It's a little dissapointing because it is clear that CC is successful because people genuinely believe in it's impartiality as evidenced in this thread. The reality is that people are "clubbed in" to the "role calls" and then the "meet ups" often overseen by the mod. Because of the nature of things mod cozying up involves apeing his line in the fora.

People go there for impartial information and most certainly do not get it at the level they think they are. Real shame as there is a place for what CC was originally.

Extremely true. And the atmosphere on CC can be very demeaning. Some regular posters on some of the forums are not only blunt, but have a "my way or the highway" attitude.

Well, in defense of CruiseCritic, but not Crystal, here's a cruise/thread that we were involved in. I didn't start the thread, but the title was perfect. In any event, I saw no attempt at censorship on the part of CC. But things may have changed since then.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=136835

The difference is that there are several Crystal defenders who post on CC who will tear you to pieces if you make a negative comment.

Several of those people hunt for first time Crystal cruises to get them to sign up for STEX (share the experience) bonuses awarded to the returning passenger on the same Crystal cruise.

It's not just the Crystal board. It's most of the lines. Say something negative about the defenders' preferred line and it's like attacking their grandchildren.

This is true. I don't understand why, but some folks are very defensive of their chosen cruise line. It's like they're proud of themselves because they picked to do business with a certain company. It makes no logical sense at all.

It's basic psychology, people seek validation for their decisions, then once they've recieved it (by clubbing together), attacking their values tends to be poorly recieved.

It ends up becoming like atheists trashing religious people or whatever - the arguement against is logical, but the counter arguement isn't based on reason.

There are significant differences between CC and FT. I have been on CC since its inception and always mind my Ps and Qs very carefully on it. The mods are the problem. They tend to be less experienced, less traveled, less employed, and less disciplined than their FT counterparts. Then too you have less sophisticated posters on CC. There are a lot of—please forgive me—housewives posting there, whereas businesswomen post here. Keep in mind, the cruise industry is significantly different (almost all leisure travel) from the airline industry (lots of business travel). That's going to mean the participants there and here have differing experiences and expectations. Personally, I much prefer the professionalism of the cruise/Caribbean forums here on FT to any forum on CC.

I think that any place YOU are would not be fun at all!

LOL

You got this totally right. No apologies necessary. Being both a housewife and a business woman. Or maybe a little less gender specific is to say FT is for the more independent traveller whereas, the CC traveller is more dependent.

Or that hoary old distinction, CC is for tourists; and FT is for travellers.

For those who dislike Cruise Critic, you could always try: Cruise Talk

Yeah, especially if you love popup ads. :rolleyes:

One could always invest in a pop-up blocker...

One does, but that's beside the point. As you know. ;)

hmmm I have to agree about Cruise Critic
 

As much as I do love Crystal Cruises I did have a creepy thing happen on board my first cruise with the company. A woman who was cleaning our room umm... used my hair flat iron. Not pleasant thought. Her pawing through my stuff. I had my flat iron tucked away in my bag and came back to find her cleaning and the flat iron out on the table and hot. I asked her and she panicked. Accused me of lying all sorts of un-Crystal like stuff. It was an odd first experience and not indicative of the norm. Still I posted this experience on Cruise Critic and you would have think I killed Santa Claus. People claiming I was lying all sorts of crazy defensive weird stuff.

I think this was a one time weird thing. The woman was reprimanded and we got a different housekeeper for the trip. Still I am careful to lock up my personal items in any hotel or cruise ship from that experience. The point is instead of just letting me post a scary event people jumped on me like a traitor to humanity.

hmmm I have to agree about Cruise Critic
 

......

Cruisecritic is great!
 

The title is, of course, just my opinion based upon 45+ cruises.:) The general exchange of info is good, like Flyertalk, but the best feature is the roll call for specific cruises. Among other things, members on a given cruise can exchange info and plan independent shore excursions. There are also alerts to price reductions.

True. The roll call is a nice feature of Cruise Critic and one of the best uses of a forum anywhere. Still, CC caters to cruise lines and cruise selling agencies, not to cruise line passengers. That's fine. What's not fine is CC pretending to be a forum when it's actually a vendor marketplace.

