A cruise ship is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are considered an essential part of the experience. The first vessel built exclusively for this purpose was the Prinzessin Victoria Luise, commissioned by Albert Ballin, general manager of Hamburg-America Line. The ship was completed in 1900.

Cruising has become a major part of the tourism industry, with millions of passengers each year as of 2006. The industry's rapid growth has seen nine or more newly built ships catering to a North American clientele added every year since 2001, as well as others servicing European clientele. Smaller markets such as the Asia- Pacific region are generally serviced by older tonnage displaced by new ships introduced into the high growth areas.

The practice grew gradually out of the transatlantic crossing tradition, which, despite the best efforts of engineers and sailors into the mid-20th century, rarely took less than about four days. In the competition for passengers, ocean liners added many luxuries — most famously seen in the Titanic, but also available in other ships — such as fine dining, well-appointed staterooms, and so forth.

In the late 19th century, Albert Ballin, director of the Hamburg-America Line, was the first to make a regular practice of sending his transatlantic ships out on long southern cruises during the worst of the winter season of the North Atlantic. Other companies followed suit. Some of them built specialized ships designed for easy transformation between summer crossings and winter cruising.

With the advent of large passenger jet aircraft in the 1960s, the vast majority of inter-continental travellers switched from ships to planes. There are some however, who enjoy the few days of luxury and enforced idleness that a liner voyage affords, so a small niche market has remained for transatlantic voyages. Excluding this exception, the ocean liner transport business crashed. Cruising voyages however gained in popularity; slowly at first but at an increased rate from the 1980s onwards. Initially the fledgling industry was serviced primarily by redundant liners. The first purpose built cruise ships were relatively small, but the size of these vessels has risen dramatically to become the largest passenger ships ever built.

The 1970s television show The Love Boat, featuring Princess Cruises' since-sold ship Pacific Princess, did much to raise awareness of cruises as a vacation option for ordinary people in the United States. Initially this growth was centered around the Caribbean, Alaska and Mexico, but now encompasses all areas of the globe. As of 2004, several hundred cruise ships, some carrying over 3,000 passengers and measuring over 100,000 gross tons, ply routes all over the world. For certain destinations such as the Arctic and Antarctica, cruise ships are very nearly the only way to visit, a fact that is the primary attraction for many tourists.

Present-day cruise ships are organized much like floating hotels, with a complete "hospitality staff" in addition to the usual ship's crew. It is not uncommon for the most luxurious ships to have more crew and staff than passengers.

As with any vessel, adequate provisioning is crucial, especially on a cruise ship serving several thousand meals at each seating. The amount of food and beverages consumed by a cruise ship on an average seven-day voyage is staggering. Passengers and crew on the Royal Caribbean International ship Mariner of the Seas consume 20,000 pounds of beef, 28,000 eggs, 8,000 gallons of ice cream, and 18,000 slices of pizza in a week.

Many older cruise ships have had multiple owners over their lifetimes. Since each cruise line has its own livery and often a naming theme (for instance, ships of the Holland America Line have names ending in "-dam", e.g. MS Statendam, and Royal Caribbean's ships' names all end with "of the Seas"), it is usual for the transfer of ownership to entail a refitting and a name change. Some ships have had a dozen or more identities.

Cruise ships and former liners often find employment in applications other than those for which they were built. A shortage of hotel accommodations for the 2004 Summer Olympics led to a plan to moor a number of cruise ships in Athens to provide tourist accommodation. On September 1, 2005, FEMA contracted three Carnival Cruise Lines vessels to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

 This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cruise Ship".

This is a list of cruise lines, companies that operate cruise ships.

A cruise line is a company that operates cruise ships. Cruise lines have a dual character; they are partly in the transportation business, and partly in the leisure entertainment business, a duality that carries down into the ships themselves, which have both a crew headed by the ship's captain, and a hospitality staff headed by the equivalent of a hotel manager.

Among cruise lines, some are direct descendants of the traditional passenger shipping lines, while others were founded from the 1960s on specifically for cruising. The business is extremely volatile; the ships are massive capital expenditures with ruinous operating costs, and a slight dip in bookings can easily put a company out of business. Cruise lines frequently sell, renovate, or simply rename their ships just to keep up with travel trends.

A wave of failures and consolidation in the 1990s has led to many lines existing only as "brands" within larger corporations, much as a single automobile company produces several makes of cars. Brands exist partly because of repeat customer loyalty, and also to offer different levels of quality and service. For instance, Carnival Corporation owns both Carnival Cruise Lines, whose former image were vessels that had a reputation as "party ships" for younger travellers, but have become large, modern, and extremely elegant, yet still profitable, and Holland America Line, whose ships cultivate an image of classic elegance. 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cruise Lines".

If you are trying to find boat crew jobs, you may find online crewing agencies by far the easiest and cheapest way to do this.

Searching websites like this is one type of online crew finder service, however, this site does not actively match you with potential jobs or employers.  This is not a yacht crew agency but more like a classifieds advertising service.

Other sites (which usually charge fee) will physically try to match with vessels and employers who  they have on their books.  These employers will either pay the website or agency a finder fee based on perhaps a percentage of your salary or other sites rely on the crew paying a small charge and will not charge the employers.

Maritime jobs are available all over the world on may types of boat and if you are prepared to travel you should spend time researching what is available.

When using a website to find contacts, always be aware of the many scams which exist.  Many "agencies" claiming to be based in Nigeria or which require some kind of "deposit" up-front should always be treated with the maximum caution. More information on "advance fee fraud" or the "419 scam" can be found here.

Have fund and good luck.