Inside creepy cruise ship graveyard where massive luxury boats go to die

What happens to old cruise ships when they get retired – we take a look inside the giant ‘graveyards’ where mega vessels ultimately end up before being stripped for parts

Cruise ships are some of the grandest vessels around – adorned with helipads and swimming pools, they drip luxury and passengers get a certain status just for stepping aboard. But what happens to the massive ships when they’re worn out and reach the end of their operational life?

It turns out that just like cars, they go to scrap yards where they are taken apart and bits are sold off – but from the look of pictures shared recently it’s a process that takes quite a while. As the Daily Star reports, the images show some of the ships keeling over while others are half disassembled – leaving the compartments inside exposed to the elements.

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Nowadays cruise ships can hold thousands of passengers, not to mention they have heaps of shops, restaurants, theatres, casinos, pools, and even rollercoasters.

Usually there are a few options when it comes to the end of a ship’s life, some are bought by different cruise lines and are modernised, and some are transformed into hotels or tourist attractions.

An example is Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth II, which is now a 13-deck floating hotel in Dubai, with lavish rooms, restaurants and a theatre. For the cruise-obsessed, guests can also take a ‘heritage tour’ of the ship and learn all about its fascinating history.

Other examples include Cunard’s Queen Mary which was retired in the 1960s and has since been permanently moored at Long Beach in California, becoming home to a museum and a variety of restaurants.

But when there aren’t any takers they are taken to ‘breaking yards’, aka cruise graveyards.

This is often the last resort, when a ship has been in service for 10-20 years and can’t be repurposed.

Of course, these giant vessels can’t just be docked somewhere.

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Instead, older ships are sold to ship-breaking yards, where they are stripped so that their parts can be sold on – a process that can take around six to eight months.

There are a handful of these ‘cruise ship graveyards’ around the world, with famous spots including Alang in India, Chittagong in Bangladesh and the Aliaga ship-breaking yard in Turkey.

These yards aren’t specifically used for cruise ships – usually, they will feature hundreds of giant ships including cargo ships, tankers, and even old floating hotels.

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