Would you rather take a river cruise or an ocean cruise? They’re not alike!

River cruises represent a growing niche within the cruise industry, offering a tourism model that integrates cultural heritage and inland destinations. Based on a Big Data analysis of approximately 204,000 online reviews, this study provides the first global, evidence-based comparison of passenger satisfaction across river and ocean cruises. A causal inference framework based on an Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) estimator is applied to control for selection bias. The results show that river cruises may provide significantly higher overall satisfaction than ocean cruises, even after controlling for passenger, ship and itinerary characteristics. This advantage appears to be mainly driven by higher satisfaction with onboard activities, service and staff, and food and dining, whereas differences in cabin quality are comparatively modest. The findings therefore suggest that satisfaction may be more closely related to the coherence and perceived quality of the overall experience than to the number of amenities available on board.