Caribbean Cruises: Big cruise liners and luxury ships

Introduction

Cruise liners or Mega ships

The first mega ships started their journey in the 80’s. They are like small cities and can carry between 1550 to 3000 passengers. With their big size, they can offer more common space, and some has enough space to include a golf field or several pools. They are more affordable and offer easily some special fares at the beginning and the end of the high season. These big ships also have a better stability and those suffering from sea sickness will almost or not feel at all the rocking of the cruise liner. Moreover, it may take all your cruise length to discover all the ship’s corners and find your cabin easily; you may walk more than necessary at the beginning. However, these ships are so big that they cannot get close the some pretty harbour. In high season, many big cruise ships call the same ports, and you may find 3 to 4 ships at the same place for one day. The island will suddenly get overburden with close to 5000 tourists doing about the same excursions and that may create some traffic jump. The other disadvantage with the immense size is the delay in disembarking the ship. You cannot be in few minutes visiting an Island if 2000 people want to do the same as you. However, you are on vacations and not in a rush, you have therefore to integrate this coolness in your thinking as the Caribbean locals do it all their life long. 
There is a classification of the cruise liners, from 3 to 6 stars (or 2 to 5, depending on the guides). The ships are in fact of popular class, moderate, premium or deluxe. Some ships, like Princess Cruises, RCCL, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line) or Norwegian Cruise line (NCL) have ships in 3 and 4 stars. 2 stars are very seldom, Easy Cruise would be an example. Among the cruise ships companies offering the Caribbean destination, here are some we suggest:

****** Crystal and Regent Seven Seas Cruises

The Crystal Serenity and the Crystal Symphony are both super deluxe ships of approximately 1000 passengers each. One crew for about two guests is the ratio on these boats so you can be sure to get the attention you need at all times. Regent Seven Seas Cruises (RSSC) offers the Navigator, Mariner and the Voyager on its Caribbean Cruises. They are smaller ships, between 490 and 700 passengers and again there is a little more than one crew pour a couple. Here again, the staff will be responding to all your needs.

*****  Silversea Cruises
With the Wind, the Shadow, and seldom the Cloud, Silversea carry between 296 and 382 passengers and offer as well a ratio of almost one crew per passenger, proof of its luxury service.

*****  Seabourn Cruise Line
The Seabourn Pride and Legend are the two ships cruising the Caribbean. They are identical and carry 208 passengers.

***** SeaDream Yacht Club
2 Luxury ships, SeaDream I and II, sail from November through April the Caribbean from San Juan, Saint Thomas, Antigua and sometimes Miami  for scheduled 7-night itineraries and only for 55 pampered couple.

***/**** P & O Cruises
There are 6 ships with the venue of the Ventura in spring 2008. All the ships are quite big, between 1250 passengers capacity for the Artemis, the only ship especially reserved for adults, and 3574 passengers for the new Ventura, more family oriented. This English cruise line mainly sells to Great Britain.

**** Celebrity
Some of the ships of the celebrity fleet are the Celebrity, the century and the galaxy are less than 1900 passengers; they are issue from the old generation (in service in 1995 and 1997). The 3 other ones, The Constellation, the Millennium and the Summit are all part of the Millennium era and started in the years 2000 and up; they all have a capacity of more than 2000 passengers. The Azamara, recently finished will cruise the Caribbean in 2009 with only 694 passengers.

**** Costa
On the twelve Costa’s ships, only the Fortuna and the Mediterranea are located in the Caribbean. They have between 999 and 1300 cabins and offer excellent offers if you can book well in advance.

**** MSC
Only the Poesia is cruising the Caribbean in 2009-10. It has 1275 cabins for total passengers of more than 3000. Again, prices are very competitive if the reservations are made few months ahead of time.

***/**** Princess Cruises
Princess has 17 ships in total. For the Caribbean route, the ships used have different capacity; The See and the Dawn carry 1950 passengers, The Golden and the Grand carry 2600 passengers and the Caribbean, the Crown and the emerald carry approximately 3100 passengers.

*** RCCL
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line offer many itineraries in the Caribbean with the Independence of the Seas (3634 passengers. Other ships have also some Caribbean itineraries like the Jewel if the Seas and the Serenade of the Seas (2501 passengers each), as well as the Voyager of the Seas (3114 passengers). RCCL is dedicated towards family vacations.

***/**** Norwegian
The Jewel, Pearl, Dawn, and Sun have different itineraries leaving from Florida. Other ships like the Majesty and Spirit will leave from Texas or Louisiana for other Caribbean routes. All these vessels are big with lots of passengers and also offer family staterooms up to deluxe suite.

Finally, other cruise lines like Holland America Line, Cunard, or Carnival cruise Line (young and family oriented) and others also offer Caribbean cruises. Please do not hesitate to contact us for the best offer corresponding to your needs.

A LA CARTE