Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2012 by Peter Knego
At 702 pages, Berlitz’ Complete Guide To Cruising and Cruise Ships 2013 is an opus work by industry veteran Douglas Ward, who has been rating cruises for some 45 years.
2013 Berlitz Guide.
Available for USD $24.99 or UK £17.99 at www.berlitzpublishing.com, the guide includes reviews of 284 ocean-going passenger ships that span the gamut from the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SEA LION to the ALLURE OF THE SEAS. The reviews are subjective and while everyone’s experience with each ship may vary (for instance I felt the NG SEA LION deserved a better rating than one + stars out of five), Ward has done a remarkable job in gathering and systematically presenting key data on so many ships.
Review page sample, featuring NG SEA BIRD and NG SEA LION.
The author offers detailed and often candid criticism in addition to listing the facts. For instance, in his description of NORWEGIAN SKY, he states, “The hustling for passengers to attend art auctions is aggressive and annoying, as is the constant bombardment for daily activities and the daily junk mail that arrives at one’s cabin door.”
A particularly nice thing for ship lovers about reading Ward’s descriptive text is his appreciation for the actual look and style of the ships he reviews. With regard to CARNIVAL MAGIC, he writes, “Although the ship’s bows are short, its profile is nicely balanced, with a rakish front and a more rounded stern.” Most reviewers would neither notice nor bother to mention such information. He takes a particular fancy to Celebrity’s SOLSTICE Class Ships and describes their artwork and decor with a sense of admiration and vigor.
Review page sample featuring CELEBRITY INFINITY.
The Berlitz guide includes more than just U.S.-based ships, which makes it more interesting than most guides that focus solely on the American cruise experience. And, not surprising to anyone who is familiar with Mr. Ward’s admiration for Hapag-Lloyd’s EUROPA, that ship is once again the winner of the sole “five-plus stars” distinction.
Every conceivable aspect of cruising is covered in an individual chapter, including family cruising.
Cuisine is detailed, with a number of interesting caveats.
There is a chapter on sail-powered ships.
In addition to ship reviews, Ward devotes the first third of the book to a wide range of subjects relevant to both newbie and veteran cruisers, from “What to Look for in 2013”, “Choosing The Right Cruise” and “What the Brochures Don’t Always Tell You” to “The Year’s Star Performers”. The major cruise lines are compared and all sorts of useful and interesting material is provided, from the best in shore excursions to how cruise ships are built. The book includes maps of major cruising destinations and tables and charts that compare just about every conceivable aspect of cruising. All in all, this is a great reference for anyone who enjoys cruising or wants to keep up to date with the world’s cruising fleet.
In addition to the book, Berlitz offers a 2013 Cruising and Cruise Ships App.
Kalle Id
December 16, 2012 at 11:01 am
Ward’s book is splendid and highly useful. I particularly like the one-sentence “sum-up” descriptions for each ship that have been added some time during the past five years and the short descriptions of every cruise operator. But at the same time Ward is sometimes irritatingly biased towards a certain type of cruising and his accounts of the histories of various ships do contain errors.
Kai Ortel
December 16, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Although I admire the sheer size and love to detail that Mr. Ward continues to express in this work of his, I found the latest edition very poorly produced. The table “The Top Tens of Cruising” on p. 191 had to be stuck into the book after the whole thing was finished obviously and at least the European ports named on the maps in the “Where to” section (p. 32ff) have been selected so haphazardly that the result is almost bizzarre. (Cagliari is in, Olbia is not, Heraklion is in, Chania is not, and the North Sea with everything between Hamburg, southern Norway and the English Channel is missing altogether.) Furthermore, the book contains quite a lot of old photo material, starting with an old RENAISSANCE ship in its early 1990es guise on the title and not ending with an elderly Greek ferry instead of a Costa cruise in Myconos (on p. 143) and P&O’s ARTEMIS (p. 9) which has long been renamed ARTANIA by her new owners. Some weird captions (p. 96) add to this mixed review, but perhaps this is only the biassed view of a European on an American book.
