In defense of Cruise Critic, it has a big advantage over TripAdvisor: being a message board, there is much more interaction with those who post reviews/advice. Thus, it is easier to spot the 'fakes' - somebody with 1 post who then disappears without a trace is a dead giveaway. Also, others can interject with their own experiences, making for a more balanced look at things.

Another thing CC has going for it is its moderation: we are not allowed to discuss specific travel agents or agencies (discussing booking sites such as Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline and Hotwire are tolerated), and tour companies are not allowed to promote their services (I have seen such posts removed frequently). And despite it being owned by Expedia, owner of TripAdvisor, I have seen both criticized numerous times without any censuring by the moderators.

Having said all that, what bothers me about the 'Royal Champions' isn't their very existence (which doesn't surprise me in the least), but the fact that it was kept secret. I have no problems with them posting as long as their identity and purpose is clearly disclosed.

From Jaunted (Conde Nast):

Royal Caribbean Cruises Has Web 2.0 Viral Infection

No surprise here: Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has a viral infection. For once, however, it's not the Norovirus but that new-fangled byproduct of Web 2.0, the viral marketing infiltration. According to Consumerist, a group of fifty "Royal Champions" was outed by their own creator, the Customer Insight Group, as being a successful project whereby frequent positive cruise commenting on sites such as CruiseCritic was rewarded with free cruises and other perks.
So what's the big deal? Well, it seems that the "Royal Champions" weren't always up front about their status as compensated reviewers, effectively misleading readers of CruiseCritic forums with their positive comments. Add to this the fact that CruiseCritic admins assisted Royal Caribbean in choosing the fifty, with one of the stipulations being quantity of posts, "with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics." From here, the hole just gets deeper.
Now that many RC fans feel slighted at not having made the ranks and most everyone else is disgusted at the covert trade of cruising for happy juicing, the trustworthiness of such forums is under fire.
Due to CruiseCritic's ownership by TripAdvisor, which is in turn under the Expedia blanket of travel sites, a viral marketing stunt gone awry could possibly continue to negatively ripple. Does news like this affect your ability to trust good reviews on travel sites, or do you already consider yourself an excellent shill-spotter enough to weed out the solicited from the unsolicited? While this whole ordeal is mired in serious muckety-muck, let's hope it serves as a lesson for future viral marketers and as an argument for transparency.

I agree with you, Pauline. My reference to spotting 'fakes' was more in reference to those who post negative reviews, rather than professional cheerleaders. The 'buzz marketers' are much more subtle, and I have no illusions about being able to spot them. I will say that I have had the impression for a while that RCL had a higher number of 'onlyRCL' posters, but never imagined it to be this organized...

Over the past couple of weeks there has been quite a bit of heated debate, conjecture and misinformation on several travel blogs alleging that Royal Caribbean compensated reviewers on Cruise Critic for posting positive reviews. This is simply not true.

In March 2007 Royal Caribbean contacted Cruise Critic (along with several other online cruise sites and bloggers) and asked us to obtain permission from a small group (40 out of 425,000+ members) they had identified, so that they could invite them to an invitation-only pre-inaugural press and travel agent event aboard Liberty of the Seas in May 2007. We agreed to forward the information on to this small group of members, and asked for their permission to share their contact information with Royal Caribbean. This is Cruise Critic's sole involvement in this program. We did not help develop the program, nor did we help choose the participants. At the time of the request there was no formal name associated with this group and those invited were required to pay their own transportation, which for most cost several hundred dollars. A year later this group was invited to a press event at a New York hotel that lasted all of a few hours. Again, they had to pay their own way to attend, and as a result only about 10 showed up. This is the “compensation” they received.

Royal Caribbean has stated and the Cruise Critic members invited have confirmed, that Royal Caribbean did not compensate them in exchange for writing positive reviews about Royal Caribbean on Cruise Critic. Royal Caribbean did not tell them to do anything or say anything or write anything anywhere. They are not Royal Caribbean employees, nor does Royal Caribbean have any control over what they say on our message boards or anywhere else on the Internet. Royal Caribbean has never contacted us and asked us to remove a negative review or posting written by this group or any other member.

A review of posts and reviews on Cruise Critic by these few members shows that they were a very candid group both before and after this event and while most love cruising on Royal Caribbean, they are also very vocal and quick to criticize anything they don’t like. They share both positive and negative opinions and give helpful advice and information about Royal Caribbean and other cruise lines they sail on.

Cruise Critic has the most active cruise forums and is the leading cruise site. As such, it is the site that people interested in cruises follow the closest. Our community guidelines are explicit re: fraudulent reviews and we monitor our site constantly and investigate message board posts and reviews that appear in anyway suspect and take appropriate action when warranted.

At this time, we have decided that it is not in Cruise Critic’s best interest going forward to contact members on behalf of Royal Caribbean or any other cruise line.

Kathleen Tucker
Publisher, Cruise Critic