A NEW survey of nearly 12,000 cruise passengers has given their verdict on the best and worst cruise ships sailing the high seas.

Top in their class was Silverseas, Golden Star Cruises and Seabourn; all scored a respectively 5 points in the survey by savvy passengers.

Food, staff, shore excursions, activities onboard and cabins all got rated.

Thomson cruises, the world’s biggest package tour operator, owned by the World of TUI, beat some of the more established cruising brands in the business, by topping a 4.5 rating out of 197 reviews.

Royal Caribbean’s Splendour of the Seas only managed 3 points. Overall RCI scraped in with just 3.9.

Celebrity could only just get 3.8, rated by 64 reviewers. Its ship Infinity was poorest with 3 points.

Even the UK’s Fred Olsen limped in with 3.7 votes, their newly acquired Balmoral, which has been at the centre of a food scare, managed an average 3.6 points.

Even the big beasts of cruise P&O just got 3.7 with Ventura, the famously named ‘chavs ship’ picking up 3.5 ranking. Bloggers said staff, food and onboard entrancement were all average.

Norwegian Cruise Lines could do no better. NCL Jade, Pearl and Gem named worst in their fleet.

The world’s biggest cruise operator Carnival scored a lowly 3.2 making them one of the worst cruise lines to be stuck on. Victory was the biggest let down in Carnival’s fleet.

**survey by cruise.co.uk 2009