In this paper, the self-propelled model test of a luxury cruise ship with pod propulsion mode in the towing pool is carried out. The test data is processed according to the ITTC recommended procedures. The results show that, among the three methods recommended by ITTC, the torque revolution method is most reliable and robust but is complicated and very expensive to conduct. For ships with podded propulsion, it is recommended to adopt the thrust revolution method, which can also guarantee good accuracy while significantly reducing test complexity and cost. on the other hand, the resistance and thrust identity method is the least accurate, but can be used for qualitative comparison among several designs in the preliminary stage. © 2020, Editorial Office of Ship Building of China. All right reserved.