How we score
Every cabin in the directory, on a train or a ship, gets five scores out of 10. Each score comes with a one-sentence reason and the sources it rests on. The overall score is a weighted average of the five, to one decimal place. A cabin without all five scores has no overall score, and we say so.
The five scores
The weights are the same for every cabin, whatever the mode of travel.
| Space | 25% |
|---|---|
| Dining | 20% |
| Journey | 20% |
| Comfort | 15% |
| Value | 20% |
What each score weighs up depends on whether the cabin is on a train or a ship.
On trains
| Space | Floor area, beds or seat layout, and room to move and store luggage. |
|---|---|
| Dining | What is served, where, and whether it is included in the fare. |
| Journey | The route, the scenery and how much of it you see in daylight. |
| Comfort | Sleep, noise, bathroom, service and how easy the train is to board. |
| Value | What the fare buys compared with the other cabins on the same train. |
On river and expedition ships
| Space | Cabin floor area and the balcony or window. |
|---|---|
| Dining | What is served, where, and which meals and drinks the fare includes. |
| Journey | River: The itinerary and the excursions included in the fare. Expedition: Landings and time ashore, the number of passengers, the guide and naturalist programme, and the Zodiac and kayak programme. |
| Comfort | The ship's age and latest refit, its public spaces, and how easy it is to board. |
| Value | The fare per person per night against what it includes: excursions, drinks, gratuities and flights. |
Comparing trains and ships
Scores compare well within a mode and roughly across modes. A one-night train journey and a voyage of a week or more are scored with the same weights, and value on a ship is judged per person per night against what the fare includes. An 8.0 train cabin and an 8.0 ship cabin are each good of their kind, but they are not interchangeable.
Key facts
Each cabin needs three key facts before it can be published, and each must come from the operator’s own information. The fare is the one exception: where an operator publishes no fares, it may come from a third party’s published price read within the last 90 days.
| On a train | The fare, the bathroom and the beds or floor area. |
|---|---|
| On a ship | The fare, the floor area and the balcony or window. |
Seats have no beds or floor area to cite, so that fact is not required for them. On a ship, the bathroom is recorded when a source describes it, but it is not a key fact.
Where the facts come from
Every fact on a cabin page links to the page it came from, numbered in the source list at the foot of the page. We prefer the operator’s own pages for facts such as the bathroom, the beds and the fare, and use published reviews and press coverage for judgements such as noise or food. If no source supports a fact, we leave it out rather than guess.
Photographs
We show a photograph only when we hold a licence to use it: our own pictures, an operator’s press pictures under terms that allow editorial use, or pictures published under an open licence such as Creative Commons, credited to their author with a link to the licence. Every photograph is stored on our own site. Where we have no photograph, the picture is an illustrative plan of that kind of cabin, labelled as such, not its actual layout.
Fares
Fares are shown in the source’s currency. Train fares are shown as the source states them, per person or per cabin for the journey. Where an operator publishes no fares, we may use a travel agent’s published price, and the cabin page says who quoted it.
Ship fares are shown per person per night. Operators price a whole voyage, so we take a fare the source states and divide it by the number of nights the same source states, and we cite the page for both. The cabin page lists each departure we used: the fare, the number of nights, the itinerary and the departure date. Before anything publishes, the lowest and highest figures shown must equal the lowest and highest fare divided by nights, rounded to two decimal places, or the entry is rejected.
Every ship fare published so far has had an independent check. An AI model that did not write the entry re-opened each page a fare is worked out from and confirmed the fare, the number of nights and the departure date. Anything it could not confirm, such as a fare on a page that does not state its currency, is recorded as a disagreement between sources, and the cabin is held until a page that confirms it is found.
Conversions to your currency
The fare in the source’s own currency is the figure we cite, and it always comes first. If your browser runs scripts, you can choose a currency at the top of any page with fares (USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, SEK, DKK), and we show an approximate conversion under each fare, marked ≈. It is not a fare: the operator or agent sets the price you pay, in the currency they sell in, and card and bank rates differ.
Conversions use the European Central Bank’s euro reference rates; the rates in use now are those of 23 October 2026. Rates between two currencies other than the euro are worked out through the euro. We round each converted amount to three significant figures (whole units below 100). A fare in a currency the European Central Bank does not publish a rate for is shown as quoted, with no conversion. We pick your currency from your last choice, saved in your browser; otherwise from the country your connection comes from or your browser’s language; otherwise US dollars.
The directory’s fare filter and fare sort compare fares in the currency you chose, at the same rates, so fares quoted in different currencies can be compared. The fare limits it offers are round amounts in your currency.
Confidence
Each cabin has 8 inputs: the five scores and its three key facts. An input counts when it cites at least one source. A cabin needs at least 7 of the 8 to be published. For seats, which have no beds or floor area, a sourced space score stands in for that input.
Checks before publishing
Entries are researched and scored from cited sources, then run through the checks below. An entry that fails any check marked held is not published until the problem is fixed. Checks marked noted do not stop publication; the entry is listed for our weekly review. When a source behind a key fact is old, the cabin page also carries a short note saying so.
| Held | Fewer than 7 of the 8 inputs are backed by a source. |
|---|---|
| Held | A key fact (see above) is missing or not backed by the operator's own information. Seats are exempt from the beds or floor-area check. |
| Held | Two sources give different answers for the same fact, or the independent price check could not confirm a ship fare. |
| Held | There is no written verdict. |
| Held | There is nowhere to check prices. |
| Held | One or more of the five scores is missing. |
| Held | The text strays into health or medical matters, which we do not cover. |
| Held | The written text has no record of being written by our approved writing model, or the facts or text changed after it was written. |
| Noted | The overall score is below 6.0, or any single score is below 4.0. |
| Noted | The overall score has moved by 1.0 or more since the previous check. |
| Noted | A source behind a key fact was read more than 365 days ago. The cabin page carries a short note saying so. |
| Noted | The operator publishes no fares, so the fare comes from an agent's published price read within the last 90 days. The page names who quoted it. |
| Noted | The text mentions access, safety or legal matters, so the wording is reviewed. |
| Noted | Our research notes record a point that could not be confirmed. |
| Noted | The operator does not sell this cabin direct, so every “Check prices” link goes to an agent. |
| Noted | A page we cited has since been taken down or moved. The citation stays, marked as no longer online, until the fact is checked against a live source. |
| Noted |
Publishing and re-checking
Entries that pass the checks are published automatically, without a person reviewing each one. Every change to an entry is recorded, so any of them can be traced and reversed. The checks are run again when an entry is updated, and each cabin page shows the date they last ran. Sources older than 365 days are marked for re-reading, and a score that moves by 1.0 or more is reviewed.
Commission
“Check prices” links may earn us a commission. Commission never affects a score, and the operator’s own booking page is listed first when the operator sells direct. We never take bookings ourselves. Disclosures