Food, itinerary, and price. Beyond a certain basic minimum (safe, clean, fellow passengers not wildly unruly), I don't care much about anything else.

SIZE is utmost importance for us. Do not like large cruise ships where you are vacationing with a whole city! 650 is large enough for us. DESTINATION would be up there too.... I have a place in mind, look for small cruise ships that go there and voile I have my pick!

HappyTrvlr----I'm with you. We've gone on Windsurf and Windspirit ( www.windstarcruises.com ) and twice on Starflyer ( www.starclippercruises.com ) All under 300 passengers.

All 4 cruises ( 3 in the Caribbean, 1 in the Med.) were wonderful. We like getting into some of the smaller ports that the "biggies" can't and we especially like the getting on and off process in each port---quick and easy compared to the lines of people waiting for a tender back to the large ships.

So, size, itinerary and quality are what we look at.

zenith238, still working for Carnival?
Surprise that food and service quality is not your list for Carnival ....
Carival price is cheaper than some but definiteluy not the cheapest

I've only cruised once, and wasn't really interested in that cruise at that, but changed my mind solely as it was a port of call itinerary, and schedule that exactly meet our needs. If/ when we go on our 2nd cruise, ports still will be #1 on the priority list, with recommendations in this forum and cruiseCritics' forum being next. Will avoid a line where there is a lot of complaining of nickling and diming the passengers with extra costs.

Typo..have only gone ships carrying 70-300 passengers..Can't imagine being on anything larger than that, crowds in the ports, etc

HappyTrvlr, there are times that the 70-300 ships visit the same port as the mega ships. You still get the crowds in the port. I do agree that depending on destination, there are ports that the mega ships can't get to.

I was at one port and there were 3 smaller ships at port on the same day! Since it is a smaller place, it was really crowded as well. :(

You are correct that could happen but the ships/boats/yachts we were on never went into a port with any of the large ships.
Maybe same city but different port area...

Sea days, sea days, sea days, and one more time, sea days.

We don't care about port days. Once you see one, you have seen it all.

We want to enjoy the floating "hotel". The activities, pool, food (it is what it is), the nightlife but most importantly the relaxation of just "floating" around.

AAFrequentFlyer, That is an interesting take on things. We certainly enjoyed the sea days but DW looked forward to port days as a smorgsboard of activities - a travel sampler, a taste of differnet culture, city etc. She likes to pick cruise with lots of "stops" but with a good sprinkle of sea days in between. If Sea day is all one seeks, then the trans Atlantic repositioning cruises are probably tops!

If you like sea days that's great. Some prefer them. I can understand in a way the comment about ports being similar, esp. for the Caribbean tho I personally do like the Caribbean ports we've been to.

However other cruises that hit the Baltic and the Med go to ports that are very different and interesting for their individuality and uniqueness. For example a Med cruise can take you to St. Peter's and the Sistene Chapel and the Colisseum in Rome, Pompei in Naples and so on.

Anyone who has cruised the Baltic will never forget SPB. Then toss in the other Baltic caps and its amazing.

Cheers, Larry.

I stumbled into my first cruise. Since it was a group cruise, I didn't have any say in the cruise line or where it went.

For the second one we knew we wanted to cruise from Baltimore for convenience and we looked at two cruise lines. I was sailing with my parents and price made a difference to them so we went for the more affordable line.

This time when my husband and I booked I knew I wanted to fly and cruise somewhere from Florida. I decided to stay with Carnival again because I wanted to have a fun time. They are the only line that I know of that has an actual sing along piano bar and that's a big draw for me. We also like the idea of the Serenity area. We can stay away from kids but still have fun stuff to do on the cruise. Some of the other lines seemed to stuffy for us.

We narrowed the week down to what worked for our schedules and then compared the itineraries and ships. The ports are all new for us and the I like the ship's decor. This will be a short vacation for us so we probably didn't put as much thought into it as for other ones.

The first cruise was for attending a convention. Got totally lost on the big boat. I don't even know why I'm back. Must be the way they treated me and I am a sucker for freebies with loyalty programs. The cruise line should give reward points for dollars spent just like the credit card company.

Baltic Cruise was the best cruise I ever took.

Bigger is better.....

Easy. I prefer almost any cruise line to Norwegian because.......Norwegian has shown its contempt for its passengers by only serving pepsi products rather than coke products. My biggest determining factor.

Can you bring your own soft drinks on board?

AFAIK, yes, but the policy differs from cruise line to cruise line.

For most you are allowed a 12 pack per person, carried on.

entertainment, ship size (I like bigger and casual), price, deck parties - absolutely :) and... probably recommendations :)

Thanks AAFrequentFlyer, 12 pack is more than what I consume in a month. Not too much sugar or caffine for me. I like an occassional root beer and don't recall any cruise ship actually stocked it when asked so I just stopped asking. Wouldn't consider it a deal breaker for picking a cruise, unlike xyz123.