Carnival just posted $6.7B in Q2 revenue, a record $9B in customer deposits, and its 12th straight quarter of record net yields — and it's already 93% booked for 2026. The wallet takeaway: lock in popular Caribbean and Alaska dates early, and don't count on a Mediterranean fire sale.

Every Caribbean itinerary is really a string of half-days — five or six usable hours ashore once you subtract tender lines and the all-aboard buffer. We rank the top excursion in each major port (Cozumel, Nassau, St. Thomas, Belize) by strength of fit and friction, so you spend those hours where each stop is strongest.

Every major tracker reads the same public AIS signals, so no app is magically more accurate near shore. The real gaps show up in open-ocean satellite coverage, update speed, and cruise-specific extras. We rank CruiseMapper, MarineTraffic, and VesselFinder — and flag when the free tier is all you need.