Adrian Driscoll
December 17, 2012 at 2:03 am
I am afraid the final sentence needs correcting:
“In addition to the book, Berlitz offers a free 2013 Cruising and Cruise Ships App.”
The app isn’t free but is considerably cheaper than the book and has lots of features that make it an ideal companion to the book.
More about it here: http://www.insightguides.com/berlitz/berlitz-cruising
Kalle Id
December 17, 2012 at 2:11 am
Since we are on the subject of biased views of Europeans on an American book,
one thing that I found grossly inaccurate was Ward’s constantly overused description of MSC Cruises onboard product as “European”. MSC is really not European so much as Mediterranean or even just clear-cut Italian. Now sure, both Mediterranean and Italian are essentially sub-categories of European, but when I went onboard MSC for the first time I was expecting a genuine European product where I would be comfortable as a European person, particularly because Ward’s book labelled it as such, and I was hugely disappointed with what the onboard product actually was. It was okay, but it was not at all what Ward described it as.
mike wolstencroft
December 17, 2012 at 2:50 am
Ward’s opus has become increasingly unobjective and myopic over the years. Oriana’s persistent prop vibrations ( present from birth ), Aurora’s electro-tech woes, Oceana’s rapid descent into scruffiness, Adonia’s howling balcony door seals and poor standards of on-board hygiene, the list is a long one (and this is just P & O.) and nary a ‘squeak’ out of Douglas! Let’s see the US Port Sanitation Inspection Reports published on Galley Maintenance. I re-call an Aurora US East coast sector which had the Hotel Department crews running around like headless chickens because the US authorities refused to tell the ship in advance at which port they would come aboard to inspect. Bottom line is, the cruise industry hasn’t a clue how to move on from the 20′s/30′s culture in the face of intensifying passenger awareness of cynical fare pricing/last minute discounting and nasty on- board ‘extras’( access to special ‘quiet areas, so called ‘speciality restaurants’ and inflated drinks prices which are based on British Excise Duty rates and measures – not really relevant when a ship is miles away from territorial waters). Move over Duggie, times have changed
Peter Knego
December 17, 2012 at 8:43 am
Thank you. Must have misread the info and will amend, accordingly.
Kenneth Eden
December 24, 2012 at 3:24 am
I agree that the product seems flimsy, not up to Berlitz standards.
However, all hand held real books are now in major competion with Kindle’s and the like, and if a book of lesser quality is what gets published, get over it, I did, and realize another cherished piece of our past will pass by, just like everything else. Pity. (yes, we have Kindle’s, as much as I hate to admit it).
Regardless of the quality and in some cases dated info, for new-be’s, the book could prove of real value, and hopefully, help them in picking the proper ship for their needs, that is what the book is all about.
By the by – Doug Ward is a cruise verteran, well known in the states.
Hank
January 5, 2013 at 7:10 pm
I like this cruise guide. Although there are quite a few errors…The one that stands out to me the most is the statement that the first passenger ship to have a swimming pool was the AQUITANIA. Which isn’t first, or even second. The earliest ships I can remember having pools are the OLYMPIC and TITANIC. It makes you wonder if anyone has actually read a TITANIC book in the last 20 years. It would really enlighten one to the fact that there was a spartan pool on board.
Ralph Teutsch
January 6, 2013 at 1:14 pm
The Berlitz Guide has always had its share of sloppy errors (Will they ever fix “Reidel”?)but the reliability of the ratings outshines all others, which pale in comparison. I’ve been a fan for decades, since they were the first to say that the Emperor had no with respect to the QEII…
mike wolstencroft
March 20, 2013 at 9:00 am
Just returned from HAL’s MS Volendam – the Librarian on board had never even heard of the Berlitz Cruise Ship Guide………Little harm it seems to have done the ship. First class features and service in all respects.