Holiday advice for the cruise industry

What is a Luxury World Cruise?

Answer: a vacation that spans several continents, and often circumnavigates the globe. A Luxury World Cruise is an expensive and somewhat elitist way to see the world. They offer a taste of the upper-crust culture of the world, without any of the grit or danger of the world itself. These sorts of cruises can last upward of a hundred days, though if you’ve got the money and time, you can find crews willing to let you be a passenger for a full year, though you’ll be foregoing much of the luxury.

Expect lots and lots of sea time (a blessing or a curse, depending on your point of view) accompanied by radical (and purposeful) changes of scenery. A luxury world cruise is probably the best sort of vacation for a photophile; when else could you get pictures of an Alaskan glacier, followed immediately by a stretch of oriental shore, complete with Chinese junks?

Crystal World Cruises, Cunard, and Holland America Line all three offer world cruises. Fleets participating in luxury world cruises tend to be smaller, with smaller ships. It follows that, especially on longer cruises, you’ll become better acquainted with the crew of your ship and fellow passengers. Spend one hundred days on a ship any ship and you’ll forget what the word stranger means.

Lines offering Luxury World Cruise options allow their guests to book blocks of a world cruise, letting them customize their vacation far more than they could with any other sort of cruise. Segments of itinerary tend to be divided by country; but if you decide to get off the ship in Vietnam, make sure you have a way to get back home. Or at least a Vietnamese phrasebook. You don’t want to end up lost and without a means to get back to the ship when you’re on a time deadline.

Finding Luxury Cruise Deals

Sorting though luxury cruise deals is not really as difficult as so many people think. To begin with the first question that must be answered is where you want to go. The destinations of this boat trips are unlimited and until that part is decided it is hard to shop around for the best prices; although for some that is the way to start. First they hunt down the prices and then they use that information to decide where to go. There are more than three hundred ports that are visited each year on six different continents. What possibilities this leaves open!

The size of the luxury liner also influences the deals available. Some people prefer the small cruisers that carry only a dozen passengers. Each stateroom has a private bathroom with a full sized shower, and comfortable bed. The dining is elegant even for the boats small size. The difference between these small ships and the ones that carry hundreds, or the ones that carry thousands, is that they can get closer in to more places giving their passengers a different look at some of the more remote places. The bigger the boat the bigger the price but there is much more luxury offered.

When you choose a ship that can carry three thousands people you will find more choices for meals, entertainment, swimming on board, games to play and generally more activities to keep you busy while the ship is travelling from one destination to the other. But, there are crowds, more noise and potentially line-ups. Therefore, if you are planning this kind of trip you need to decide what you want to get out of this kind of adventure.

Then you need to learn about the different cruise companies and see which one has what you want. Once you find a cruise line you like make sure that the trips they offer are also to your liking. Finally it will be time to get prices. This can be done directly, either over the internet or over the phone, or by visiting your travel agent. They can find the best luxury cruise deals that will be offered.