This follows such “something different” posts as Whatzit 41 and 39, Something Different 48 and Irene Aftermath 1 and 2. If you’re not familiar with the color coding, blue is for passenger vessels, pink is personal vessels, and aqua is tugboats. A circle means anchored or moored and an arrow means underway. These two groups of five then are passenger vessels, image copies last night about 1800.
In fact, from l to r and if one atop the other, top to bottom, they are Veendam, Zuiderdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, and Volendam. The other cluster is Anthem of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas, Celebrity Reflection, Celebrity Edge, and Nieuw Statendam.
Green is for cargo ships and red is tankers. The moving blue symbols (l to r) are Independence of the Seas, Harmony of the Seas, and Oasis of the Seas. The blue circles are (l to r) Symphony of the Seas, Emerald Princess, Crown Princess, Island Princess, and Regal Princess.
To add some drama to the top two images, let’s tally up the potential number of passengers on these vessels. Since I don’t know what the status of passengers on the vessels in the top two photos is, I’ll just give maximum capacity totals, passengers plus crew. Want to estimate? How many crew in the case these vessels have no paying passengers? Answer follows below., but please guess?
Adding to the strange clusters, how about destination given as “nowhere” or
“adrift”. There are some metaphors here . . . like this and this.
My totals . . . for the enumerated vessels in the top two photos . . . at capacity paying passengers . . . 86,535. And if all those vessels are crew only, there are still 22,331 onboard, folks not earning tips. If you’ve been on a cruise, which I have not, you can guess the general range of nationalities of these crew and what they do with their money.
As of this morning, the clusters are shuffling.
tugster: a waterblog 
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March 22, 2020 at 12:00 pm
asrdriver
Hi Will. We’re booked (for now) on the Volendam, departing Vancouver for the Inside Passage to Alaska on or about April 29. Highly unlikely that we’ll actually do that cruise, but I’m watching the Volendam’s position reports with interest
April 7, 2020 at 6:16 am
tugster
As of April 7, lots of crew stranded on these ships: https://gcaptain.com/coast-guard-93000-crew-members-still-stuck-on-cruise-ships-off-united-states/?fbclid=IwAR1B6rLW0sD-l2PmmVGx-RQaBhO4DvdklGjsntqg-Isi_KwfhuZNFAjwlQ8
August 18, 2021 at 4:16 pm
Vivian
Talk about cluster shuffling! Yikes! I’ve been on only 6 cruises. They are floating soft serve palaces. The two best trips were from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg, and Hawaii to Fanning Island. The worst trip was on a very small freighter in the Irish Sea. The cruise ship staff were mainly Eastern Europeans, Filipinos, folks from the Caribe and South East Asia. The captain and crew were predominantly Northern European, mainly Scandinavian. The staff work 10 months a year, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. All that I met were friendly and professional and when I traveled alone they made sure that I was safe. I was truly afraid of contracting some cold or flu on board the ships but the staff take every opportunity to get one to wash hands, you can’t even get on board or in the dining rooms without “washy- washy” hand cleaner being squirted in your hands. I never got sick while sailing. I’m the irritating type who wipes her cell phone with antiseptic wipes. But I wouldn’t go back cruising now. Too scary. Watch the animated film Wall-E. it has a delightful comment on cruise ships – where people live – out in space while waiting for Earth to become liveable again. Arghgh. Cruise ships are the substitute for a winter in Florida or Arizona or the European tour we missed at $5/ day in 1969.