Cruise ships & liners

The category, explained

A cruise ship is a resort that happens to float: the ship is the destination, the ports are excursions, and the design brief is maximum comfortable volume rather than speed or cargo. Gross tonnage — internal volume — is how they are measured, and the arms race in it has been relentless: the largest cruise ship in the world is now more than five times the tonnage of the Titanic.

This category also holds the ocean liners, a nearly extinct species built for the opposite job — crossing open ocean on a schedule, whatever the weather. Titanic is here as the reference point everyone knows; Queen Mary 2 as the last liner still doing the work. Every ship in this group is ranked by gross tonnage, the honest measure for passenger ships.

Every one here

Side profiles are sized by real length overall — longer ships draw bigger.

Ranked by length