While keeping passengers healthy has always been a priority for cruise lines, never has the issue been more important than today.
Following the health crisis and the suspension of sailing, you should know that cruise lines are serious about cleanliness. Any sort of incident — whether a virus or not — leads to a flurry of headlines and negative press.
In other words, is keeping the ship clean not only is is the right thing to do, but it also impacts the bottom line. Clean ships are good for business.
Meanwhile, the government also has an interest in keeping cruise passengers healthy. That’s why they have oversight in inspecting ship for cleanliness.
Vessel Sanitation Program: Health Inspections for Cruise Ships
Many people don’t realize it, but the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) operates something called the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP).
This program is essentially a health inspection for cruise ships. Just like a restaurant in your town would be checked by a health inspector, ships sailing from the United States are also checked out on a regular basis. These inspections are done without prior knowledge by the cruise line.
In particular, the CDC inspections focus on eight areas:
- Medical facilities
- Water systems
- Swimming pools and whirlpools
- Galleys and dining rooms
- Child activity centers
- Housekeeping
- Ventilation systems (HVAC)
- Pest and insect management
Cruise ships overall do well on these inspections. Scores are on a 100-point scale and tallies in the high-90s and above are common. In fact, in the past 12 months, 26 different ships have scored perfect a perfect 100 grade based on our research.
On the other end, anything less than 86 is considered unsatisfactory. Scoring below an 86 only happens on occasion across dozens and dozens ships.
The good news for cruise passengers is not only do ships score well when inspected, but the results are also published publicly. You can visit the CDC website and see the scores and reports for more than a hundred vessels. Each report is also complete with a write-up of any issues found. If sailing from the U.S., any cruise ship you are sailing on will have their latest report listed.
Now, while ships tend to score well, there are some lines that seem to do better than others on a consistent basis.
Given the current environment, we know that cleanliness is important to passengers. With this in mind, we recently combed through the latest inspection scores from the CDC to determine which cruise line is the cleanest on average by the standards of the Vessel Sanitation Program.
The Average Score of Every Cruise Line
As mentioned above, the CDC lists the inspections scores for an enormous number of vessels sailing from the United States. These scores go back years. For our research, we focused only on the most recent ship scores (if a line was inspected more than once) from December 2024 through today to provide more recent information.
In addition, we looked only at those lines with at least two ships receiving scores during that time. This removes small specialty lines that might only occasionally sail from the U.S.
Using the VSP data, we looked at the most recent scores for each ship listed. From there, we averaged the scores across the entire fleet of each line — giving us a single score for each cruise line.
In total, no cruise line scored a perfect average, but every line had a score of at least 91.5. The fleetwide average scores ranged from a low of 91.5 to a near-perfect 99.2.
You can see the results in the chart below:
As you can see, in general cruise lines score well on their inspections. That said, some do score higher marks than others.
The 3 “Cleanest” Cruise Lines According to the CDC
According to the CDC data, here are the three cruise lines that scored the highest average scores on their latest inspection reports:
Viking – Taking home the top score overall is luxury brand Viking. Viking actually has different sets of ships sailing under different companies in the CDC’s inspection reports. In this case, we’ve combined the six ships into a single group. Viking Polaris, Neptune, Orion, and Sea all topped the list with perfect scores of 100 on their inspections. Viking Venus and Viking Sky scored “only” a 98 and 97, respectively. Combined, the six inspections saw an average score of 99.2.
Oceania – This cruise line had seven ships inspected by the CDC during the past year. Oceania Vista and Allura both brought home perfect 100 scores. Oceania Nautica and Riviera had stellar scores of 99. The lowest score was a 94 for Oceania Insignia. Averaged out across all ships, the scores come to 98.3, which should make their high-end passengers very happy.
Disney Cruise Line – When it comes to high scores on CDC inspections, Disney always seems to be at the top. With five ships having scores in the past year, every Disney cruise ship scored well on their latest inspections. Two of the ships — Disney Magic and Wish — scored a perfect 100. Disney Dream earned a 95 on its latest inspection, while Treasure and Wonder scored nearly perfect 96 and 97 scores, respectively. Taken together, the scores come out to a 97.6 average inspection score, making Disney one the cleanest cruise lines.
These Ships Scored Lowest at Last Inspection
Overall, the average scores of cruise lines were strong, with no line (with multiple ships) averaging below a 91. That said, there were a few lower scores on the inspection reports for individual ships in our search:
Carnival Pride: 86 (Satisfactory) — Of the cruise lines sailing multiple ships, none of them score an unsatisfactory score, though Carnival Pride was close. This ship scored an 86 on an inspection done in July. According to the inspection report, violations included various issues ranging from not using a meat thermometer on food to empty paper towel holders at handwashing stations to a dairy room floor “soiled with a dark colored debris” in one area.
Queen Mary 2: 87 (Satisfactory) — An 86 is a satisfactory mark according to the CDC, but it is still lower than most among the scores we analyzed. The CDC took issue with “at least 50 previously cleaned and sanitized plates stored in transportation carts were heavily soiled with a brown material on the nonfood contact sides,” as well as puddles near ice machines, and wash tubs being “heavily soiled with food debris.”
Seabourn Sojourn: 88 (Satisfactory) — Seabourn overall scored 93 on inspections across its ships. Seabourn Sojourn, however, scored lower. The ship was flagged for issues with logs for gastro-illness recordkeeping, a crew member not wearing a hair restraint while making coffee, and food being kept at incorrect temperatures, among others
How to See What Your Cruise Ship Scored
Headed on a cruise soon and want to know what your specific ship scored on its latest inspection? You can search the VSP database by ship using this page. Simply find your ship in the list and then click search. It will also allow you to see reports, which you can read to see the specific violations found on the ship.
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So 3 of the most expensive scored the lowest. hmmmmm!!