The Biggest Ship Is Not the Best Ship

Bigger is not better. Bigger is just bigger. That is the whole myth in one line.

People fall in love with the mega ships because the marketing is loud. Waterslides, go-karts, a dozen restaurants, a neighborhood with a name. It looks like more for your money. Sometimes it is. Often it is not.

Here is the part nobody puts in the brochure. A ship with six thousand people on it moves like a ship with six thousand people on it. You wait for the elevator. You wait for the buffet. You get a dinner time that is either very early or very late because everyone else wanted the middle. The ship is a marvel and you are standing in a line inside the marvel.

Now flip it. A smaller ship carries fewer guests, so the same day feels calmer. You get on and off in ports faster because there are not thousands of people funneling down one gangway. Smaller ships also reach places the giants physically cannot. Shallow harbors, tucked away islands, town centers you can walk straight into. The big ship anchors offshore and tenders you in. The small ship ties up and you step off.

None of this means big ships are bad. If you are traveling with kids who want the slide and the arcade and the show, a big ship earns every dollar. It is a floating resort and it is very good at being one. The mistake is assuming the largest option is automatically the smartest option for you. Those are different questions.

The real answer comes from how you actually want to spend a day. Do you want a hundred things to choose from, or do you want to not think about it. Do you want the destination to be the reason, or do you want the ship to be the reason. Both are valid. Only one of them is you.

Picking the right size ship is boring to research and easy to get wrong. If you want help matching the ship to the trip instead of the trip to the ship, that is literally what we do.

Fair winds and following seas,
Captain Steve