Cruise Ship Firsts Through History

First mega cruise ship, the Norway (Wikimedia Commons)

Cruises as we know them today are really only about 50 years old, but the tradition goes back more then a hundred years when passengers started booking travel on mail ships crossing the Atlantic. These cargo vessels evolved into the grand ocean liners whose names we still remember: Lusitania, Titanic, Queen Mary. Now the cruise lines are always competing to have the newest, the best, the biggest, and the most exciting ships at sea, morphing them into massive floating resorts where the onboard experience is just as important as the ports themselves, if not more.