The Cleanest Cruise Lines, According to CDC Inspection Scores

While keeping passengers healthy has always been a priority for cruise lines, never has the issue been 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
• Hotel accommodations
• Ventilation systems
• Common areas

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, 18 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. In the past year, we found only one ship with a failing grade (more on that below).

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 scores from August 2023 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 94. The fleetwide average scores ranged from a low of 94.0 to a near-perfect 99.5.

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:

Oceania – Taking home the top score overall is luxury brand Oceania. The cruise line had just two ships inspected by the CDC, both occurring in September 2023. Oceania Insignia scored a near perfect score of 99, while Oceania Vista brought home a stellar 100 score. Averaged out, that comes to 99.5, which should make their high-end passengers very happy.

Viking – Viking actually has two different sets of ships in the CDC’s inspection reports. There are two Viking Expedition ships and three Viking Ocean ships. In this case, we’ve combined the five ships into a single group. Viking Sky, Octantis and Polaris all topped the list with perfect scores of 100 on their inspections. Viking Star and Viking Sea scored “only” a 99 and 97, respectively. Combined, the five inspections saw an average score of 99.2. 

Disney Cruise Line – When it comes to high scores on CDC inspections, Disney always seems to be at the top. With four ships having scores in the past year, every Disney cruise ship scored well on their latest inspections. One of the ships — Disney Fantasy — scored a perfect 100. Disney Wish earned a 95 on its latest inspection, while Dream and Magic scored nearly perfect 99 scores. Taken together, the scores come out to a 98.3 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 an 94. That said, there were a few lower scores on the inspection reports for individual ships in our search:

Margaritaville at Sea Paradise: 83 (Not Satisfactory) — Margaritaville at Sea didn’t make our overall list of cruise lines above because they only have a single cruise ship shown as inspected (a second ship now sails for the company). But the one inspected ship scored an 83 during a May 2024 inspection.

This ship had the lowest score listed during our search of scores from the last year.  According to the inspection report, violations included various issues ranging from incorrect chemical levels in pools to out-of-service appliances in the kitchen.

Ritz-Carlton Evrima: 86 (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 fifteen small fruit flies” coming out of a juicing machine, mooring lines without rat guards in place, and unchanged filters on whirlpools.

Caribbean Princess: 86 (Satisfactory) — Princess Cruises overall scored 94.5 on inspections across its ships. Caribbean Princess, however, scored lower. The ship was flagged for flies seen around food areas and wash cycles being too short on one dishwashing machine, and out of service equipment in galley areas.

Carnival Breeze: 86 (Satisfactory) — During an inspection of Carnival Breeze, the CDC inspectors found food trays “without lids during active service with rain falling into each dish.” As well, there were “heavily soiled” heat lamps and improper loading of dishes to washing machines that led to “chunks of food stuck on the dishes after being sanitized.”

MSC Magnifica: 86 (Satisfactory) — During a May 2024 inspection, the CDC awarded a score of 86 to this ship. The report cited backflow prevention devices in disrepair, drinks stored directly on the ship’s deck, a “heavily soiled” bread slicer, and improper water temperature readings on dishwashing equipment.

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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