What percentage of passengers are English speaking on Mediterranean cruise?

[Ryanryanryan]

Roughly, what percentage of passengers are English speaking on a Mediterranean cruise?  I’m looking at booking a 7 day on the Epic and don’t really want to be on a ship where most people can’t speak English because I love to meet new people on cruises.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Ryanryanryan

[BirdTravels]

100% of crew speak English (mostly as a second language). 
 

I don’t have a set of demographics handy. My recollection is that about 60% of the passengers are US passport holders with another chunk from the UK. If I had to take a guess, around 90% of the passengers speak English. All of the programming on the ship is in English. 
 

We have sailed the Med on the Epic 3 times and once from Southampton England to Barcelona Spain. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by BirdTravels

[KeithJenner]

It can depend from cruise to cruise, but having done many med cruises on various lengths, I haven’t yet been on one where English speakers were not a clear majority.

 

On some (particularly the Epic, in my experience but that may be due to the time of year we have done it) I would say that English speakers have been more than 90%, whilst there have been some where it is probably nearer 75%, but you will certainly find lots of people to speak to.
 

if you travel at a time which happens to be a holiday in a particular country then you will obviously find more people from that country onboard, which will affect the proportions, but English will still almost certainly be a clear majority.

 

The percentages that I refer to are those who speak English as their first language. A large proportion of the remainder also speak it very well.

Edited January 4, 2020 by KeithJenner

[wales4ever]

Every Med cruise I have been on -  about a dozen, the majority language has been English. I have heard far more different languages spoken on Caribbean cruises.

Edited January 4, 2020 by wales4ever
..

[old nutter]

I agree about approximately the 90% English speaking.  Almost all Europeans speak English as either first or second language.  Even the French who do not like to speak English when on home territory will use it when on the neutral space aboard ship.  The only people who will probably not be able to converse in English will be Orientals, mainly the Chinese.

Edited January 4, 2020 by old nutter

[mamashamiller]

1 hour ago, Ryanryanryan said:

Roughly, what percentage of passengers are English speaking on a Mediterranean cruise?  I’m looking at booking a 7 day on the Epic and don’t really want to be on a ship where most people can’t speak English because I love to meet new people on cruises.

We are also looking at cruise in July on the epic it’s hard to find a cruise under 12 days so this one n looks interesting. now finding affordable airfare to Barcelona 🤪

Edited January 4, 2020 by mamashamiller

[ziggyuk]

2 hours ago, Ryanryanryan said:

Roughly, what percentage of passengers are English speaking on a Mediterranean cruise?  I’m looking at booking a 7 day on the Epic and don’t really want to be on a ship where most people can’t speak English because I love to meet new people on cruises.

I enjoy diversity, meeting people from other countries and developing my grasp of language, being european, that is just normal.

Is it not fun to meet new people from different backgrounds?

[lanceholt]

We were on the Spirit in Europe in the fall and more than half on that cruise did not speak English....it just depends on the cruise but it has never bothered us.  Some countries in Europe nearly every one has a grasp of English and others not so much.  We enjoy diversity as well and also communicating at times with non-English speakers.

 

[Markanddonna]

We were on two cruises in the Mediterranean this fall and had two very different experiences. Our MSC cruise had probably more than 90% non English speaking and 5-10% were Americans, Brita , Aussies. The Chinese represented one-third of the passengers. Most Europeans on cruises may speak some English, but don't go out of their way to try. No blame, just reality. This made The ship seem rather cold and unfriendly.   There were lots of kids in big strollers onboard. The crew spoke English and were just fine.

We then boarded the NCL Spirit, and it was very different with mostly English speakers. It was a very friendly atmosphere with passengers interacting. 

Like others mentioned, each sailing varies. I was surprised with the large tourist groups of Chinese in Europe. It shows that the middle to upper class in China has changed lot over the past ten to twenty years. They tend to travel in large your groups with an interpreter. We saw one group at a specialty restaurant and the interpreter had menus for them in one of the Chinese languages. She floated from table to table and assisted them in ordering.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Markanddonna

[Deb and Jack]

14 hours ago, mamashamiller said:

We are also looking at cruise in July on the epic it’s hard to find a cruise under 12 days so this one n looks interesting. now finding affordable airfare to Barcelona 🤪

Nor sure where you are, but check out TAP Airlines if flying from US east coast is feasible 

[4774Papa]

14 hours ago, old nutter said:

I agree about approximately the 90% English speaking.  Almost all Europeans speak English as either first or second language.  Even the French who do not like to speak English when on home territory will use it when on the neutral space aboard ship.  The only people who will probably not be able to converse in English will be Orientals, mainly the Chinese.

