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5 Cruise Lines You've Not Heard Of, But Should Consider
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Jan 28, 2025
I discuss 5 less well-known cruise lines that you probably have not heard of, but I think your really should know more about - and consider for a future cruising vacation. These cruise lines are not as well-known as the big lines but offer the cruise travellers something different, which is always something worth looking at. SUPPORT THE CHANNEL BY: Buying my Cruise T-shirts: http://bit.ly/TFTStore WATCH THESE POPULAR RECENT VIDEOS: 10 Cabins to Avoid: https://youtu.be/PgTGLma919A European River Cruise Watch-Outs: https://youtu.be/oqhz54wStyk 5 Cruises To Avoid: https://youtu.be/CNiPzK4IRWA Alaska Cruise Need-to-Knows: https://youtu.be/Tn7dpNw5kSI Things Cruise Lines Don’t Want You to Know: https://youtu.be/cs5UKha9ALc Rules Passengers Break Most: https://youtu.be/djZLZ3XV_f0 Things You Can’t Do On A Cruise Any More: https://youtu.be/zas6F4wMD0Q Should You Pay Cruise Gratuities: https://youtu.be/QBYzqxXjEXQ Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 77 cruises at time of making this video. Follow Tips For Travellers on:
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I'm Gary Bemmer. This is another of my cruising tips for travellers. I want to talk about
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five cruise lines you've probably never heard of but really should consider in your future
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cruising plans. Starting with this one. Celestial cruises are really interesting cruise lines. It's a small independently owned cruise line. It operates out of Greece so it's the
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one cruise line that's really home-based all year round out of Athens. They have two
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mid-sized ships at the time of recording they have the celestial olympia which has 1,664 guests and
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celestial crystal which has 1,200 guests. Celestial really immerse you into the whole Greek
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experience. The onboard experience has a lot of Greek immersion, they really focus on the Greek
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destinations, they know them incredibly well so it's a really Greek immersive destination so it's
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a great cruise line if you want to go and explore Greece, the Greek islands and that whole area of the world
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all-inclusive, although of course you have extra costs, things like Wi-Fi and excursions
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that kind of stuff. They really focus on a great cultural immersion in Greece. They have three
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key itineries that they focus on year-round. Their real heart of their business is Greece
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and particularly Greek islands, and they offer really short cruisers of a couple of nights
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like three nights, up to the more classic seven nights. There go to lots of really interesting
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islands, the big main ones that everyone know. like Mignos and Torini and they also go to more out of the way less known ones
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The other two key itineries that they offer are the eastern Mediterranean, so they go
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to places like Egypt, Cyprus, Israel and Turkey. Then they also cruise the Adriatic
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so they go to places like Venice, they'll go to Croatia so they'll go to places like
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Dubrovnik, they also go to Montenegro and the beautiful city of Kotor. So
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Celesteo cruises a really great one to look at if you think about a European cruise and you want to try something that really emerses you into Europe and Greece in particular
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The second cruise line you may never have heard of is also a European cruise line and it's
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called Crossy Europe. Crossy Europe is also independently owned it's owned by the Schmitter
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family. It was created over 44 years ago by Mr. Gerard Schmitter. It's based in
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Strasbourg and it is the longest and most established river cruising cruise line in Europe They don just do river cruising though They don just do river cruising though They they also do increasingly they starting to expand out into more exotic river cruising and also into some
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ocean cruising as well. Crossy Europe is a value line so you'll find really good value for money
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fares and they have an enormous range of itineries offering a French experience on board so
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you'll find the food is very French influenced and French is spoken on board as well as English. You'll find
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lots of French passengers on board. So if you really want a really European experience
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cross Europe is a great one to look at. They focus on a couple of areas. So as I mentioned
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European river cruising is their main focus with an enormous fleet. Pretty much any river in
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Europe that you can cruise on, cross Europe will cruise on. And they sound as designed very
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specific ships to cruise on the harder to cruise rivers. The sort of rivers they cruise
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on is the Rhine, the Danube, the sign, the Roan, the Loire, the Duaro, the Po, the Elba
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pretty much you name it. And you'll find a crossy Europe on it. They also have have more exotic river cruising and they really focus on the Mekong so Vietnam and Cambodia
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and they also have ships in Africa so you can go to Botswana and onto Lake
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Kariba in Zimbabwe on the Zimbabwe Zambia border and you can also go and see
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the Victoria Force as part of that. They also have European barge cruisers. I've been on
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their barge cruises. It's a great experience as you travel along in pretty small
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barge boats which sail along the cs through France. It's a great experience
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As I mentioned, they also do have more ocean experiences now, and there are two ships at the time
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of recording they have. They have the La Belaideque, which is 197 guests, and they mostly cruise around the sort
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of the Adriatic area, although in the winter period they will go a little bit further afield
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The most recent ship to join the fleet is La Belaida Oceans
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This, they actually bought from Silver Sea cruises. It was the Silver Sea Discoverer
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That's joined the fleet. It's planned to sail in Canada and the St. Lawrence River area
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and that has 128 guests. Across Europe, it's great value for money, really good European experience
