Cruise Ship Trivia
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157 free Cruise Ship trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Whether you have sailed twenty times or are packing for your first, this cruise ship trivia quiz will test what you actually know about life at sea. It starts with the history: P&O's 1844 sea tours, the first purpose-built cruise ship in 1900, Cunard and Holland America, the founding of Norwegian, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess, MSC, Celebrity, Viking and Virgin Voyages, and how a Norwegian shipping partnership and an Israeli entrepreneur turned Miami into the cruise capital of the world. Then it covers the ships and the rituals: the Sovereign, Oasis and Icon classes and their record-breaking tonnage, Queen Mary 2 as the last true ocean liner, azipods and Panamax, godmothers and champagne, muster drills and the seven short blasts, the lido deck, private islands from Great Stirrup Cay to Castaway Cay, and the Love Boat's Pacific Princess. It also remembers the hard days: Achille Lauro, Costa Concordia, the Poop Cruise and Diamond Princess. The 50 cruise trivia questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against documented sources, so it works for a sea-day trivia session, a travel-agent team meeting or a pub quiz.
30 of 157 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Argentine port, often billed as the world's southernmost city, is a recognised gateway for cruises to Antarctica?
Ushuaia
Ushuaia lies only about 1,100 km from the Antarctic Peninsula, which is why it is one of just five recognised Antarctic gateway cities, handling tourist ships as well as research expeditions.
Q 02What was the world's first purpose-built cruise ship, launched in 1900?
Prinzessin Victoria Luise
Prinzessin Victoria Luise was built for the Hamburg America Line purely for pleasure voyages, so she was styled like a white private yacht; she was wrecked off Jamaica in 1906.
Q 03Which German shipping magnate's 1891 voyage on the Augusta Victoria is often called the first cruise?
Albert Ballin
Albert Ballin of the Hamburg America Line sent Augusta Victoria to the Mediterranean in early 1891 because his express liners earned little in winter, and he sailed on the voyage himself.
Q 04Which ship became the world's largest cruise ship on entering service in January 2024?
Icon of the Seas
Icon of the Seas, at 248,663 gross tons, displaced Wonder of the Seas and ended a run in which every record-holder since 2009 had been an Oasis-class ship.
Q 05Which footballer named Royal Caribbean's new ship at a Miami ceremony in January 2024?
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi placed a football on a pedestal to release the champagne bottle against the hull at the Miami naming ceremony in January 2024.
Q 06Which Alaskan national park sends rangers aboard visiting cruise ships to tell passengers what they are seeing?
Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay did not exist when George Vancouver's expedition charted the coast in 1794: one great glacier filled it, and the ice has since drawn back some 65 miles to open the fjord that ships now sail.
Q 07Where was Symphony of the Seas built in 2018?
Saint-Nazaire, France
Saint-Nazaire, France, built Symphony at Chantiers de l'Atlantique; Royal Caribbean moved the Oasis class there in 2012 after talks on state financing for the Turku yard that built the first two fell through.
Q 08When completed in 1987, which ship became the world's largest passenger ship?
Sovereign of the Seas
Sovereign of the Seas was the largest passenger ship afloat when delivered in 1987; in 2020 her last operator, Pullmantur, filed for reorganisation in the pandemic and she was beached for scrap in Turkey.
Q 09Which ship entered service in 2004 as the first purpose-built ocean liner in 35 years?
Queen Mary 2
Queen Mary 2 was built as a true liner for Cunard's Atlantic run, with thicker hull plating and some 40% more steel than a cruise ship of her size, to succeed QE2 of 1969.
Q 10Retired in 2008, Cunard's QE2 opened as a floating hotel in 2018 in which city?
Dubai
Dubai's state investment arm bought QE2 from Cunard to moor her as a hotel at Palm Jumeirah, but the plan stalled for a decade before she finally opened at Mina Rashid in April 2018.
Q 11Samuel Cunard, founder of Britain's Cunard Line, was born in which present-day country?
Canada
Canada: Cunard was a shipowner from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who won the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract in 1839 and began sailings the next year.
Q 12Holland America Line was founded in 1873 in which city?
Rotterdam
Rotterdam was home to the line's head office for decades; the building still stands on the quay as the Hotel New York, while the company itself is now run from the United States.
Q 13Norwegian Cruise Line was founded in 1966 by Knut Kloster and which Israeli businessman?
Ted Arison
Ted Arison split from Kloster on bad terms in 1971 and launched a rival, Carnival Cruise Lines, the following year.
