How ShoreScores work

Every score on ShoreScores comes from sailors who have done the excursion. Here's exactly where the numbers come from.

Who writes the reviews

Reviews come from cruisers who booked the excursion. No account is needed, so it only takes a minute. Each review includes a rating from 1 to 5 stars, and most include a written review and the month the sailor travelled.

Every review is checked by a person

Nothing goes live automatically. Each review is read before it's published to keep out spam, abuse, and personal information. A review may be lightly edited for those reasons, but its star rating is never changed. Reviews aren't removed for being negative.

How the score is calculated

• An excursion's Shore Score is the average star rating of all its published reviews.
• Scores are shown to one decimal place, alongside the number of reviews behind them.
• Reviews waiting to be checked, or that weren't published, don't count.
• "Top-rated" lists sort by score, and excursions with more reviews come first when scores are tied.
• No one can pay to change a score or a ranking.

Categories and accessibility

Category labels such as Cultured, Energetic, Relaxing, and Daring, along with the Accessible flag, come from the cruise line's own listings. Not every excursion has a category.

Excursions that are no longer offered

When a cruise line stops offering an excursion, its page and reviews stay up, clearly marked "No longer offered," so past sailors' experiences aren't lost.