cruise

Cruise or Cruises may pertain to:

• Cruise, a trip or voyage by cruise ship
• Booze cruise
• Music cruise
• River cruise
• Cruise (automotive), a gathering of modified cars
• Cruise control
• Cruise missile

Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, they typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as "shore excursions". On "cruises to nowhere" or "nowhere voyages", cruise ships make two- to three-night round trips without visiting any ports of call. Modern cruise ships tend to have less hull strength, speed, and agility compared to ocean liners. However, they have added amenities to cater to water tourists, with recent vessels being described as "balcony-laden floating condominiums".

As of December 2018, there are 314 cruise ships operating worldwide, with a combined capacity of 537,000 passengers. Cruising has become a major part of the tourism industry, with an estimated market of $29.4 billion per year, and over 19 million passengers carried worldwide annually as of 2011. The industry's rapid growth has seen nine or more newly built ships catering to a North American clientele added every year since 2001, as well as others servicing European clientele. As of 2020, the world's largest passenger ship is Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas.

In British slang, a booze cruise is a brief trip from Britain to France or Belgium with the intent of taking advantage of lower prices, and buying personal supplies of (especially) alcohol or tobacco in bulk quantities. This is a legally acceptable process and should not be confused with smuggling. Generally, alcohol and tobacco taxes are lower in France than in Britain. Economically, it makes sense for people to buy their supplies of wine, beer, spirits, and tobacco in bulk in France instead of Britain.

A river cruise is a voyage along inland waterways, often stopping at multiple ports along the way. Since cities and towns often grew up around rivers, river cruise ships frequently dock in the center of cities and towns. A total of 232,300 river cruises were taken by British and Irish holidaymakers last year, an increase of 10.4 percent from 2017, according to figures released from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) UK.

Cruise control (sometimes known as speed control or autocruise, or tempomat in some countries) is a system that automatically controls the speed of a motor vehicle. The system is a servomechanism that takes over the throttle of the car to maintain a steady speed as set by the driver. Speed control was used in automobiles as early as 1900 in the Wilson-Pilcher and also in the 1910s by Peerless. Peerless advertised that their system would "maintain speed whether up hill or down". The technology was adopted by James Watt and Matthew Boulton in 1788 to control steam engines, but the use of governors dates at least back to the 17th century. On an engine the governor adjusts the throttle position as the speed of the engine changes different loads, so as to maintain a near constant speed.

Cruising (driving) is a social activity that primarily consists of driving a car. Cruising can be an expression of the freedom of possessing a driver's license. Cruising is distinguished from regular driving by the social and recreational nature of the activity, which is characterized by an impulsively random, often aimless course. A popular route (or "strip") is often the focus of cruising. "Cruise nights" are evenings during which cars drive slowly. A cruise can be a meeting of car enthusiasts at a predetermined location, organised predominantly through the internet (in recent times) but also largely through mobile phone, word of mouth or simply by a cruise being established enough that it becomes a regular event.

六级/考研单词: cruise, voyage, modify, missile, liner, embark, shore, excursion, nowhere, cater, vessel, float, billion, million, rapid, symphony, tobacco, bulk, illicit, confuse, smuggle, inland, seldom, multiple, dock, accord, motor, automobile, peer, advertise, watt, regulate, random, enthusiasm, predominant, mobile