I don't understand this comment. In my 170 posts, I have never been edited or in any manner censored. To my knowledge, I have never received an email from a vendor as a result of my posting on cc. :)

In contract, in only 97 posts, I have gotten a curt private email from a flyertalk moderator. Apparently this was because I had the audasity to defend "bidding for travel" and Sheryl. Will I get another for this comment??:(

That's very clear from your response. Instead of trying to understand me, do this instead. Go to CruiseCritic and post the name of your favorite travel agent, his/her company name and the price you just got for a cruise from that agent. For example, "Hey, everyone, my agent, Jane Doe, at XYZ Cruise Outlet, got me a Cat BB on Royal Princess for $1200 a.i." Then see how many minutes your account remains open. Report back to us.

Cruise critic doesn't allow its members to give prices or name agencies. FlyerTalk does. Case closed.

I agree with CC non advertising policy quoted below: :D

Cruise Critic has strict guidelines prohibiting blatant advertising, commercial sales and solicitation posts on all of our message boards.

Our Cruise Boards are meant to be a cruiser's exchange of advice and tips where cruisers can talk about their travels -- not a marketplace for advertising and selling services. There are thousands of cruise professionals online and if we didn't insist on a non-solicitation policy the cruise boards would be very quickly overrun with nothing but ads.

Cruise Critic defines advertising as an individual or company's attempt to generate business or other commercial enterprise, either directly or indirectly, by using our Cruise Board. Solicitation includes, but is not limited to, requests to be E-mailed, the posting of phone numbers for your business, constantly mentioning that you are in the travel business, and the referring to or posting of one's own Web site address.

There shall be no third-party recommendation of travel agencies on any forums within Cruise Critic. General discussions regarding the TYPE of AGENCY to be used to purchase a cruise will be allowed, as long as no recommendations for any source of purchase are posted.

Touting of your personal cruise agent or cruise line "personal cruise consultant" (or any other venue by which you purchase a cruise) is not allowed on our message boards. Postings that contain "tell them John sent you" will be removed without notice.

This means you should not ask about someone's travel agent, nor should you respond in kind. Offering to email someone your travel agent's name or info is also not allowed, nor is asking members to email you for the information.

It also means you cannot post links to travel agencies, no matter what the specific reason.

Cruise Critic will remove violations of the "third-party recommendation" guideline without warning. Additional posts will result in permanent suspension of your posting privileges.

You're welcome to agree or disagree with their policy, but I'm not going to let you miss-characterize it. It's not a non-advertising policy. There are ads all over CC. That policy is to let advertisers be the only commercial voice in the forum. People cannot help other people find good deals and competent agents, because CC won't let them. It might upset the advertisers who are not recommended.

That alone, my dear friend, is why FT is better than CC.

You actually defended Sheryl? :D

It's easy enough to use CC and FT differently. I go to CC to get information about certain cruise lines, interact with fellow passengers, hear both positive and negative opinions etc. I am well aware that the boards there are highly partisan and I know what to ignore and what to listen to. I come to FT if I want specific recommendations for certain things as well as more sophisticated opinions on cruise lines and hotels. And of course, air lines.

The way I see it, everyone just needs to clearly understand CC (unlike FT) is an advertising/marketing vehicle for its owners products. So the information on CC (unlike FT) is not necessarily objective. Some of it is biased, slanted & skewed in favour of putting its owners product in a better light than its competitors.

Nothing wrong with this. That's how advertising/marketing works. The only issue here is many people are not aware of this particular fact about CC. So some might argue this is a somewhat deceptive marketing practice.

It's not the only online travel forum set up to do this, by the way.

As long as everyone knows CC is what it is, then there should be no problem.

Cheers,

Exactly.

Cheers,

I got banned because I stated quite factually that in regards to Crystal's parent company, Genting Hong Kong, that financial results posted by Asian public companies are not always accurate. This give you a flavor of the moderation on Cruise Critic, they are paid to promote cruise lines and deflect any snesitive issues. The comments are also seeded with shills, promoting cruising during the pandemic as a great idea.

CC (Owned by Tripadvisor which own a crap load other travel sites) has it's place but you will face instant ban if you ever mention anything about TA aka Travel Agency. Asking a fellow CC who they use as a TA is a big no-no ;)

To RNE
A big shout out to you from me. I didn't realize exactly what CC was until your explanations up-board on the comparison between CC and FT. Now I know the differences.

However, at this point, I am uncertain as to the immediate utility of CC since I have little inclination of taking one in the near or distant future :(

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I talk about my TA all the time and have never had a problem.

mentioning the Consortium by name is fine. You can not mention a TA or agency by name or the post will disappear.

I'm with you, Doc. Despite having been on 36 cruises, and loving them all, I'm not about to set foot on a cruise ship for the foreseeable future.