Thirty ultra-luxury ships.
One of them is yours.

What CruiseLens is

CruiseLens is a free reading from Expeditioner Travel. It asks 23 questions about how you like to travel — no cruise knowledge needed — and names which of 30 ultra-luxury and expedition ship groups across 21 cruise lines fits you, with the reasoning and the compromise shown. It is a starting point for a conversation with a travel advisor, not a booking site.

How a reading works

The questions come in three parts: how you travel, your ship and evenings & money. Each answer says something about 28 characteristics of a ship, from how formal the evenings are to how far off the beaten track it goes. Every ship is scored on the same characteristics, held to a written methodology, by an advisor at Expeditioner Travel, where we have sailed five of the 21 lines covered and researched the rest. The result names the one ship that fits best, plots you against it across all 28 characteristics, and says plainly where it falls short of what you asked for. Positions two to five are shown as bands, not names, because the order between close ships is rarely meaningful. See a sample reading.

The characteristics

Formality, Sociability, Fellow guests, Buzz, Privacy, Solo travel, Design, Scale, Outdoor living, Yacht feel, Suite space, Culinary ambition, Choice of restaurants, Local food, Service style, In-suite service, Remoteness, Included touring, Activity, Enrichment, Pool and sun, Evening shows, Late nights, All-inclusive, Being sold to, Children, Unlike a cruise and Value for fare.

The lines covered

Atlas Ocean Voyages, Aurora Expeditions, Azamara, Celebrity Cruises, Crystal, Explora Journeys, Four Seasons Yachts, HX, National Geographic, Oceania, Orient Express, Ponant, Regent Seven Seas, Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, Scenic, SeaDream Yacht Club, Seabourn, Silversea, Swan Hellenic, Viking and Windstar.

What it is not

A reading is a matching, not a ranking, and scores are an advisor’s judgement rather than a measurement. Specifications — 38 facts per ship — are checked against each operator’s published information, and a gap is shown as a gap, never filled in. Where CruiseLens judges a ship on less evidence than the others, it says so. Expeditioner Travel is paid commission by the cruise line if you book through it; the commission is inside the fare whether or not you use an advisor. Nothing you answer is saved on our server unless you ask for your reading. How it works, in full · Privacy

Compare the lines

Where the lines people most often weigh against each other really differ, on the same characteristics: Regent vs Silversea, Silversea vs Seabourn, Regent vs Seabourn, Explora vs Ritz-Carlton and Azamara vs Silversea. Or start with which luxury cruise line is right for you.