What are the advantages of big ship cruising vs small ship and vice versa?
Price is the obvious one, with a few exceptions its almost always cheaper to go with a mass market cruise ship with a lower guest to space ratio.
The exception is perhaps also where quality comes into it as a cruiseline like Marella or Fred Olsen use smaller more intimate ships but these ships are also older.
That said you could say the same of what used to be P&O Adonia which has now moved over to luxury brand Azamara as it is certainly not a new ship but you would pay a fraction for a small ship experience on Marella with actually a lot of the same inclusions (all inclusive for example) so the difference is mainly in the destinations and the quality of experience on board in theory. There should be less guests to staff and therefore more space to move around but an often heard theme from customers is that it can be at the expense of facilities so maybe there really is a cruise ship for everyone!
So what of big ships? Personallly I like smaller ships as the bigger ones can mean some of the following things
- a lot more people and therefore a lot less space to feel on holiday.
- busier dining times and a more mass produced food experience so therefore a reduction in quality
- longer boarding times and more queuing
Advantages though are that…
- there is more variety of features onboard like pools, things like climbing walls and surf simulators
- there is often more choice of speciality dining and a bigger range of food
- if the ship isnt full you might end up with more space but its pretty unusual for ships to go out with spaces
Its not always the case that the bigger the ship the less money you pay. Compare a Royal Caribbean ship out of Southampton to a P&O one and often a smaller P&O ship will be cheaper, its all about the target audience often, the time of year you are travelling and ultimately what the cruiseline think they can sell their ship or sailing for!