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Cruise Vacations Named Africa’s Best Cruise Travel Agency for the Fifth Consecutive Year at the 2026 World Cruise Awards
For five consecutive years, Cruise Vacations has brought home the title of Africa’s Best Cruise Travel Agency at the World Cruise Awards – a proudly South African achievement made even more remarkable by where the journey began.
The 2026 winners were announced at the World Cruise Awards ceremony held in Jamaica on Monday, 12 October, marking Cruise Vacations’ fifth consecutive African title and another milestone in a remarkable five-year journey.
In April 2022, Cruise Vacations returned to service as the world re-opened and South Africans were finally able to travel internationally again. After two extraordinarily difficult years for tourism, the small Johannesburg-based team rolled up their sleeves and started rebuilding.
Just months later, Cruise Vacations was named Africa’s Best Cruise Travel Agency 2022.
The title followed again in 2023, 2024 and 2025, with the company also taking the ultimate accolade of World’s Best Cruise Travel Agency in 2024. Now, the 2026 win makes it five African titles in five years.
“For us, there is something incredibly special about bringing this award home to South Africa every single year,” says Cruise Vacations owner Gaynor Neill. “We are a small, proudly South African, all-women team sending travellers from Africa to some of the most extraordinary places on earth. Five consecutive wins belong to every member of our team, our travel agent partners and the clients who continue to trust us with their journeys.”
Specialising in niche, luxury, yacht, expedition and river cruising across all seven continents, Cruise Vacations believes its success comes down to something surprisingly simple: service, knowledge and passion.
The team works closely with both consumers and the travel trade, with a strong emphasis on training and mentoring travel advisors and demonstrating that cruising is not one type of holiday, but a world of very different travel experiences.
Success, however, also comes with a responsibility to give back.
Cruise Vacations supports a number of community initiatives, from distributing essential items and “Jars of Hope” to disadvantaged communities to supporting charity golf days. In 2026, the company hosted its own golf day, raising R250,000 for Rhino Connect and rhino conservation.
“We represent cruise lines that take sustainability seriously, and we believe we should mirror those values here at home by supporting local communities and conservation initiatives,” says Neill.
There is another ingredient in the Cruise Vacations story: humour.
The growing “Girl Power” team works from a garden-style Johannesburg office where their pet dogs are welcome members of the Cruise Vacations family. It is deliberately a workspace filled with personality, laughter and plenty of fun.
“We work incredibly hard, but we also sell dreams for a living,” says Neill. “So why shouldn’t we create a workplace that feels a little like a dream too?”