There is something amazing about the size of a giant cruise ship packed with all the amenities for thousands to live for a week or more at sea. Seeing the amazing layout of these floating resorts from above is pretty cool. When the idea popped into my head to do a blog on cruise ships from the air, it at first sounded pretty boring but looking at the actual images there’s something oddly hypnotic about seeing each image and each ship with a different layout.
From water level, cruise ships can look like confounding, imposing towers but from the air cruise ships have amazing designs and are even beautiful. Most of them have pools. They almost all have a putting green, a running track and a basketball court. The whole top deck becomes this kind of floating amusement park three football fields long.
majesty Of The Seas
Disney Dream
Caribbean Princess
All the above photographs were taken by New York based photographer Jeffrey Milstein whilst perched out of a helicopter with his camera in hand.
Another new craze is using drones to film cruise ships as they leave port. On YouTube it’s not hard to find spectacular aerial videos of cruise ships leaving port, taken by people using consumer-grade camera drones launched from the shore. Take a look at the video below of the cruise ship Allure of the Seas shot by an operator more than two kilometer’s away. Any passenger hoping to capture similar images on the open sea is likely to be disappointed because, for the most part, drones are banned.
Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles as they are otherwise known are very popular nowadays. Many drone pilots have captured breathtaking footage of cruise ships shot from above. While many cruise lines have banned the use of drones on-board and many countries are in the process of establishing laws to control their safe usage there are still many video clips available online.
One of my favourite clips on YouTube is that of an illusionist Drew Thomas. This took place on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas.
