628 Days On A Ship

But not all at once!

We keep a log of all our trips, the length, destination, cruise or land, etc. When people discover that we've done 55 cruises, they always ask what cruise line we like the best. My answer is always the one going where we want to go at the best price. Just out of curiosity though I decided to add up all our cruising days. The total is 628. Almost two years of my life spent on a cruise ship. So which cruise line did we use the most?

The tally was fairly even. Celebrity came out on top with 144 days. It was the first cruise line we used and fell in love with it. There was a time however just after they were purchased by Royal Caribbean that things went a little crazy and they got away from what defined them. It was during that period that we tried the waters with some other lines. Eventually Celebrity decided that it was losing loyalty with the changes and went back to most of what made it so great. Of course Royal Caribbean melded the loyalty points across their cruise lines so ours rose considerably because of some of the RC cruises  (52 days) we took .

Second on our list is Crystal Cruise Line with 136 days but not because we did a lot of cruises with them. There were only three but one of them was our World Cruise of 108 days. We are very tempted to increase those days with another world cruise.

Coming in third is Holland America with 127 days. If we hadn't had such a horrible experience on our very first cruise with them, we might have done more. It took a long time to give them another chance but when we did, we thoroughly enjoyed cruising with them.

Not to be forgotten are the wonderful cruises we took with Cunard, Princess, and one with Radisson (our very first Christmas Cruise on the Paul Gauguin). And then there were those two river cruises. . .

Ah, the memories.

My point in all of this (I usually have one) is that there is no one size fits all cruise line. Everyone finds different things to like with different cruise lines and it changes as the lines evolve, change their market focus and make changes to keep things interesting. Just like a good dessert buffet don't be afraid to try a variety. And if it's your first cruise, talk to your travel agent about what you enjoy on a vacation--entertainment, food, etc. A good TA will be able to match you to a great cruise.