Everybody who has done some traveling will probably have taken a cruise on the Caribbean. There are lots of cruise lines, from the expensive to those designed for the hoi polloi. . If you have the time and the money you could do the cruise in a private yacht, which is very nice. You can choose your own destinations, and avoid those which are always jammed with passengers from the mega ships. Unfortunately this is out of the reach of the common man. If you have the time, but little money, you can wait for the special last-minute deals, when the cruise lines are trying to fill as many of their still empty cabins. You can easily snag an inside cabin for less than $100 per person per night. Each cruise lines sticks to its usual list of destinations and if you want to find new destinations you have to go to another cruise line or go to the private yacht described earlier. But if you have the money and don’t mind the same destinations over and over again sailing in the luxury of a suite, a lot of people do that nowadays. But beware. There are lots of rich people around and, surprisingly, the suites always seem to be the first one to sell out.

    In the Caribbean pond there are many destinations one can reach with a commercial cruise ship;  not all.  Destinations are being developed to make it easy for the passengers to get to the shopping places as soon and conveniently as possible. Others are still small ports with a simple quay and with just a few restaurants and other amenities around. But don’t despair; they’ll catch up sooner or later. The gold of the tourist trade is a strong incentive and many of these destinations do not have any other good sources of income.

    Cruise ships are getting larger because of the economics of scale. With more passengers on a ship, more amenities, such as special shows, special restaurants, and other special attractions can be included at reasonable cost to the cruise line. The top picture shows the Queen Mary 2. To enhance its cachet of exclusivity, it is usually referred to as the QM 2. Compare this ship to the first ship of the venerable Cunard Line, the RMS Britannia, a wooden paddle steamer with a maximum speed of 9 knots. In July 1840, this vessel crossed the Atlantic in a record 14 days. On board were 115 first-class passengers, 89 crew, 600 tons of coal, chickens, a cow to provide fresh milk, and three cats to control rodents.

    Now, 164 years later, the QM2, when launched in 2004, was the largest ocean vessel afloat. It had a length of 1,130 feet, a beam of 148 feet, and a draft of 32’. With a gross tonnage of 148,500, she can carry 2600 passengers with a crew of 1253. She is 113 feet longer than the original Queen Mary and is too big to transit the Panama Canal. Next to her in the picture above is the Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas, which looks rather puny next to the QM 2. The crew of the QM 2 joked that the Legend of the Seas was just a tender ship of the QM 2.

    But Royal Caribbean has the last laugh (as of today, 2014), because now, in 2014, there are six cruise vessels larger than the QM 2, of which 5 are of the Royal Caribbean fleet.  The two largest behemoths afloat are the twins, “Allure of the Seas” and “Oasis of the Seas”, each with a tonnage of 225,300, a length of 1181 feet and a beam of 207 feet. Both have a passenger capacity of well over 5400. You can imagine what happens if a ship of this size comes into port and most of the passengers want to disembark. Tourist shop operators feel a rush of adrenaline as they get ready to fleece the tourists. Just like mana from heaven. On some of the smaller islands it is not uncommon that the number of an incoming cruise boat is larger than the nominal population of the island.

    A map of the Caribbean is shown below with some of the more popular cruise ship destinations.