Royal Caribbean, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, P&O Cruises and Uniworld were among the cruise lines honoured at Travel Weekly’s Cool Cruises awards.
The ceremony, held at Mail Newspapers offices in central London, revealed the results of the Cool Cruises survey, sponsored by Cruise Plus by Travel 2, which asked travel agents to vote for their favourite cruise lines across a range of categories including best for families, best for luxury and best for wellness.
Royal Caribbean International was the only line to scoop three awards. Sales director Martin MacKinnon said: “We’re delighted to have won three awards, in the family, entertainment and Caribbean categories, and we can’t wait to share this with the team back in the office. The trade is really important to us, so awards that are voted for by agents really mean a lot.
“We’ve got a lot happening over the next year with Anthem of the Seas, one of our Quantum class ships, coming out of the UK, Allure of the Seas coming into Barcelona and Explorer of the Seas coming into Rome. And there’s lots going on in the Caribbean, so we’ll be making sure we get agents to see the best of that.”
P&O Cruises came top for value and ex-UK cruising in the ocean categories. Rosy Sims, director of trade engagement and onboard sales, said: “It’s amazing to have won two awards today. We’ve really been investing in travel agents over the last couple of years, for example by introducing the Shine Rewards Club.
“I look after trade engagement so we have a whole team of people whose job it is to make sure that agents are recognised and are engaged with what we’re doing – that’s really important for us.”
In addition to the 15 ocean categories, river cruise lines were honoured in five sectors including luxury, value and excursions.
Chris Townson, UK managing director of double winner Uniworld, said: “It’s unbelievable to win two awards – not just for luxury but also cuisine. We have got a whole focus this year on gastronomy. Our chefs have worked at the best restaurants in the world and we have elevated food to a new level.
“There’s a huge amount of over-marketing in the river cruise industry – everyone’s got the best ships or the best food – but to hear the agents vote for us is fantastic because it means our message is getting through.”
More: Read the full results in our Cool Cruises supplement here.