For this year’s annual Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships, Royal Caribbean International (RCI) was given the lowest rating for their cuisine and services. RCI was given an overall rating of five out of 10.

RCI was ranked particularly low for their onboard food. This could be attributed to the fact that Royal Caribbean International often uses cheaper cuts of meat and the dishes are sometimes lacking in vegetables, herbs and seasoning.

Carnival Cruise Lines and Costa Cruises also received poor ratings for their food offerings. Costa Cruises were given the lowest rating for their informal dining experience on their cruise ships.

The author of Berlitz’s Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships, Douglas Ward, has been on over a thousand cruises. Experiencing what cruise ships have to offer first hand gives his ranking system the edge. While he claims cruise ship complaints are on the rise, many cruise lines deny the allegations of poor food and service.

Carnival Cruise Lines, which also ranked low for their level of service, countered the ranking by saying: "Our own customer service surveys, which we conduct regularly, report a high level of satisfaction with regard to our service and food offering."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean International said: "Customer satisfaction is our number one priority. We have a very robust customer feedback system that we measure our on-board experience through. Some 250,000 guests have completed the survey this year. Over 90 per cent have scored our on-board service as meeting or exceeding their expectations. "

The RCI spokesman went on to say that Mr Ward couldn’t possibly base his rankings on his opinion alone: "While we respect Mr Ward as an expert in his field, his ratings reflect his own personal opinions and differ strongly from the feedback from our many millions of paying guests."