Small Ship Itineraries

Reason 6 -- Itineraries

Smaller ships, including those in the luxury category, are able to visit places that their bigger brethren can't or, at any rate, don't. In Alaska that means the likes of Wrangell and Haines, Misty Fjords and Sawyer Glacier. In the Western Mediterranean, they'll call at more exclusive places like Portofino and Capri. Not only are these ports of call a bit more exotic -- it's also less stressful to be, for instance, part of a group of just a handful of passengers of the only ship in Haines that day than a tourist in Juneau when four or five mega ships are in port.

Reason 7 -- Service

There's a reason that service people (stewards, maitre de's, waitstaff and so on) don't hustle tips on the luxury ships: They're paid better than their counterparts on mainstream ships. And because they are paid more and are therefore not as reliant on the generosity of passengers for their income, these lines manage to attract a higher quality of employee, well-trained, well-disciplined operatives who understand the concept of "the customer comes first."

Reason 8 -- Fewer Announcements

Because they tend not to get involved in the seemingly never-ending stream of onboard entertainment opportunities, there is no need for the cruise director to be constantly on the public address system ("Hey folks, this is Peter from the bridge reminding you that in 15 minutes we'll be starting our jackpot bingo in the main show room, with a prize today standing at $600!"). On some ships, the announcements seem to come on with mind-numbing frequency. Not so on luxury vessels. There's generally a morning announcement of the day's events, maybe a lunchtime follow up -- and that's it!

Reason 9 -- Hot Food

Think about it. On huge ships -- vessels like many of those operating in Alaska each year, some with 2,600-plus passengers -- the sometimes enormous distances involved in getting food from the galley to the table often drops the temperature of the food by several degrees. That may not sound like a big deal, but some people find lukewarm victuals unappetizing. And when you're looking forward to a bowl of nourishing soup after a morning on deck in the chilly air watching glaciers calving, you want that soup piping hot. On the luxury ships, it tends to be -- and so does every other dish that's supposed to be.

Reason 10 -- Getting to Know People in Depth

On any of the mega-ships, especially in this day and age of freestyle dining and alternative restaurants aplenty, it's possible to meet people once and never see them again. On a smaller ship, you tend to be thrown together more easily, and more often.

Although this can sometimes work to your disadvantage, it's often a benefit. Case in point: On the first night on a recent Silversea cruise, we met out what seemed at first glance to be a rather intimidating English couple. She was a dairy farmer, short, stocky -- the absolute quintessential Shropshire lass. You could just picture her striding across her acreage, wearing a tweed suit and wellington boots. Her husband, a tall, almost patrician ex-British Army officer (he insisted on being addressed as "Major" even though he retired from the service a dozen years before) was, let's say, "teddibly" British. Now, if this had been a mega ship, we might have given this duo a wide berth for the rest of the voyage. But it wasn't. It was a 25,000-ton luxury ship in which the available space afforded no real way to totally avoid contact.

And what a boon that proved to be. On subsequent meetings, as these two relaxed and opened up, we saw a whole new side of them. They turned out to be delightful, amusing traveling companions, whom we were able to know in more depth because of the nature of our cruise ship. We didn't eat dinner with them every night (they were invariably among the first into the dining room while we usually ate later in the evening, but we saw enough of them in bars and lounges, on tours and on deck, to realize that our initial impressions of them were quite wrong).

Ultimately, you can't expect all of the aforementioned to happen to you, even if you upgrade to a luxury ship. This is simply a random sampling of impressions gained during recent voyages on that kind of vessel. Find out before you book which ships offer the features that most appeal to you. Just keep in mind is that it's sometimes "penny-wise and pound-foolish" to take the cheapest room when it might make more sense to upgrade -- maybe even all the way to a luxury ship.

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