Do you need a big ship or a small ship! Picking the ship is more like what you want your vacation to be. If you are going on a family vacation with kids and want them occupied all day or if you are part of a younger group traveling together looking for an adventurous holiday, then go for the bigger, action-packed ships. Alternatively if you are looking for simple, quiet and quaint vacation, pick the smaller ships.
Sailing on the bigger ships gives you a lot more things to keep you occupied. You can’t say they are crowded when you consider everything is on a much bigger scale as well so it balances itself. For example, the world’s largest Oasis class of ships is large floating resorts, but it doesn't feel as massive as you'd expect it to be due to her design. The neighborhood concept has worked really well in these most innovative and efficient ships.
The larger ships also disembark from 2 locations rather than just one to avoid bottlenecks. The larger ships have a more sophisticated stabilization system and you hardly even notice that they are moving even in moderately rough seas. It is sort of like being in your very own small town on these larger ships. They are floating excitement from stem to stern.
Smaller ships have a lot of the ambience of what cruising used to be like. The food and service are on elegant scale. The staff to passenger ratio on these cruise ships is 2 staff members for every 3 guests. The smaller ships can get into ports the larger ones can’t and sometimes pulling into a beautiful port is excitement in itself. It is more like riding around in a very upscale resort.
The main stream smaller ship has the same quality food as the larger ones in each one’s fleet. So a small Celebrity ship would have the same quality food as the largest Celebrity ship. If you choose an older ship they have all been renovated several times over and don’t have that old ship look. They will have some of the older ship characteristics, but they are still very well appointed.
Every year newer and bigger ships hit the high seas as the cruise lines compete to be the biggest and best in the industry. Their fleets usually consist of a few older and smaller ships, with the newer ones being the most recent additions. Currently the largest ship afloat is Royal Caribbean International’s Allure of the Seas.
Whether big or small, both are good value for money and cruising is always fun!