{"id":19738,"date":"2014-01-03T01:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=19738"},"modified":"2014-01-03T01:00:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T09:00:20","slug":"19738","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=19738","title":{"rendered":"Good as Gold for The Little Cruise Line That Can"},"content":{"rendered":"

It's still more than a month to the <\/span>Olympics<\/a> but there's already an underdog with a gold medal…in cruising.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Windstar<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Windstar? It's a small-ship cruise line, right? This big player in a small market is now a big fish in a big pond, as in the ocean. According to Conde Nast Traveler<\/a>, <\/span>\"Windstar\"<\/a>which every year produces its Gold List<\/i> of travel for hotels, resorts and cruise lines…sort of like being a five-star ranking in the eyes of an acknowledged expert.<\/span><\/p>\n

The category for cruising is called Ocean Cruises<\/i> and seven lines made it for 2014. One of them is Windstar, a sailing fleet that the average cruiser would not think of as being "ocean" vessels. In fact, the only heavyweight in this year's class is Disney<\/a>…the other five are Crystal Cruises, Regent Seven Seas<\/a>, Seabourn, SeaDream<\/a> and Silversea<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly, the trending is to smaller ships — at least in awards — with first-class service. In service, Windstar scored 97.3, slightly better than its itineraries (96.7) and food (94.7). Its overall rating for seven categories was 92.0.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crystal<\/a> (94.4) was at the head of the class with an overall score of 94.4. Second was Seabourn<\/a> at 92.6 and Windstar was third.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Sochi<\/a>, Russia next month they'll call third place a "bronze" medal. At Windstar, it's gold.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ruby Princess<\/a>
\n\t9 nights<\/span>
\n\tMarch 1, 2014<\/span>
\n\tFort Lauderdale<\/a> (return): <\/span>Grand Cayman<\/a>, <\/span>Cozumel<\/a>, Fort Lauderdale, <\/span>Grand Turk<\/a>
\n\tInside: $605<\/span>
\n\tCost per day: $67<\/strong><\/span>
\n\twww.princess.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It's still more than a month to the Olympics but there's already an underdog with a gold medal…in cruising. Windstar. Windstar? It's a small-ship cruise line, right? This big player in a small market is now a big fish in a big pond, as in the ocean. According to Conde Nast Traveler, which every year… Continue reading Good as Gold for The Little Cruise Line That Can<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,36,19,15],"tags":[137,68,633,912,72,819,35,227,28,901,957,1119,829,152,213,21,1291,1016],"class_list":["post-19738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-reviews","category-ships","category-stories","tag-caribbean-cruises","tag-conde-nast-traveler","tag-cruise-awards","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruise-news","tag-cruises","tag-crystal-cruises","tag-disney","tag-olympic-games","tag-princess-cruises","tag-regent-seven-seas","tag-ruby-princess","tag-seabourn","tag-seadream-yachts","tag-silversea","tag-sochi-olympics","tag-windstar-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}