Topic: Forum posts can provide advice on holidays but take care, says expert

A leading online holiday expert has called on those choosing trips like cruise holidays to take a balanced approach to online recommendations.

Sharron Livingston, the editor of thetravelmagazine.net issued the warning in a recent interview, where she stressed the importance of consumer reviews.

Trips like cruise holidays can often prove divisive among holidaymakers, with each individual possessing their own distinctive preferences for a trip and its destination.

Ms Livington called on those considering cruises to "make a decision based on the overall message that comes out of them and of course put into the mix your own tastes and needs".

Some reviews will focus on the cruise ship accommodation, while others may value the quality of food or shore excursions as of most importance on a trip.

She called on users to take various reviews into consideration before making a decision on a holiday noting that the presence of one bad review where there are a handful of good ones does not mean a place should be avoided.

The comments come after TriperAdvisor was ordered to rewrite some of its marketing claims by the UK's Advertising Standards Agency following from complaints by hotels that the site had said that its holiday reviews could be trusted. 

Do you agree with this assessment? What do you value most in a cruise? Do you listen to user reviews?

She called on users to take various reviews into consideration before making a decision on a holiday noting that the presence of one bad review where there are a handful of good ones does not mean a place should be avoided..

That's common sense!

It does make me laught when someone says that are worries about a recent '1 Star' review when the previous 10 reviews rate the same ship 4-5 stars!

My advice would be to look at 20-30 cruise reviews on this site and take an average of the star ratings. If the reviews are all within recent months, that is particularly helpfull.

Hi The pleasures of taking a cruise holiday are varied and I doubt if any cruise line/ship will tick every box for an individual passenger, so the cruises you chose tend to be the best compromise. For some the itinerary is paramount, others the cruise ambience, some base their choice on cost, others may be the "twitchers" of the cruise world and select ships based on novelty etc. These factors are not fixed, the more I cruise the less important the desination has become and the onboard experience has become the key factor. Yes I do read the reviews and take a cross section of views. In addition I rank the reviews, those who have cruised frequently with a wide range of cruise lines tend to give a more balanced account of the vacation. However, I tend to use my own experience to judge which cruise lines I would enjoy most.

i enjoy reading cruise reviews and have to admit that if i'm not specifically looking for a cruise at that time, i will pinpoint the bad ones for entertainment value!
if i am really interested in a ship/cruise, i will read all reviews for the past year, but i'm looking for facts to back up scoring; some people will score the whole cruise badly because of one experience specific to them,some people will score badly for reasons that don't affect me e.g.cost/availability of wi-fi and some some people always get out of the wrong side of the bed!
i'm equally sceptical of the review which scores everything as "5 star" but glad that they had a good cruise.
i think that it's very sad that tripadvisor is getting a reputation for being unreliable and hope that they can put measures in place to stop the sabateurs, but i don't think this cruise forum has been got at like that.

I use Trip Adviser and I think that I can recognise the extremists. The hotelier who puffs his own establishment is every bit as bad as the troll who gives an unjustified bad review.

'A review is only as good as the previous experience of the reviewer'.

I read that ages ago and I think it's relevant to trusting a review of anything.

We don't 'trust' reviews, preferring to do our own research and then we use our own judgement. Sometimes, when I read a review, I wonder if we were ever on the same ship/stayed in the same hotel!

QUOTE:

I use Trip Adviser and I think that I can recognise the extremists. The hotelier who puffs his own establishment is every bit as bad as the troll who gives an unjustified bad review.

One thing that I have notice in Trip Advisor is that Americans seem to post more negative reviews that anyone else. I look at a variety of reviews, and try to find a balance.

I've only put one review on this site, and stressed that it was written from the point of view of a solo traveller; the experience would have been different for people travelling with a partner or family/friends.

Reviews are useful as they give an overall picture of the cruise. I defy anyone to find a 100% perfect cruise. I have just returned from caribbean cruiise on equinox and i could find lots of little niggles if i wanted to but i enjoyed the ship the food and the crew.