Find about Your Cruise Ship with a Cruise Tracker!

Why tracking a cruise ship?

Tracking cargo ships is a regular task of everyone engaged in cargo shipping. Specific websites like Vesselfinder help find out the location of the vessel and its approximate ETA, for scheduling the cargo discharge, further vessel employment, etc.

●    Spot the actual itinerary during sea / ocean passage. While inland passages are predictable, in the open sea, there can be multiple routes for a ship to get from one port to another. There can be interesting locations alongside (like a small non-inhabited island or a warship patrol place); so, the passengers might have more entertainment during the sea passage.

●    Comparing the offers. Once the desired route is found, you should inspect the itinerary to spot other cruise ships heading the same or similar way.

●    Checking the port plan and congestion. In the busy tourist places, it’s important to know if there are other cruise ships heading the same route on similar dates to foresee queues attraction sites. Knowing the port plan will help find your way to the city or the shuttle bus stop quickly.

●    Find out about the ship. The informative cruise tracker website contains the information on the ship’s age, dimensions, passenger capacity, previous names, etc. It might also present a chart of ship’s decks and some interesting facts about it (e.g. a Royal maiden sailing ceremony).

The interest in cruise shipping has led to the appearance of dedicated cruise tracking websites. Still, the functionality of existing universal ship trackers makes them also a good choice to look for a particular cruise ship.

Websites for Cruise Tracking

Here’s a list of the handiest and most informative websites for keeping a track on a cruise ship:

●    CruiseMapper. This website is quick in downloading and takes little operating memory. It shows cruise ships, ferries, and icebreakers only, and their actual position, It also provides dimensions, year of build, deck plans, and stateroom information for a ship in the window on the left. The ships are color-coded by their operators — cruise lines — the list of which is also available on the left. In the lower part of the screen, there’s a list of all the ships belonging to the largest cruise lines.

●    Cruisin. This live ship tracker represents the shipping map for all ship types. It provides a search bar with filters for ship type, cruise line, name of the ship, and represents the map in two formats. There’s also a useful statistic data about cruise ships and the list of all the existing cruise lines (clickable). Requires registration (it’sfree).

●    VesselFinder. This all-types ship tracker provides multiple options for cruise tracking including the live map, list of ships, list of ports, search by IMO / MMSI number. It features five map formats including FlytoMap raster and a handy navigation system. There’s also a smartphone app version with the full functionality of the website.

●    MarineTraffic. Another universal-type ship tracker website, Marinetraffic provides the live shipping map with optional layers, a handy searching functionality, and My fleet option. It marks the route of the selected ship on the map while representing its dimensions and other specs. It’s available payment- and registration free while some of the functions might be available only for registered users and prepaid accounts.

●    Cruisewatch. This website doesn’t have its own interactive map; however, it provides easy access to information on all registered cruise ships, their current position (e.g. At sea or In the port), and the route the ship is on. By clicking on the ship’s name or its position, the website forwards to the Vessel Finder live map, and tapping on the voyage name reveals the voyage details, dates, ports of call and current status (e.g. Active, En route, Canceled, etc.).