Customer Reviews

Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

We are experienced cruisers. (About 12 times: Alaska, Scandinavia, Russia, Mediterranean, Panama, US Rivers, etc.) Douglass Ward's work always both entertains and helps. Both broad philosophies and specific details for both new and veteran travelers prove on, or very-close to, target.

Shipping and price were both excellent.

Berlitz Guide to Cruising is without a doubt the best cruise guide on the market. It is far more detailed than others that I have bought and gives a thorough write up of every ship. I find it dissapointing that, while the ratings of a ship may change from year to year, the summary remains the same, giving no indication of the reasons for the change. But still, it can't be beat in terms of useful information and layout.

I hate this year's cover though.

Having noticed a decent offer for a cruise on a ship we knew nothing about, we decided to buy the Berlitz guide to cruising 2009. This proved to ease our minds considerably as it had a satisfactory write-up, so we booked. The guide gave us all the info we wanted, regarding size of cabins, restaurants and usual facilities, not exactly 5 star but near enough. We sail in September - fingers crossed!!

The Berlitz Complete Cruise Guides are something that no travel professional should be without. They are an exceptionally comprehensive and unbiased review of every ship travelling the oceans. I don't know where I'd be without it!!

The author reveals early on that he had worked for Cunard for many years. Although this gives him some great experiences to relay, the author is not careful about introducing bias to his writing. He clearly indicates that Cunard is the absolute best cruise line while seeming to hold personal grudges against some of the larger cruise lines, especially Royal Caribbean.

However, he does not take into account that Cunard is NOT for everyone and there are some categories of cruisers for which the mega-ships are the most appropriate options. For instance, families may not WANT to take a trans-Atlantic ocean crossing by Cunard and may prefer to sail closer to home. But the author hardly mentions children's programming at all; describing a paragraph or so on a cruise line basis, but not even going into detail on a ship by ship basis (where the experiences can vary widely depending on the size of the ship). By not adequately exploring the different categories of cruisers, the author does a disservice to his readers.

Also, the ship-by-ship description is repetitive for multiple ships in the same class for the same line making you wonder why they bothered having more than one entry. One would not expect a single person to have been on EVERY ship that is being reviewed, and it is clear in this case that he had not. However, for a self proclaimed "complete" guide, one would hope that Berlitz would have hired multiple people to give independent reviews and evaluations of multiple ships.

That may be the books greatest failing; it's too comprehensive a subject for one person to write absolutely everything there is to know about the topic. The book provides a good start, but you're going to have to surf the internet to get the information you really need.

This book should be in the library of all persons who have any inkling to book voyages on the major cruise lines of the world. The descriptions of the ships, their services, and ammentities can shorten the process of planning a cruise.

Thank you for the prompt delivery.. Going on a cruise at the end of this year and this will help me out.. Thanks!

This book rates CUNARD cruise line as the best in the world and we all found out royal carribian, carnival, celebrity are really the best. (of the ones we tried) . But this book insists that CUNARD is the best . What a horrible trip. they sent the birthday stuff three days late, right before they got off. (so they could charge us) but in canada you cant take champange , fruit off. They charged 1000 more for a balcony room that was real nasty, smelly, small, dark damp on the 4th floor that had no view.,