Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships

Simply the best reference for learning about the cruise experience and comparing ships. Should be required reading for anyone contemplating a holiday on a cruise ship.

I disagree with the reviewers who say Mr. Ward is too picky. I WANT someone who is a detail freak and VERY picky when describing cruises they have been on. The issues he chooses to criticize are important to me too - but I wouldn't even know these issues existed if he gave only bland perfunctory reviews. My first cruise was a TOTAL disaster because I didn't do my homework. This book helped me do my homework and find out what was important to me on a cruise. Lots of decisions: do you want to be around kids? Then travel during a peak holiday like Easter Break, Christmas, etc. Do you want to hear blaring PA announcements all day every 15 minutes in 3 languages? Certain ships do this, certain ones don't. Do you want to travel with 3,000 other people with frantic activity all day long, or would you be more comfortable around only 500 people in quieter more elegant surroundings? Mr. Ward can help you structure the questions to ask yourself so you can make an informed decision. His reviews are the ones used on a huge website travel agency - (It starts with an E.) I just booked a cruise with them based largely on Mr. Ward's reviews. Mr. Ward helped me quickly pick out the exact kind of cruise on the exact kind of ship that I wanted. I didn't realize I had so many choices and so much control over my environment and itinerary. The only criticism I would have about the book is that the typeface is a bit small. I can read it easily without glasses, but it is smaller than I would prefer. However, if the typeface were larger, the book would probably have to be 200 pages longer. I would recommend this book to anyone cruising for the first time who knows NOTHING. Plenty of info so you can make an informed decision - or at least start you in the right direction. The other cruise guide books I read gave the same general advice without the ship reviews. The general advice was so similar in each book it felt like plagiarism. I would recommend starting with Mr. Ward FIRST.

Detailed and descriptive, this reference is "tops" in the field. Doug Ward's high standards and detailed critique of ships will enable you to select a ship and itinerary so that, upon disembarkation, you'll be thinking of your NEXT cruise vacation. Bon Voyage!

There is a *lot* of information here - 623 pages of small type covering the gamut of ships from the ultra-luxe to some ghastly-sounding Ukrainian tubs. There's even plenty of data that can't be found on the cruise lines' own web sites. If this book can't help you pick a cruise, I can't imagine what would.

I asked for this book as a birthday gift, because I work on a cruise ship, and wanted to be able to look up other cruise ships when I saw them to find out a little about them (how large they are, how many passengers they hold, when and where they were built, etc.) I felt that this book had a wealth of information about ships, especially for people who are ship enthusiasts or who are already familiar with cruising and cruise ships, but was a little misleading in parts to the folks who would be more likely to purchase this book...Those who have not cruised before and may be looking for some advice as to what type or which ship to choose. If you have seen a ship and you want to find a little more about it (the reason I wanted this book) you'll find it useful. It gives a black and white line drawing of the ship along with all the vital information..Who owns it, what the ship's former names were (if any) and all about the ship itself...Its dimensions, propulsion type, how many passengers and crew it holds, when it was constructed, what amenities are available, etc. However, the author seems to let his personal tastes and his thoughts about what makes a good ship and a good cruise show through instead of giving an unbiased critique of each ship...For instance, in the descriptions of many of the ships, he includes details on whether or not they have decent breads, cheeses and fruits at dinner. He also spends lots of time discussing whether certain ships have tables for 2 in their dining rooms. Though in all actuality, these are a small part of the onboard fare, and have little to do with the enjoyment of cruising for most people. Also, he tends to complain in most of the ship's reviews about too many announcements and to much background or "mood" music throughout the ship. These things that he mentions often seem to be personal pet-peeves of the author's. He has a few other complaints about most cruise ships which are thinly-veiled throughout the book. I felt that, overall, the author was a little too negative towards lots of the ships he rated when he was picking on the small things that sometimes don't matter to most people. In addition to his personal likes and dislikes which he tends to incorporate into every review, he tends to have a great deal of passion for ocean liners of old, like the QE2 and the former SS France, now the MS Norway, and he refers to them often and compares them to todays newer, more modern ships which were designed for cruising. However, those ocean liners were built in the 60's and are from another era..They were built when trans-Atlantic crossings were popular, and before "cruising" was even thought of. He also tends to favor certain lines and is biased towards them, and favors certain ships just because of who designed the interiors. The things he doesn't mention are sometimes the most important...Lots of ships I've seen (and sometimes worked on) really were in poor repair and were looking o