trvlgirl99

My husband and I recently attended a seminar to learn more about Scenic. After mentioning many times that everyone has a bulter someone in the audience asked how many butlers are on board to service almost 170 guests...it turns out there are only three! So for every 57 passengers there is one butler, not quite the personal service we were led to believe it was during the presentation. This might not be an issue for most, but I would manage my expectations if the "butler" service is a selling point.

There are listing's out there if you look for them, Conde Nast does a "Goldlist" every year ranking the best small ships and cruise lines. I know that some people say it's only the companies that advertise in CN that make the list, but that isn't correct - there are cruise lines ranked that I have never seen advertise in the magazine and that I've never received direct marketing from. Also, the Zagat survey did their first cruise edition last year ranking the best of the best for both ocean cruising and smaller cruises. Zagat is one of the most respected ratings for restaurants so it was interesting to see how they ranked the ships and cruise lines. I would take a look at some of these if you want to see how the different lines stack up against one another.