Through out these cruising pages there will be the odd reference or link to Cruise Critics.  This is an organisation a bit like an on-line travel agent, a bit like a cruising information site and a bit like facebook with a user contributed forum (with some low level moderation).

The site is useful for researching cruise lines, ships and destinations, but the main use by many is the forums.  The forums are open to anyone to read but you have to register to post.  This is to provide a means to stop abuse and is common on public forums.  You may ask questions here and other seasoned travellers will hopefully reply.

There are also specialised forums called Roll Calls which are for particular sailings.  These require registration to read, but they are the most useful.  The roll calls are organised by cruise line and within that by ship.  Only the major cruise lines (in CC's view) have their own section.  The rest are lumped together under All Other.  What is considered major has an American bias, so some lines which are as big in Europe as the major lines are relegated to the other pile. It can be quite hard to find a thread for a cruise in here. If you can't find one on the first page try the next two as well.  Sometimes threads are started early by early bookers, and then go dormant for a while until the main booking starts.

Cruise Critic is based in U.S.A., and started there, but is now world wide.  You may find that their servers will detect your country from your IP address and redirect you to your national site (although the forums are world wide).  The majority of American cruisers are aware of Cruise Critics and many use it.  It is less well known among the British, a pity.