Four cruises, three cruise lines, and one clear favorite

We’ve now taken four cruises with three different cruise lines: MSC Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, and AIDA. Each trip was an experience in its own right, with beautiful destinations, special moments, and memories that have stayed with us.

Sailing with different cruise lines has taught us that it’s not just the destinations that matter, but also what the experience on board is like. The service, food, crowds and ship layout really make a difference to us.

And when we compare our experiences, we now have a clear favourite!

1. Celebrity Cruises – our clear number one

Excellent service, delicious food and a relaxing holiday atmosphere.

Celebrity Cruises has pleasantly surprised us in several ways. We were especially impressed by the service and the quality of the food. The staff really go out of their way to help and do everything they can to make your holiday as enjoyable as possible. Need something or want something arranged? They’ll find a solution. You really feel that your holiday comes first.

We also appreciated the calm atmosphere and good organisation on board. We hardly encountered any queues, and everything felt well organised. Whether it was the service, the restaurants or the overall experience, everything just worked.

For us, that’s exactly what makes a cruise holiday special. You want to relax, enjoy yourself and not have to think about practicalities all the time. Celebrity certainly delivers on that for us.

Our verdict: Celebrity is our clear number one. The combination of service, food and a relaxed atmosphere is what makes us keen to sail with this cruise line again.

2. MSC Cruises – a great cruise, but sometimes quite crowded

A good experience, with room for improvement.

Our cruise with MSC Cruises was great overall. We enjoyed the trip and the destinations and certainly didn’t have a bad experience. Still, we noticed a difference compared with Celebrity when it came to the crowds and getting around on board.

What stood out most to us were the long lines when we wanted to get off the ship in port. This sometimes took quite a while and made the start of an excursion day less relaxing.

We also found the ship generally felt more crowded than Celebrity. That may not be a problem for everyone, but for us, a calm, well-organized environment really adds to the vacation experience.

Our verdict: MSC was certainly a great cruise experience, but if we had to choose, Celebrity would be our preference.

3. AIDA – beautiful destinations, but the crowds affected our vacation

For us, the buffet restaurants and the layout of the ship were the main challenges.

Our experience with AIDA was quite different from our experiences with Celebrity and MSC. The ship had a more self-service approach. That can be convenient if you like to take care of everything yourself, but in practice it didn’t always work that well for us.

We ran into problems especially at mealtimes. The buffet restaurants were often very busy, and finding an empty table could be quite frustrating. Sometimes we walked around several times without finding a suitable spot.

There were also times when we had already served ourselves some food but couldn’t find a table. Since we weren’t allowed to walk around the ship with food, we had to put it down somewhere while we continued looking. It really took the relaxed feeling out of the moment for us.

We also didn’t always find the ship’s layout practical. One thing that stood out was that a major walkway ran along the side of a buffet restaurant. This made the route feel awkward and illogical at times, especially when it was busy.

Of course, we also visited some wonderful destinations during this cruise, but the crowds, the buffet experience and the layout of the ship influenced our rating.

Our verdict: AIDA is less suited to what we look for in a cruise holiday. That’s why this cruise line is clearly at the bottom of our personal ranking.

Our next cruise: Princess Cruises

Our cruise story continues! We’ve already got another cruise planned, this time with Princess Cruises.

We’re curious to see what we’ll think of this cruise line. How is the service? What are the restaurants and crowds on board like? And will Princess measure up to our favourite, Celebrity?

As soon as we’ve taken this cruise, we’ll of course share our experiences and add Princess to our personal ranking.

Our personal ranking

Celebrity Cruises – our favourite, thanks to excellent service, delicious food and a relaxed atmosphere.
MSC Cruises – a good cruise, but at times too crowded for us, with long queues to disembark.
AIDA – beautiful destinations, but the buffet crowds and ship layout weren’t quite right for us.

This ranking is of course personal. What matters to us may not be decisive for another cruiser. That’s exactly why we share our experiences: to help you find the cruise line that suits your preferences.

Cruising is about more than just the destination. It’s also about how you feel along the way.

And that’s exactly what we’d love to tell you more about at Cruisen met ons.