Q 21Who sang The Love Boat theme over the opening credits for the first eight seasons?
Jack Jones
Jack Jones sang The Love Boat theme for the first eight seasons; Dionne Warwick recorded a new version for the ninth and final season in 1985–86.
Q 22Which port bills itself as the "Cruise Capital of the World"?
PortMiami
PortMiami earned the slogan because the modern industry grew up on its piers: Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and Carnival all began sailing from Miami between 1966 and 1972.
Q 23Which Bahamian island did Norwegian Cruise Line buy in 1977, making it the first private island of any cruise line?
Great Stirrup Cay
Q 14Norwegian's first ship, Sunward, began in 1966 as a car ferry from Southampton to where?
Gibraltar
Gibraltar was the goal, but British limits on holiday currency helped kill the ferry within months, so Knut Kloster sent the idle Sunward to Miami to cruise instead.
Q 15Which French liner did Norwegian buy in 1979 and rename SS Norway?
SS France
SS France had been laid up at Le Havre since 1974 when Knut Kloster paid $18 million for her in 1979 and rebuilt her as SS Norway, then the world's largest cruise ship.
Q 16Which Italian film star has christened nearly every new MSC Cruises ship since MSC Lirica in 2003?
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren named MSC Lirica, the line's first newbuild, in 2003 and has returned to christen most of its new ships since; the line named its 2012 arrival MSC Divina in her honour.
Q 17Until it moved to Bermuda in 2026, Carnival Corporation was incorporated in which country?
Panama
Panama was Carnival Corporation's legal home, though it was run from Florida, until May 2026, when it absorbed its British twin Carnival plc and re-registered in Bermuda.
Q 18Princess Cruises began in 1965 when founder Stanley McDonald chartered a ship for winter cruises from Los Angeles to which coast?
The Mexican Riviera
The Mexican Riviera was the destination: McDonald chartered Canadian Pacific's coastal steamer Princess Patricia for the months when she would normally have been laid up for winter.
Q 19On which ship was the TV series The Love Boat set?
Pacific Princess
Pacific Princess played the Love Boat for most of the run, with her twin standing in when schedules clashed; the famous ship herself was sold for scrap and broken up in Turkey in 2013.
Q 20Who played Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat?
Gavin MacLeod
Gavin MacLeod played Captain Merrill Stubing for all nine seasons, then spent more than 30 years as Princess Cruises' global ambassador, taking part in the launches of its new ships.
Great Stirrup Cay was bought from the Belcher Oil Company, which had held it with an eye to oil exploration; Norwegian turned it into a beach stop for its own passengers instead.
Q 24Disney's private island Castaway Cay was formerly known as what?
Gorda Cay
Gorda Cay's airstrip was once a stop for bootleggers and later for drug runners; Disney took a 99-year lease on the island in 1997 and renamed it Castaway Cay.
Q 25Which 1998 ship, Disney Cruise Line's first, has Goofy hanging from her stern?
Disney Magic
Disney Magic was built in two halves at Italian yards, the bow towed from Ancona to Marghera to be joined to the stern, before her maiden voyage in July 1998.
Q 26On a cruise ship, the open-air deck where the outdoor pools are found traditionally carries what name?
Lido deck
Lido deck borrows the name of the Lido, Venice's beach-resort island; British English took the word for open-air public pools, and ships took it for the deck with the pool.
Q 27What is the rounded underwater nose at the front of a cruise ship's hull, which cuts drag and saves fuel, called?
Bulbous bow
Bulbous bow is the name: the bulb raises a wave of its own that cancels much of the one the hull pushes up, so large ships fitted with one burn roughly 12 to 15 percent less fuel.
Q 28What is the general emergency alarm signal on a cruise ship?
Seven or more short blasts then one long
Seven or more short blasts then one long, on the whistle and the internal alarms, is the general emergency signal, which is why every cruise begins with a drill where passengers hear it sounded.
Q 29The SOLAS treaty on safety at sea was first prompted by which disaster?
The sinking of the Titanic
The sinking of the Titanic prompted the first SOLAS convention in 1914, which set lifeboat numbers and a continuous radio watch, but that treaty never took force because the First World War broke out.
Q 30What title do cruise lines give the woman chosen to name a new ship and wish it good fortune?
Godmother
Godmother is the title, with godfather for a man; the pairing goes back to French launchings of the 1700s, which resembled baptisms and had a priest bless the new ship.