 

Keep in mind not every ship in the fleet will sail to all the posts listed 

[Aquahound]

I agree the smaller luxury lines probably have more destinations but like CruiserBruce said, with such small fleets, how often are they going to all those ports?

 

Among the larger cruise lines, it's been my impression that Holland America has the most interesting and varied itineraries.  

[Arthur89]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies.

 

HAL certainly has interesting itineraries, more so when it had Prinsendam.

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, Arthur89 said:

Hi everyone,

 

I have been reading Cruise Critic boards for a while, and I registered to ask a general question concerning all cruise lines and destinations. (I saw no better category to fit the question; if there is, my apologies.)

 

So, as simple as the title suggests, which cruise line sails the most destinations? Silversea's webpage says they sail to over 900 destinations, does any other best that? Wonder if Viking might, counting River, Ocean and Expedition cruises. Does not seem that easy to find an answer, as obviously each liner will not tell you how many the others sail to, and many do not even tell you how many they sail to.

 

Thanks!

 

Tough one to quantify, as most destinations could be individual ports, regions, etc. Comparing individual ports can also be misleading, as using both Greenwich and Tilbury provides 2 ports, when the primary attraction is London. This applies to numerous primary attractions around the World.

 

I agree with the previous responses that any of the Premium/Luxury Lines have a greater variety of itineraries than mass market Lines.

 

With respect to Viking, at present with 6 ocean ships, they offer comparable itineraries to the other small ship Lines. However, all ocean ships are of similar size, so can't access some of the really small ports. This will be rectified in 2022 with the launch of expedition cruises.

 

 

[calliopecruiser]

On 5/22/2020 at 11:25 AM, CruiserBruce said:

Some of those "900 ports" they might only visit once a year, or every other year, or something like that.

Right, so the question of "how many ports" is answered by 900, but the unasked question of "how many different ports a year" is a different question. 

 

Also, the number of ships comes in to question, as does ( I think) the length of their average cruise (since many ports are not close to others, and require longer cruises to reach). 

[FredT]

As someone who is fixated on cruise PORTS, (And unusual ones at that) ..... AND can not afford the "upscale" lines, I would say that HAL has by far the most varied and interesting itineraries of any of the mass market lines.  

 

BUT, always look around.  We just returned from a NCL cruise from Rome through the Mideast that was SPECTACULAR.  (The itinerary, NOT the cruise itself... NCL made that a mess) 

[navybankerteacher]

I would imagine that any given year different lines might offer more ports.  But how many ports do you think you are likely to hit on any particular cruise?  The thing is to look for a cruise that offers the itinerary most attractive to you -at the time you are actually thinking of cruising - anything else is just gathering statistics.

[FredT]

23 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

I would imagine that any given year different lines might offer more ports.  But how many ports do you think you are likely to hit on any particular cruise?  The thing is to look for a cruise that offers the itinerary most attractive to you -at the time you are actually thinking of cruising - anything else is just gathering statistics.

I will agree with that....  But add to the equation "Ports where you are the only ship IN port that day," and "ports where you are not going to be one of 100,000 tourists on that day" .   And yes, those two things ARE subjective.   I was just talking to a friend who took a Viking river cruise last year.   His lasting memory was of the ship being "rafted" with 4-5  other riverboats at a number of their stops.   (And people trooping over his stateroom every morning)