Can Anyone Recommend a Good Ship Tracker

[Sailing78]

Title says it all.  I am looking for a decent cruise ship tracker now that ship movements are bound to pick up a bit in order to get them ready to resume sailing.

[hallux]

www.marinetraffic.com is one.

[ColeThornton]

Welcome to CC.

 

www.marinetraffic.com

 

Also if you just Google, for example, "NCL Epic Location", it will come right up with sites and location.

 

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by ColeThornton

[anyman]

Cruisemapper

 

[Sailing78]

Thanks for the recommendations.  I saw quite a few apps and such but I figured the experts would know the good ones 🙂

 

[BirdTravels]

I use the marine tracker app on my phone. 
 

[chengkp75]

Just realize that commercial AIS tracking sites use land based AIS stations, which only have a line of sight range, about 20-30 miles, and that is not from land, but from where the station is located.  Outside this range, good sites like marinetraffic and vesselfinder will list the last known position, while others like cruisemapper will use the ship's planned itinerary to give you a "supposed to be here" position, which may be quite incorrect if the ship diverted for any reason.  If you want, you can upgrade marinetraffic or vesselfinder to the "satellite" version, for a price, which uses the satellite AIS service, and covers the majority of the world, and while it will find most  ships outside of landbased AIS, the updates are limited in number of times daily.  Another way, is that marinetraffic and vesselfinder will show "ghost" depictions of ships, marked "cruise ship obtained by satellite", and if you know the ship's itinerary, and the relative times of departure and arrival, you can get pretty good at picking which of these "ghost" images is the ship you are tracking.

[Red-Sol]

On 10/30/2020 at 8:01 PM, BirdTravels said:

I use the marine tracker app on my phone. 
 

Looks like the Jade did an imitation of the Big Dipper

[bob brown]

14 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Just realize that commercial AIS tracking sites use land based AIS stations, which only have a line of sight range, about 20-30 miles, and that is not from land, but from where the station is located.  Outside this range, good sites like marinetraffic and vesselfinder will list the last known position, while others like cruisemapper will use the ship's planned itinerary to give you a "supposed to be here" position, which may be quite incorrect if the ship diverted for any reason.  If you want, you can upgrade marinetraffic or vesselfinder to the "satellite" version, for a price, which uses the satellite AIS service, and covers the majority of the world, and while it will find most  ships outside of landbased AIS, the updates are limited in number of times daily.  Another way, is that marinetraffic and vesselfinder will show "ghost" depictions of ships, marked "cruise ship obtained by satellite", and if you know the ship's itinerary, and the relative times of departure and arrival, you can get pretty good at picking which of these "ghost" images is the ship you are tracking.

Good points...I can usually keep track of those "ghost" images if I check frequently from their last land based positions.

One other thing you can do with Marine Traffic...they will grant you a 30 day "free trial" of their paid satellite site, which you must remember to cancel, or it will start billing your credit card.   I took advantage of their offer on a 2017 North West Passage cruise from Seward to New York that lasted 32 days.   I started the trial a couple of days into the cruise, and canceled it at the end...😎

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by bob brown

[farmersfight]

14 hours ago, bob brown said:

on a 2017 North West Passage cruise from Seward to New York that lasted 32 days. 

 

Wow, quite a cruise (both location & duration). May I ask, what ship and what cruise line? Now that I am newly retired, I could do a month long cruise like that! Not sure about the NW passage though (Alaska to NY), may be a little chilly (Bbrrrr...).

Edited November 2, 2020 by farmersfight

[bob brown]

53 minutes ago, farmersfight said:

 

Wow, quite a cruise (both location & duration). May I ask, what ship and what cruise line? Now that I am newly retired, I could do a month long cruise like that! Not sure about the NW passage though (Alaska to NY), may be a little chilly (Bbrrrr...).

Sure...this one...😎

https://blog.crystalcruises.com/mission-complete-scenes-from-the-2017-northwest-passage/

 

 

[PelicanBill]

I pay for a Marinetraffic.com subscription to manage larger collections of ships for each cruise line so I can spot all or nearly all of the big 4 at a glance, or so I follow with notifications.  I spend $9.50 a month for this.

 

When I get close to a cruise I add a satellite tracking for ONE ship, that's another  $16 a month.

 

Notifications are limited to 30 per month, but there is a subscription to expand that to 300  for $9.50 per month.

[farmersfight]

5 hours ago, bob brown said:

Sure...this one...😎

https://blog.crystalcruises.com/mission-complete-scenes-from-the-2017-northwest-passage/

 

 

 

Thanks @bob brown. A picture is worth a thousand words but a awesome video like this is even better! What a different world up there; must've been the adventure of a lifetime. I liked the ice pilots; I didn't know such a pilot job existed (my dad was a Panama Canal pilot). Thanks again for posting.

 

To others on this thread, I apologize for the hijacking.