We have traveled widely in Asia and find that the Chinese tourists always speak good English.   English is a mandatory subject in schools in China, and has been for several years.  We have been on Med cruises with about half the people were from countries like Germany, France, Italy and other non-English native countries, but most spoke English.  As always, had many from the USA, Canada and UK.

[Trimone]

With NCL, Royal and P&O about 90%, beware on Costa, MSC mostly Italian or Spanish and shows are not in English 

[Markanddonna]

22 hours ago, Trimone said:

With NCL, Royal and P&O about 90%, beware on Costa, MSC mostly Italian or Spanish and shows are not in English 

That is not true. The language of MSC is English (this includes sailings in the Med) even though the majority of the crew and passengers are not English as a first language. They are instructed to speak English when addressing passengers. The shows are primarily in English, but the CD makes the intros in at least five languages. The shows often do not have much "talking" and are heavily visual.

 

They usually start all the announcements with English.

 

BTW- the largest percentage of passengers on our MSC Grandiosa sailing in Nov. were from China (2,200 passengers out of 6,000.) This occurrence may be very unique, but that was our experience. 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Markanddonna

[Laszlo]

On 1/4/2020 at 4:36 PM, Ryanryanryan said:

Roughly, what percentage of passengers are English speaking on a Mediterranean cruise?  I’m looking at booking a 7 day on the Epic and don’t really want to be on a ship where most people can’t speak English because I love to meet new people on cruises.

Don't worry you'll be fine. If their are any Europeans on the cruise I'm 100% sure they speak 2-3 languages, 1 to 2 more than the majority of Americans Lol

[cementhands]

It’s a blast to see and enjoy those new friends we made on European cruises that don’t speak English. Dancing and trying to communicate is such fun. The cruise staff is very accommodating to these folks. Spanish couple were so nice and friendly but could not speak English. Non the less they danced with us as well as a whole group from Poland , , who had a lady lawyer very fluent trying to explain for the others. Lovely folks.

Very few people don’t speak English but they’re always a few.
Embrace them as you might be in similar situations.

MSC -Costa is a different story. Plus the smoking everywhere! Beware.

[lanceholt]

1 hour ago, Markanddonna said:

That is not true. The language of MSC is English (this includes sailings in the Med) even though the majority of the crew and passengers are not English as a first language. They are instructed to speak English when addressing passengers. The shows are primarily in English, but the CD makes the intros in at least five languages. The shows often do not have much "talking" and are heavily visual.

 

They usually start all the announcements with English.

 

BTW- the largest percentage of passengers on our MSC Grandiosa sailing in Nov. were from China (2,200 passengers out of 6,000.) This occurrence may be very unique, but that was our experience. 

We had a large number of passengers from China and Japan on the Spirit last fall and they spoke little English but did fine.

[KeithJenner]

Large numbers of Chinese passengers is certainly not unusual on European sailings. We had one where about 25% of the passengers were Chinese, but most these days have a significant proportion from there (around 10% is quite common).

[CruiseMH]

On 1/5/2020 at 1:17 AM, ziggyuk said:

I enjoy diversity, meeting people from other countries and developing my grasp of language, being european, that is just normal.

Is it not fun to meet new people from different backgrounds?

 

Meeting new people is only half the fun if you cannot really communicate with them due to missing language skills. 😉

 

I was on the epic twice and i would say that the percentage of native english speakers was approx. 80-90 %. Rest of passengers where from a lot different countries but many of them could also speak english very good.

 

@ OP: DOn`t worry, you will have at least 3600 people you can easily talk to. 😉

 

 

[jaxw17]

MSC have a large variety of non English speaking passengers especially on their European cruises

[njcruiser27]

On 1/4/2020 at 4:36 PM, Ryanryanryan said:

Roughly, what percentage of passengers are English speaking on a Mediterranean cruise?  I’m looking at booking a 7 day on the Epic and don’t really want to be on a ship where most people can’t speak English because I love to meet new people on cruises.

We were on the Epic in September and I think it had to be 90% or more spoke English. As for airfare, download the Hopper App. We were able to get a round trip on Delta/Air France out of JFK for $304. 

[Markanddonna]

I think what you will find is the European a cruise lines have a very high percentage of passengers who don't speak English as a first language. Those who do speak English are busy with their friends and family and shouldn't be expected to indulge us, although many will !make an effort to speak some.

Passengers on more American style cruises like NCL, Rccl, etc will be majority English speaking.