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Ever seen a large ship on the water and wondered what ship it might be?
Stop squinting! You can use various cruise tracker websites — which track all types of ships around the world — to help you identify a ship.
For the nautical-obsessed, Cruise Tracker can show you the location of a particular ship or the traffic in a particular port.
They can come in handy in case of weather-based delays or any type of emergency when you're trying to determine whether a cruise ship has left or returned to port
You can even track a ship to see what destinations you've traveled to in the past while on board
For the most part, cruise trackers are more entertaining than practical.
Here's a list of the best cruise ship trackers and how to use them.
You can track most cruise ships, but if you use free cruise tracking websites, you won't be able to see your ship all the time.
According to Cruise, cruise ship trackers receive data through a tracking system called the Automatic Identification System
Many ships use some combination of AIS satellite relays and very high-frequency radio, known as VHF, to transmit and receive AIS data