Cruising in 2025: What We Got Right, What Surprised Us, What Missed the Mark
Source: Our analysis of the creator's lived experience, based on what they said in this video.
Creator's Key Takeaways
We're going to talk about what we got right, what surprised us, and what missed the mark.
Carnival's loyalty shakeup this year... they introduce this very complicated point system.
Virgin Voyages... put out this status match program that we've never seen before.
Princess immediately backed off, said, 'We're sorry. We hear you.'
Creator's Tips & Advice
Questions This Creator Answers
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Port Highlights
Scale: 0–5 strips in half-step increments. 0 = “meh”, 5 = “bacon bliss”. Aggregated from creator-review sentiment, weighted by channel expertise.
About our Bacon Score methodologyYouTube Video Description↓
As 2025 comes to a close, we're taking an honest look back at Cruising in 2025: What We Got Right, What Surprised Us, What Missed the Mark at the year in cruising—what we got right, what genuinely surprised us, and what didn't quite live up to the hype. In this Unplugged episode, we talk through the trends we accurately predicted, the changes we didn't see coming, and the cruise lines that quietly over-delivered when no one was looking. We also dig into the ideas that sounded great on paper but fell short in real life, and how our own cruising habits, expectations, and mindset shifted over the past year. We wrap things up by looking ahead to 2026—what we're excited about, what we're cautiously optimistic about, and what we're hoping cruise lines continue to get right. No hot takes for the sake of hot takes—just thoughtful reflection from a year at sea and where we see cruising heading next. Download our shore day bag checklist and more cruise packing and planning checklists & videos by joining the CruiseTipsTV Academy at https://academy.cruisetipstv.com