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and really good if you're particularly looking at river cruising and barging. The third cruise line you may
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not have heard of, but I really think you should hear of, is Sea Dream Yacht Club. Sea Dream Yacht Club is
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a really interesting line It a very upmarket line It was Norwegian and was created by the man who founded Seaborne cruises originally Atil Breinstadt It was founded in 2001 They have two ships or yachts as they would call him Sea Dream 1 and
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Sea Dream 2. These small yacht type vessels have a marina at the back so you can go out
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doing lots of water sports and it's a very upmarket luxurious experience. The ships only hold
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112 guests. They have just over 90 cruise so it's almost a one-to-one ratio. The Sea
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slogan is it's yachting, not cruising. So they've really focusing on that kind of yacht type
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experience. It's very all-inclusive, very upmarket, high attention to detail. It's quite low-key
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kind of relaxed, so that also ties into the whole yacht club experience. They basically
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focus on two regions. So in the summer period, they focus on the Mediterranean, going to
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lots of interesting little ports that you can't do on bigger ships. And then in the winter season
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they head down to the Caribbean, which of course is a summer season in the Caribbean. And again
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they'll go to lots of different islands. Many islands of the big ships don't go to
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The next cruise line, which is another cruise line that I've been on and really think is remarkable
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is Paul Galgan. Paul Gargan is now part of the Ponont group, which is a French luxury cruise
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line, so that's maybe another cruise line you haven't heard of. Pondon is very up market, and they
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have lots of expedition cruises as well as more traditional cruising, very beautiful ships
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Paul Gargan is a recent acquisition to them. Paul Gargan really focuses on the French Polynesian Islands
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So it's based out of Tahiti. It sells all year round from Tahiti
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It will also go up as far as Fiji. They, at the time of recording, you only have one ship, which is the Paul Gaggan
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That has 332 passengers, again, like Sea Dream. It has a marina at the back
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It also has quite a low hull, so it's able to go around all the islands
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So it's specifically designed for the islands. and it can go into lots of islands and places that bigger ships that cruise in that area can't do
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Panan is actually going to add some more ships to the fleet, which are due to come in over the next couple of years
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These are going to be very high-tech ships using all the Panan technology, so very environmentally friendly
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and again, designed to really operate in this area. Porgagan is it's an upmarket experience
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They really know the islands incredibly well because that's all they do is sell around the islands
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The classic trip is either a seven trip or a 10 trip and as I mentioned they sell all year round to all the beautiful islands They also have their own private island which is called Motu Mohana and then also in Boroboro they have their own private beach as well It a great
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and beautiful part of the world to go and Porgangan are the real experts. You can cruise on other
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cruise lines around that area they'll send their ships down part of the time but if you really want an immersion in that area Porgagan is the way to go. The next cruise line you might not
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have heard of but definitely should have is also a Norway based cruise line and it's called
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Hurtigruten. Now Hurtigruten has two key parts to it. One of the parts is sailing up and down
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the whole coast of Norway, calling it over 30 ports. Hurtigruten has actually been doing this
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route for well over 125 years. They currently have 11 ships that sail up and down all year
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round, calling it all of these different ports. It's a classic, amazing trip where they'll
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call into all the little nooks and crannies and down the fjords, so you can go to winter wonderland
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type cruise or in the summer where of course you've got all beautiful weather and 24 hour sunlight
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the midnight sun in winter particularly a lot of people go on that to see the northern lights
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the classic trip is between bergen in the south and kokenis in the north which is way past
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the arctic circle hirutigruten is also a big big player and a big leader in expedition
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cruising they're particularly strong in antarctica and the arctic but they also do things like the
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northwest passage they do alaska They do Greenland and that other parts of these some of the ships will travel in more traditional
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cruises like around the UK or the Caribbean. On Huta Groton, they really pride themselves
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about really focusing on expedition, wildlife, nature. So on most of the ships, even the Norway
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ships, they will have an expedition leader or an expedition team and they will provide lots of
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talks and immersion into all aspects of the flora, the fauna, the wildlife of the destination
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that you're cruising in. It's a pretty market line. and it's an amazing experience
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That classic Norway experience is really quite remarkable. They also are very forward thinking like Norway is
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in terms of sustainability and innovation. So a lot of their ships have lots of modern technology
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to try and make the whole cruising experience much more environmentally sound and friendly
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Those are five lines you may not have heard of, but I really think you should think about, understand and consider
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I have loads more videos packed full of tips and advice about cruising and cruise lines
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So why don't you watch another one of them right now? Now
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