Costa Cruise ships ply the Mediterranean waters, now they ply the Google Earth Mediterranean. This network link 
shows the current position and recent tracks of the Costa Cruise Ships. When you click on a placemark you get current weather conditions for the ship, and a current “live” webcam photo from the ship. It’s interesting to check in every few days and see the different locations the cruise ships are located and the resulting web cam picture. Some of the ships are experiencing bad weather, but don’t worry – I’m sure there are plenty of fun things to do inside the ship. Put the link in your My Places folder and it will automatically update with the latest position and the latest web cam photos.
I’m not sure if this was created by the company themselves (found this in this post), but I think it is a good way to advertise the Costa Cruises. It would be even better if they included some quality marketing photos through the network link for each location automatically based on the ships current position or destination.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
I dont know if this network link is made by the company, but I took a costa cruise last year and i was was surprised to find out that i could track their ships during the weeks previous to my trip, it was quite fun of course with the antiipation of the trip and then letting know other friends and relatives that they could keep track of us during my holidays. I think that this is an excellent use of googleearth.
A great idea by Costa Cruises.
Won’t be long before all Cruise Lines and ofcourse
many private yachts can do the same.
Virtual-voyaging is certainly a reality!
Thanks, and the creator of this is not the costa company, but a small french company “Glooton”, we have done this for the fun
I turned the data into much of the same, but then in 3D, with possibility to follow any single one of the ships. Check it out at:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Number=749807
It’s a great tool and handy. I am going to love this 🙂
That’s great!
Now my Google Earth is tuned up, great idea 🙂
I don’t know how exactly this was put together, but it really tracks the ships, no doubt about that.
I was surprised to see even the smallest Mediterranean cruise ships tracked…
Amazing 😀
TravelTalker
This is great, I really wasn’t expecting this to work anymore due to the age of the post, but I was pleasantly suprised when it did. Some of the ships need to take a squigee to the cameras but overall it’s informative and fun.
Live streaming video next!
Hi there, I started a new website for lovers of cruise ships. It is a site about stories about tales of the seas.
http://www.cruiseshipstories.com
None are working for me, I just get a ? where the images should be.
Good idea though and a nice way to promote cruise lines.
How about a cam on their waste port so we can see when they’re dumping in our ocean.
Hey, this is great, I have downloaded it, I appreciate it, but there are just a few things that bug me with this add-on:
– I was looking for add-ons to make these ships “move”, in order to find their real positions at real time, like right now where is “Carnival Paradise”?
– very few ships are in it… many major ships, such as those of Fred Olsen cruise line are missing 🙁
Otherwise it’s a handy tool 🙂
The only bug about this is that the ships cannot be made to move at all…
I was looking for a software that would allow at least a weekly refreshing of the ship positions…
I worked on cruise ships as a teen DJ for years and this would have been a great tool for my friends and family!
Yeah that’s True..Very useful!
Very cool service – I had no idea you could do this!
My new droid x gives me a GPS perspective wherever I go. Technology is somewhat scary!