Surf the net for luxury cruise information

As cruise travel begins to enjoy new popularity amongst travellers from a wide range of lifestyles - from families to independent-minded adventurists - one of the fastest growing categories is luxury.

In response to increased demand for detailed information on luxury cruises and destinations, online cruise news and reviews site, Cruise Critic (cruisecritic.co.uk), established a new luxury cruise micro-site to help travellers find their ideal luxury ship, itinerary or suite.

“Featuring a fresh design and major new stories, ranging from ship reviews to destination-oriented features, our micro-site is the direct result of a demand for information on all aspects of luxury cruising,” said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in-chief, Cruise Critic. “This expansion is a result of increasing popularity in all three areas of luxury cruising: traditional small ship cruising, voyages involving expedition and sailing ships to exotic locations, and mass market ships that now offer luxury features. All are highlighted on the new luxury micro-site.”

Having all of Cruise Critic’s luxury content and advice in one simple-to-navigate location (cruisecritic.co.uk/luxurycruises), travellers can now learn about and plan the perfect luxury cruise vacation with greater ease than ever before. The new Cruise Critic micro-site is organized into five key areas: reviews, forums, features, deals and itineraries, to help travellers navigate their way to the luxury cruise that meets their needs.

Luxury Ship Reviews
Already the best place on the Web to read cruise reviews, Cruise Critic’s new micro-site has grouped all luxury cruise reviews together. Whether written by a Cruise Critic editor or member, all luxury reviews, from upscale expedition vessels to traditional luxury ships, are grouped together on this portion of the site.

Features
Cruise Critic is expanding its coverage of the luxury market, adding to current features such as virtual cruise articles that take travellers on trips to Antarctica and the Middle East as well as port profiles of exclusive destinations such as the Caribbean’s St. Barth’s and Italy’s Elba.

Luxury Cruise Forums
Because of the popularity of Cruise Critic’s message boards, which are some of the most active in the world regarding cruising, this section of the micro-site directly links travellers to the luxury cruise forums. Within these forums, cruisers can interact, converse and ask questions of one another about luxury cruising.

Luxury Deals
Travellers seeking a value-oriented luxury cruise can check out Cruise Critic’s “luxury deals” section for daily hand-picked offers on holidays ranging from traditional high-end voyages to expedition adventures.

Itineraries
From the exotic to the offbeat, and everything in between, this section of the luxury micro-site highlights Cruise Critic destination-related features that will help travellers pick the perfect cruise itinerary.

Launched in October 1995, by The Independent Traveler, Inc., Cruise Critic was the first consumer cruise site on the Internet. It is both an interactive online cruise guide providing ship reviews and editorially driven cruise-related features and an active community, where travellers can share opinions and experiences. In the last five years, traffic on CruiseCritic.com has grown 350 percent and it currently attracts more than five million visitors per year.

In response to this burgeoning demand and worldwide growth, Cruise Critic launched its U.K.-based sister site CruiseCritic.co.uk, in January 2008. Cruise Critic and The Independent Traveler were acquired by TripAdvisor, LLC, the world's largest travel community and an operating company of Expedia, Inc. in May 2007.