Cunard won the Best Cruise Line Award for the third year in a row from ratings compiled from more than 95,000 passenger reviews.
The line scooped the top accolade in the annual Cruise Passenger Ratings Survey conducted by www.cruise.co.uk.
Cunard’s Queen Victoria scooped a further three awards – Best Ship, Best Food and Best Shore Excursion.
Royal Caribbean was the other big winner scoring three awards – Bets Entertainment for Independence of the Seas and Best Service on Adventure of the Seas. Sister brand Celebrity won the Best Accommodation Award for Celebrity Eclipse.
Passengers voted P&O’s Oriana Best for Kids.
Seamus Conlon, managing director of cruise.co.uk said: “The surprise this year is the number of UK based ships that dominate all the groups.
“For the third year running, Cunard continues to excel in the Best Cruise Line category retaining their top position.
“They have a great product and loyal following coupled with a new ship introduced late last year and their market share can only get stronger.
“This is a really strong performance once again in the only category which has seen no change since we started in 2008.”
Conlon also highlighted Celebrity Cruises’ strong performance, which as seen it move up four places since last year’s ratings.
“The surprise this year has come from Celebrity Eclipse, launched in May 2010 and sails from Southampton has performed in the top 10 in all categories.
“Typically the newer cruise ships don’t rate highly in their first year because of the inevitable teething problems of a new ship launch.”
He also mentioned P&O’s strong performance, which came in as runner up in a number of categories.
Two newcomers secured the 9th and 10th spots respectively: Cruise & Maritime Voyages and MSC Cruises, whose Opera will be based in the UK this summer.
The big loser was Thomson which dropped five places on the year before.
Conlon added: “Finally after a difficult year, bookings continue to hold strong but we feel the skew towards UK based ships may continue through 2011 with ex- UK cruises offering less stress for passengers.”
As in previous year’s visitors to the cruise.co.uk web site are asked to rate the operators and their ships in eight different categories as part of the review process.
Each category is rated from one to five stars – the resulting average scores are continually updated as new reviews are added, showing the current top performers.
• To view the eight categories visit: http://www.cruises.co.uk/109-cruise_news/15106-who_winners_2011_a.html#post198664
| January 2011 | January 2010 | January 2009 | |
| Best Cruise Line | Cunard Line | Cunard Line | Cunard Line |
| Best Ship | Queen Victoria | Celebrity Equinox (New Entry) | Oceania Insignia |
| Best Accommodation | Celebrity Eclipse | Celebrity Solstice (New Entry) | Costa Mediterranea |
| Best Entertainment | Independence of the Seas | Thomson Spirit | Independence of the Seas |
| Best Food | Queen Victoria | Queen Mary 2 | Oceania Insignia |
| Best Service | Adventure of the Seas | Thomson Spirit | Oceania Insignia |
| Best for Kids | Oriana | Ventura | Independence of the Seas |
| Best Shore Excursion | Queen Victoria | Marco Polo | Star Princess |
About Adam Coulter
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