Best ships for first-timers

By Carolyn Spencer Brown

Editor, CruiseCritic.com

updated 3:25 p.m. ET March 30, 2005

What are the most important factors to take into consideration when planning your first cruise? Want to travel in luxury? What about meals, spa services, and the size of the ship? Are you taking the entire family? The options can be overwhelming - here are Cruise Critic’s selections for the ten best ships for first-timers.

1. Voyager/ Explorer/
Adventure/ Navigator/
Mariner of the Seas
(Royal Caribbean)
First-time cruisers will find the world at their fingertips aboard these mega-ships, which offer everything from a 30-foot-high rock climbing wall and in-line skating rink to fantastic burgers and hot fudge sundaes dished out at Johnny Rockets.

2. Grand /Golden /Star /Caribbean Princess
(Princess Cruises)
These sisters are big, and filled with appealing public spaces, including graceful three-deck atriums and open decks with colorful mosaic-tiled pools and whirlpools. Their charm and abundant activity programs appeal to both first-time cruisers and seasoned veterans as seagoing resorts that are a cut above the mass market competition. Even better: Princess has embraced, particularly on these mega-ships, its "Personal Choice Dining" program, which offers the choice of a flexible eating routine (dining where and with whom, not to mention when) you want -- or that of cruising's more traditional set-seating dining.

3. Mariner /Navigator /Voyager
(Radisson Seven Seas Cruises)
These all-suite ships, all launched since 2000, are most definitely luxury-oriented -- and we loved that -- but we also loved the lack of onboard regimentation and the feeling that we were staying at a gorgeous floating hotel. Most if not all suites have private verandahs, all dining is open-seating, and the ships are small enough (about 700 passengers) to feel intimate.

4. Zuiderdam and Oosterdam
(Holland America) Oosterdam, like Zuiderdam, offers a terrific blend of HAL's classic features -- with some fresh contemporary twists. Such as? These ships, the first two in Holland America's Vista class series, have first-ever-for-HAL features like the Windstar Cafe, a gourmet coffee bar, the Greenhouse Spa's indoor hydrotherapy pool and The Pinnacle Grill (a Northwest-themed alternative restaurant).


5. Radiance /Brilliance /Serenade of the Seas
(Royal Caribbean)
These ships straddle the size-o-meter -- they're big (and new) enough for lots of contemporary amenities (plenty of cabins with verandahs, a coffee bar and a fabulous pool-solarium area) along with some of the line's classic features (we note, in particular, its alternative restaurants -- Chops Grille and Positano's -- as well as the divine Schooner Bar).

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