Cruise ship
A cruise ship is a passenger vessel whose voyage is the product, carrying its own hotel load, and it sits under SOLAS passenger ship rules and the Polar Code where relevant.
A cruise ship is a passenger vessel operated so that the voyage itself is the commercial product rather than a means of transport between two points. That distinction from a passenger ship drives the design: a large hotel load carried at sea, extensive public spaces high in the ship, high installed auxiliary power, and a passenger complement that is not a crew and cannot be assumed to be trained.
The regulatory consequences run through SOLAS passenger ship requirements on subdivision, damage stability, fire safety and evacuation, the safe return to port provisions, and the Polar Code where the itinerary goes high latitude. The environmental profile is equally distinctive: the sector was an early and heavy adopter of exhaust gas cleaning systems and of shore power , because its ports are city centres and its auxiliary load in port is large.
The full article will cover the size classes and their berth constraints, the machinery and propulsion arrangements common to the sector, the safe return to port regime, sewage and grey water handling, the emissions profile in port, and the terminal and itinerary economics.