Another River Cruise Rating Article—No Wonder There is So Much Confusion!
Hank Schrader, USMA '71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
Anne Schrader, Certified Travel Counselor & Certified Luxury Cruise Specialist
www.dreamdestinations.com
Another river cruise rating article was recently published—this time it is in the respected Conde Nast Traveler. The Conde Nast readers ranked the best small cruises with 500 or fewer passengers in their 2023 Reader’s Choice Awards. The 3 categories were 1) The Best Small Cruises, 2) The Best River Cruises and 3) The Best Expedition Cruises.
According to the survey and Conde Nast, this is the longest-running recognition awards in the travel industry. There are so many categories in their survey that it is hard to tell how many people voted in the small ship category, so the number of 526,000 voting certainly does not mean that many voted in these 3 categories. In fact, one source said only 27% of the readers went on a cruise last year.
I will only share with you the results of The Best River Cruises and my opinion of these choices—I did not vote in this survey, but I am going to vote my rankings for the 7 lines we follow. If I don’t give the line a max score in the categories, I will explain my reason for the less than perfect score. If I also don’t have personal knowledge of a category, I gave them an excellent score (5) and provided a reason for this rating.
The Citeria for the Cruise Category
There were 5 areas the readers voted on in this survey. Each of the five areas were rated on a five-point scale that was then converted to a percentage. The scale was excellent (5), very good (4), good (3), fair (2) and poor (1).
To be listed in the awards, each line had to receive a minimum number of responses and a minimum overall score to be listed in the rankings. The exact number of responses needed is not disclosed by Conde Nast in each category. Another interesting fact is that this survey is often used in mathematic classes to assess the reliability of the data and to calculate the standard deviation of responses, but I will leave that to others with far more mathematics ability than I to evaluate the responses and data.
Since I don’t have a copy of the questions, I must rely on what others have reported about the rating areas used and even if they are not correct, they will prove useful to understand the methodology used. The five categories are cabins/facilities; food; itineraries/destinations; excursions/activities and value.
The Best River Cruises Ranking
The Reader Choice Awards top 5 results are 1) Viking (97.32); 2) American Cruise Lines (96.66); 3) Tauck River Cruising (96.14); 4) Oberoi (95.91); and Les Bateaux Belmond (95.90). Other lines we follow received this rating 8) Uniworld (93.24); 10) AmaWaterways (93.09); 11) Scenic (90.09); 13) Avalon Waterways (88.09) and 14) Emerald (86.54).
Since some categories on the list had only 3 or 4 winners and 16 were listed in the best river cruise rankings, tells me how close the voting was and the small differences between the listed lines. My guess is the cut off was 70% or higher to be listed. No real surprise for me—river cruising is often one of the best vacations available for our clients and the large number of different lines receiving votes supports our thoughts about the overall value of this great vacation.
Viking (97.32)
As the largest river cruise company that sails in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America, it is easy to see why most readers would select Viking just based on their sheer size. Viking has close to 100 total ships sailing in the expedition, ocean, and river cruise types of vacations. About 70 ships are on the rivers and they have the largest footprint in Europe.
Using the max 30 points. Viking had to score at least 29 points, with a lot of perfect scores. I’m not sure how you could max them out in cabins (45 of the 95 are between 135 sq. feet or at the waterline and they carry 190 passengers on their longships—maybe Conde Nast folks only sail in their larger staterooms). I’ll provide you with more thoughts later on this line.
It is also possible that people who voted for Viking had done another cruise on Viking (either ocean and expedition) and assumed the river cruises would be as good--brands tend to influence responses.
American Cruise Lines (96.66)
American Cruise Line has 35 US river cruises on the Mississippi, Columbia & Snake Rivers. It also sails in New England and Alaska. They have 17 ships, but one was recently damaged due to a generator fire, so I believe only 16 are currently in service. It is unfair for me to evaluate this line, as we have never sold it and it does not operate in Europe.
Tauck River Cruising (96.14)
With its cult like following, very small passenger counts (often 130 or less), this is a quality river cruise line. Again, to get this high a ranking, Tauck would have to get a little less 29 total points (okay for all you math folks 28.84 points)
Oberoi Hotels & Resorts (95.91)
Oberoi is a luxury hotel operator with 32 luxury hotels and 2 river ships. Both ships, the Zahra (27 cabins) and the Philae (22 cabins) sail only on the Nile River. It is hard for me to believe that with only 2 ships and limited staterooms, that many folks would rate it so high—makes you wonder how many votes it would require to be considered.
I don’t doubt it is luxury, but most newly built Egyptian River ships are equally luxurious, and these ships were built in 1996 and refurbished in 2015. I’m not exactly sure of how many newer ships have been added to the Nile River fleets of other lines, but it is more than 4—AmaWaterways and Viking have newer ships in service since 2015.
Les Bateaux Belmond (95.90)
This is a barge company that ranges from 4 to 12 passengers. It has 7 barges—6 are available as private charters and only one, the Nepoleon, allows you to book an individual cabin. They sail only in France.
Again, it is hard to understand how there could be so many folks taking barge trips, so they meet the minimum required submissions—even if Conde Nast are very high-end travelers.
As my lovely wife Anne pointed out to me, many could have voted for this company based on reading about them—since barge cruises are almost exclusively charter operations, these become tailored vacations, with itineraries decided by the guests and even meals are customizable—I can really understand how that would appeal to the readers of Conde Nast for their upscale vacations, and they could have received votes based upon reading about these experiences.
Now My Ratings
To make this clear, I will list what Conde Nast readers rated the 7 lines we follow and then provide my rating using the 5 to 1 scale reported earlier in this blog post.
Viking—Conde Nast Score 97.32
My Viking Score 76.00 (19/25) cabins/facilities (3); food (4); itineraries/destinations (5); excursions/activities (3) and value (4).
With 190 passengers, many small staterooms I can’t go higher than 3 (good) for cabins/facilities. Having eaten on a Viking ship, can’t go higher than 4 (very good, especially if you consider wine in this category). For excursions/activities, there are too many extra cost excursions that are limited or unknown until after booking your cruise—3 (good) is generous, but reasonable as some routes have excellent included excursions. Unless you get a great sale, I have a hard time rating the value much above a 3 (good)—almost everyone spends more on-board than they expected—sometimes as much as $1,500 to $2,000 more.
