Do you read reviews?

[Eph60]

I was wondering how many of you read cruise reviews?

For me I have always read a lot of reviews. I do take all reviews with an open mind. For the most part I do not know the people who write the reviews so I do not know if their likes and dislikes are the same as mine. I do look at the overall information and I read as many reviews as I can so I can try to compare the likes and dislikes. If I read enough reviews from one poster I will be able to figure out how similar our likes and dislikes are.

All reviews are important to me because they all do have information on them that may help me in a decision. My ultimate decision will be once I cruise on a ship and make up my own mind.

[coloradocruisers]

I read some of them, but not all of them. If they're pertinent to an upcoming cruise that I'm considering, or posted from someone on this forum who just returned, I like to read them.

[dmoten]

I read reviews on not only cruises but other things too (like purchasing items online and books I might want to read, etc.). We all know the reviews are subjective, but I like to see what others think about it. I make my own decision but sometimes I may have been prompted to ask more questions or do more research before I make a final decision especially if I see a number of reviewers saying the same thing.

[Sarge6870]

The thing about cruise reviews is that you have do a little investigative work to come up with a final conclusion about any specific cruise line, ship or port. First thing is to try to look at the most recent then look to past reviews. There are so many reasons that a person may post a bad review, and most of the time it is either just that person (the kind you can't make happy no matter WHAT you do) or a first time cruiser that has nothing to compare that specific cruise to. When I look at past cruise reviews, I try to look at a 3 month or so window of posts then weigh the positives and the negatives. More positives or negatives, I concentrate on just THOSE posts. But keep in mind, when people post a bad cruise review, there are also conditions such as "training" cruises that will cause a cruise to be less personable than others that they don't take into consideration. Not everyone on that cruise had a "trainee" at their service. Maybe it was just them!! No one is born trained to work on a cruise ship that services 4000 people per day. Just remember, the only bad cruise is when the ship sinks!! Failures in any mode of vacation can happen.

[sailingrose]

Yes I read reviews. I usually don't read about the food as that is too subjective. I care more about the service, the general condition of the ship, and the vibe of the ship and her crew.

[Jan115]

I do read reviews, but not as many as I used to. It's just amazing how one person's perfect dream cruise can be someone else's nightmare. Reading too many reviews can make one go mad.

[WeCruiseToo]

We’re weird in that we actually enjoy hearing other people’s vacation stories. (We always have to remind ourselves that most people in the “real world” don’t want to hear our stories. Big thanks to all the CruiseCrazies for indulging us!) We read all the reviews we find – mostly we like learning what people did in port. One thing we’ve learned though – people seem to be at least twenty times more likely to post about negative experiences than good ones…

[JohnG]

I write reviews, but don't do much reading of reviews for upcoming trips. It is apparent that opinions are like noses......everyone has one and they are all different. I can't believe how many times I have been on a ship at the same time as another reviewer and had a completely opposite view...mine positive and theirs negative. It seems like the people who had a great time don't often enough write a review.

I just came back from a trip to Cancun and read a few reviews about the resort in advance. They were mostly negative. We didn't experience a single thing they had been complaining about. That has been typical in my experience.

[Shari2]

I do read the reviews...I try and read quite a few for the ship I am considering sailing on before I make my choice of whether to sail on her or not. I do look for the things that we are more interested in and realize that it may be different for others...my husband and I are both good cooks so we would be interested in how good the food is onboard...I love entertainment, and am very interested in the reviews on that. We both love good service, so we look at that. We aren't very active these days, so we don't need to climb walls or go ice skating, or wave riding or such, but I look for the things we are most interested in. Food is a hard one in the reviews since people have such different views on what's good and not, but if a lot of people are saying the food is good...or bad...I look at that, etc.