The World’s Largest Cruise Ships in 2023

The cruise industry is ever-evolving and one of the most obvious ways is the rollout of larger and larger ships each year.

Looking at gross tonnage (GT), which is defined as a nonlinear measure of a ship’s overall internal volume, we see that four cruise lines dominate the list of the 10 largest cruise ships in operation in 2023.

Even before the highly anticipated launch of its first Icon class ship in the 250,800 GT Icon of the Seas next year, Royal Caribbean International is already dominating the industry in terms of size, boasting the world’s five largest ships.

Three of the 10 debuted as recently as 2022 and only two of the 10 ships were launched prior to the start of the last decade. That’s a promising trend for travelers in search of bigger and bolder cruise ships.

Here are the 10 largest passenger vessels in operation as of May 2023.