About The Cruising Insider
The Cruising Insider is an independent cruise guide for US travelers. Every page answers one question, which cruise should you book, for a specific cruise line, ship, home port, destination, month or kind of traveler, and gives a plain verdict: who should book it and who should skip it. Today that is 201 guides citing 1,805 sources, with prices from 32,281 upcoming sailings.
What "insider" means here
Researched, sourced and opinionated. We read the fare rules, deck plans, port guidance and line announcements so you don't have to, compare lines on the same criteria, and say who should book and who should skip. It doesn't mean invented stories: we don't publish made-up sailing anecdotes, reviewer quotes or user ratings, and we don't claim to have sailed ships we haven't.
How a guide is made
- One question per page. Each page targets one thing people actually search for, so it can answer it fully in the first two sentences.
- Research from primary sources. Cruise line pages and press releases, port authorities, government sources (such as the National Park Service and CBP), and trade press for deployments and changes.
- A separate fact-check pass. Before a page is published, every factual claim is checked against a source we can link to. Anything we can't confirm is rewritten as general advice or removed; a page with an open question is not published. Each page keeps a log of what was checked and corrected.
- A verdict on published criteria. Rankings and verdicts use the seven criteria on how we rate cruises, and say why.
- Sources listed on the page. Every guide ends with the sources behind its facts, so you can check them yourself.
Where prices come from
"From" prices and sailing tables come from Cruisebound's catalog of sailings, refreshed every week. Each price is the lowest per-person fare we found for that ship, region or line, shown with the month it was checked. Fares move daily, so treat them as a guide and check the live price before you book. Sailings drop off our pages two days before they leave. The same data is summarised onwhat a cruise costs, by line, region and trip length.
Updates and corrections
Every page shows the date it was last updated. Prices refresh weekly, ship deployments and fare inclusions are re-checked when lines announce changes, and verdicts and rankings are reviewed every quarter. If you spot an error, tell us through the contact page; we check it against a source, correct the page and update its date.
What we cover
- Cruise lines: who each line suits, its ships, what the fare includes, plus reviews and comparisons.
- Ship guides: specs, cabins to pick and avoid, and where each ship sails.
- Home ports: terminals, parking and which lines sail from each port.
- Destinations and cruises by month: where and when to go.
- Cruise ideas: families, adults-only, solo, short trips, holidays and more.
- Rankings of the best cruise lines and ships.
We don't build guides for departures from Florida or Texas ports.
Who runs the site
The Cruising Insider and its ChatGPT app, Find My Cruise, are operated by Budai Ionut Andrei. Pages are published under the byline Andrew J., the name our editorial team writes under. We use one byline so it's clear who is responsible for what we publish; it isn't a claim that one person sailed every ship we cover.
How we make money
Through affiliate commissions when readers book through our links, mainly with Cruisebound. It doesn't change the price you pay, and it doesn't change our verdicts, which follow the criteria above. See the affiliate disclosure.