Top 20 largest cruise ships in the world 2025

Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, they typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on tours known as “shore excursions”. They may carry thousands of passengers in a single trip, and are some of the largest ships in the world by gross tonnage (GT), bigger than many cargo ships. Cruise ships are organized much like floating hotels, with a complete hospitality staff in addition to the usual ship’s crew.

Cruise ships are designed with all the heavy machinery at the bottom of the ship and lightweight materials at the top, making them inherently stable even as ship designs are getting taller and taller, and most passenger ships utilize stabilizer fins to further reduce rolling of tall ships in heavy weather. While some cruise ships use traditional fixed propellers and rudders to steer, most larger ships use propellers that can swivel left and right to steer the ship, known as azimuth thrusters, which allow even the largest ship designs to have adequate maneuverability.

Here are the top 20 largest cruise ships in the world.