Caribbean Most Popular Cruise Region, Says CruiseCompete

Caneel Bay, Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands, taken by Fred HsuClients looking to take a cruise can look on the two months that have been this year, courtesy of website CruiseCompete, which has released its February 2011 CruiseTrends Report. Tracking trends in consumer behavior and purchase decisions for cruise vacations, the report is based on consumer quote requests by consumers on the cruise website, where travel agents compete to compete to offer the best deal for consumer cruises business. Featured trends included most popular cruise regions, most popular countries visited and most popular cruise lines, among others, for premium, luxury and river cruises.

With CruiseCompete tracking destinations for the first time, Caribbean topped the list as the most popular cruise region for premium cruises, while Europe placed first in both luxury and river cruises. Among the popular cruise ports visited (excluding departure ports) the favorite for premium cruising was Nassau, while Santorini took the cake among luxury cruises, and Vienna dominated river cruising. Similarly (also excluding departure ports), Bahamas ranked among most popular countries visited, Greece topped among luxury lines and Germany lead the pack in river cruise choices.

Those who favor certain lines will be interested to know that Carnival Cruise Line made the top of the list among premium lines, followed by Royal Caribbean International. Among luxury cruises, Oceania Cruises overtook Cunard Line, first in January, and AmaWaterways replaced Viking River Cruises in the number one spot among river cruises.

Top ships included premium cruises' leader, Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, followed by Carnival Dream. For luxury cruisers, Cunard's Queen Mary 2 ranked at the top, trailed by Oceania Marina's which replaced Cunard's Queen Victoria as second. River cruisers championed AmaWaterways' ms AmaLyra (ahead of January’s ms Amadoce), followed by ms Amalegro, which replaced Uniworld River Cruises' River Beatrice.

Most popular cruise departure ports were Fort Lauderdale for premium cruises, Venice for luxury cruises and Amsterdam for river cruises. Most popular cabin types were inside cabins among premium cruise quote requests, while balcony cabins were the most requested on luxury cruises, and outside cabins took the lead on river cruises.

Based on the most requested months for consumer travel, hottest months for cruising was March for premium cruising, while July was the month among luxury and river cruising, changed from May and April respectively in January.

Other information included in the monthly report includes the number of cabins requested, most popular cruise itinerary length and most popular sailing months requested, as well as travel insurance requested, cruise line past passenger status requested and booking window of time.

Visit www.cruisecompete.com.