The World’s Best Luxury Cruises

A luxury cruise is not necessarily a week on one of the largest cruise ships on earth. Though Oasis of the Seas is definitely a once in a lifetime experience, it is not the most luxurious cruise ship you can travel on. Luxury is generally found on smaller ships where you can be pampered by the crew and have the ship more to yourself when you want privacy. The closer you get to being alone on deck, the more luxurious your cruise will be.

Travel agencies offer cheap cruises, family packages, and cruises with multiple ports of call to everyone who walks through the door. The industry is successful because they have found a way to make cruise travel affordable for the average individual, couple, or family. Luxury cruises are a special request for most of these agencies and the cruise ships that they are available on are not as easy to secure passage on.

When the cruise industry first began, cruise liners were actually mail ships that carried passengers. Awards were given out for the best time that a ship could achieve crossing the Atlantic. Those ships were built with luxury in mind and catered to the rich. If you were a member of a working class family there was no chance you’d be able to book passage on one of them. Today, luxury cruises are still available but they are a choice, not the only option available.

One of the most prestigious cruises in the world right now is the cruise package offered by Windstar Cruises in Portugal. Their fourteen day Mediterranean cruise on the 148 passenger Wind Spirit is a wonderful retreat for couples. Other top names in the luxury cruise business are Silver Sea’s Silver Shadow out of San Francisco, the only six star cruise ship in the world, and Regent’s Seven Seas Voyager out of Monte Carlo, an all-suite all-balcony cruise ship that tours the coast of West Africa and the Canary Islands.

If you’re planning on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera you can find luxury on Carnival Cruise’s Spirit. If you’re crossing the Atlantic there is no ship on earth more luxurious than Queen Mary 2. Until the end of 2009 the Cunnard liner was the largest cruise ship in the world. It has since lost that title to Oasis of the Seas but when it comes to luxury the Royal Caribbean floating palaces are still a distant second to the luxury ocean liners of the Cunnard Line.

Sarah Van Rensburg is a travel lover and avid writer, focussing on a range of travel topics particularly cruise holidays.