Bigger is not always better on cruises

THE announcement by Royal Caribbean Cruises that it will build a 6,400-passenger ship, developed under the name Project Genesis, has raised concerns among readers. In letter after letter, experienced cruise passengers bemoaned the conditions that this ship -- and smaller 2,700- and 3,000-passenger ships -- have created.

One letter was from an experienced travel agent who recently sailed on two cruise ships -- the Norwegian Sun and the Carnival Victory -- carrying more than 2,000 passengers apiece. “I was not thrilled with either,” he wrote. “The dining was en masse, noisy, too hurried. We will continue to recommend the smaller ships to our customers.”

Another reader has booked the large ships with her 90-year-old mother. The experience, she wrote, “is like spending a week in a super mall. We are herded like animals in and out of dinner, in and out of the ‘entertainments.’ The ports are a nightmare, with thousands of people trying to get off, get taxis, shop at the same tourist traps. I can’t stand the noise, the crowds, the confusion.” Most of the writers refer to the better experience they have had on smaller vessels that are priced just as reasonably as the megaships. The smaller cruise ships, according to one, “enable you to get to know your fellow passengers; they offer open seating for meals; their ability to sail into areas where the bigger ones cannot go is priceless.”

One passenger wrote of her experience on the large ships: “Every moment we weren’t in port was agony. Endless long halls remind us of rat warrens. We were surrounded by unadventurous middle-aged Americans. And endless selling. It was like living inside an infomercial. It seemed as if every moment of every day someone was trying to sell us something, from invited jewelry merchants to incessant auctioning of second-rate art, to booze, booze and more booze. Drinking and eating were the main recreations.”

Is there a lesson for the cruise lines? Has a counter-reaction set in that will doom the giant cruise ships to less-than-profitable results?