My Adventure Tracking Cruise Ships
So last weekend my neighbor Mike kept bugging me about his parents sailing on Explorer of the Seas. “Can you see where they are right now?” he asked every time we took out the trash. After the third garbage run, I figured – why not actually check?
First thing I grabbed my laptop thinking it’d be simple. Just type “ship location” into Google right? Total mess. Got flooded with cruise booking sites wanting my email before showing anything useful. Felt like trying to find a penny in a swimming pool.
Then I remembered MarineTraffic exists. Pulled up their site but holy cow – ads everywhere blinking like disco lights. Finally spotted the search box way down below some insurance banner. Typed “EXPLORER” real slow cause I kept misspelling it with those tiny keys.
The magic moment came when I hit enter. Boom! There she was – this little boat icon chilling near Florida. Checked the timestamp showing “Updated 27 mins ago” and felt like a hacker. Took a screenshot and ran next door to show Mike.
His reaction made the whole mess worthwhile:
- His eyes got huge seeing the dot moving
- His wife screamed “Oh! They’re near Nassau!”
- They invited me for barbecue later
Couple takeaways from this tracking thing:
- No app needed – just use a normal web browser
- Watch out for scam sites selling fake ship trackers
- That dot updates hourly if you’re lucky
- The ocean looks ridiculously huge on those maps
Felt pretty awesome solving this for Mike. Though truth be told – seeing how that tiny ship floats in all that blue water? Kinda made me want to book a cruise myself.
