How the readings are graded.

The ruler

Scores run from 60 to 100 and map to letters the same way on every reading: A+ 98–100 · A 95–97 · A- 92–94 · B+ 89–91 · B 86–88 · B- 83–85 · C+ 80–82 · C 77–79 · C- 74–76 · D+ 71–73 · D 68–70 · D- 65–67 · F below 65. There is no curve. A C is satisfactory: the commercial basics are in place. The standard is full potential, the system a subject could run today with tooling that already exists, and no subject in any class has reached it.

Coverage, and when a card is not graded

Coverage is the share of applicable criterion points with public evidence either way. A card under 60% coverage is not graded, whatever the evidence says about the points that are covered. A question mark on a criterion means nothing was published either way; it scores nothing and it is not a finding. Publishing is the fastest way up a card.

A provisional grade, marked with an asterisk, is one where the score sits in a range because the record is thin; the range is printed on the card. A criterion marked “set by operator” or “set by higher government” records a factor the subject does not control.

Confidence, counted from citations

Confidence measures the reliability of the evidence behind a grade, not the grade itself. It is counted from the card’s own citation record under method counted_citations_v1: breadth (25%, distinct sources counted), specificity (25%, sources specific to the subject rather than shared with a corporate sibling), recency (30%, the age of the newest source) and pillar primary (20%, the share of pillars resting on primary evidence). Class confidence is the median of the cards.

Pillars and weights

Commercial Excellence Index, nine pillars, weights summing to 100:

Destination Vitality Index, two readings never averaged. Itinerary Value: Demand Pull 30%, Access & Season 25%, Call Economics & Shore Programme 25%, Guest Day 20%. Deployment Durability: three pillars including Environment & Climate Readiness and Policy & Legal Durability, with their weights printed on each graded card.

Distribution Index, eight pillars including Demand Generation 15%, Booking Quality 15%, Offer Transparency 15%, Advisor Capability 10%, Data, Connectivity & AI, and Counterparty Resilience. It does not score the level of anyone’s resale prices or adherence to a supplier’s pricing policy, and a programme earns full points only when a number, an observation or a third party stands behind it.

Technology Index, nine pillars including Proven Cruise Deployment 10% and Cruise-Native Fit 15%, with AI in Production and Commercial Terms & Exit weighted by the function a product serves: security counts most where a product runs a ship’s commerce, AI counts most where a product sets prices. A selection announcement is not a go-live; an outage is attributed to a product only when someone with standing says so.

Evidence

Every point on every card comes from a named criterion and the sources under it, each re-fetched by a verifier on the dates shown on the card. Source codes on a card reference documents in the edition’s observation ledger; the full evidence trace for any subject is available for audit on request. Dated developments from official documents and third-party sources are logged on each card, and any score revision they cause is identified there.

Disputes and corrections

Grades are not negotiable, but they can be corrected in light of evidence, in either direction, in this edition. Dispute any criterion on any card with the evidence that should change it. If the evidence holds, the record is corrected in public and the correction is noted on the card. Evidence can be shared under the mutual NDA, already signed by H&K; the NDA lets us use what you share to correct a score without publishing the information itself. Sharing information does not entitle anyone to any particular grade. Dispute a score.

Independence and conflicts

The readings are an independent publication. A grade stays independent of any purchase, including the operator packet. Conflicts are disclosed under Method on the Technology Index. This grade is Hawkes & Kwortnik’s opinion, formed under the published method from the cited public evidence as of the check dates shown. It measures publicly evidenced practice and outcomes, not undisclosed performance. It is not a forecast and not a finding of wrongdoing.