How Cruise Awards Are Decided
Reader surveys, editors, member reviews and travel agents — what each method tells you.
Get Quotes on Award-Winning Cruise LinesKnowing how cruise awards are decided tells you how much weight to give them. There are four basic methods.
Four Ways Cruise Awards Are Decided
Reader surveys
Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler invite readers to rate lines they have sailed; scores are averaged and ranked within ship-size bands. Large samples, but voters are magazine readers, not a random sample of cruisers.
Editors plus member reviews
Cruise Critic’s editors pick most of their category winners, while the Cruisers’ Choice awards come from ratings members submitted over the past year, with a minimum number of reviews required.
Travel-professional voting
Travel Weekly’s Readers Choice Awards are voted by travel professionals over two rounds — useful because advisors see how lines treat clients when things go wrong.
Panels and public voting
USA TODAY 10Best has an expert panel nominate and readers vote. Other programs, including the World Cruise Awards, publish their own nomination and voting rules on their websites.
Reading an Award Claim
- Which program? “Award-winning” alone means nothing.
- Which year? A 2019 win says little about a line today.
- Which category? Best mega-ship and best overall are different claims.
- Which place? “Top 10” is not “No. 1.”
- Who voted? Readers, members, editors or travel agents.
What Awards Do Not Measure
Awards rarely capture price, how a line handles a cancelled port, or whether a ship suits your particular needs. Mobility, dietary or family-size questions are better answered by an advisor who books the line regularly. Use awards to build a shortlist and the rest of our network — First Time Cruise for first-timers, A Voyage Travel for choosing a voyage, Cruising First Class for luxury — to make the decision.
How Cruise Awards Work: FAQ
Can cruise lines buy awards?
The big reader-voted and editorial programs base results on votes, reviews or editors’ judgment, and publish how. For any award you have not heard of, look up who runs it, who votes and whether entry is open to everyone before giving it weight.
Why do some awards name dozens of winners?
Programs with many categories — best for solo travelers, best spa, best itineraries — produce many winners. That makes them useful for finding a line strong in what you care about.
Size Bands Explained
Because cruise ships range from a few dozen guests to several thousand, most reader-voted programs rank lines within size bands. Travel + Leisure uses mega-ship, large-ship, midsize-ship, small-ship and intimate-ship categories; Condé Nast Traveler reported megaships as more than 4,000 passengers in 2026. The bands are not identical between programs, so a line can be “large” in one and “mega” in another. Always compare like with like.
Turn Your Award Shortlist Into a Quote
Our cruise advisors at Mister Cruise add the things awards leave out: price, cabin and fit.
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