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Xplor Park - All Inclusive Adventure

Discover Xplor: Check out the most visited zip-line park in the world! Dare to live a day full of adventure that is surrounded by incredible underground formations like cenotes, caves and rivers. You can fly up in the most amazing zip-line circuit in Mexico, tour the jungle in fun amphibious vehicles and explore the enigmas of the underground world. Zip Lines: Zip-line over Riviera Maya in two different seven-zip-line circuits, both of which end with a splash in a natural sinkhole. You will reach the top of the towers through hanging bridges and slide down into the next adventure! Amphibious Vehicles: Grab the wheel and make your way into the jungle. Flooded caverns, narrow roads and hanging bridges make the path for an exciting adventure in the heart of the Riviera Maya. Underground River: Did you know that the meteorite that caused the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago happened here, in the Yucatan Peninsula? At Xplor, you will explore a prehistoric river as you swim along the stalactite scenery in an underground adventure. Hammock Splash: At Hammock Splash, you board a unique hammock that is strapped on to a zip-line. Then, have fun sliding down into a refreshing cenote to end with a big splash! What’s Included:

• Access to all Xplor´s activities.
• Unlimited buffet at Troglodite restaurant.
• Unlimited soft drinks.

Requirements & Restrictions: Minimum age – 8 years. Minimum age to drive a vehicle – 18 years with a valid driver's license. Minimum weight – 80 lbs. Maximum weight – 300 lbs. Minimum height – 3'6". Must present a valid driver´s license to drive the amphibious vehicles. Closed-toe shoes are required. What to Bring: Beach towel. Water shoes. Towel and cash or credit card for purchases. Good to Know: A helmet, life jacket and harness will be provided for certain activities and are mandatory to wear. Due to limited time at the park, you may not be able to complete all park activities. Xplor is a theme park; all activities are on your own. Park may be crowded during local holidays. The harness fits a maximum waist circumference of 47 inches and a maximum leg circumference of 25 inches. This tour takes place on Mexico's mainland, located about 45 minutes by ferry boat from the island of Cozumel. The ferry ride may be rough depending on weather conditions. Guests prone to sea sickness are advised to take preventative medication prior to boarding the ferry. Travel time from Playa del Carmen pier to location is approximately 20 minutes.

Travel + Leisure Readers' 10 Favorite River Cruise Lines of 2024

E xplore the world's coolest rivers via these 10 spectacular river cruise lines, voted the best by T+L readers in the “World’s Best Awards” survey for 2024.

Taking a beat, a breath, and a moment to unwind is what travel is all about. And while this can be achieved on every vacation you take, it's always easier on a slow vacation, like the one you'd experience on a magical river cruise. This level of relaxation can really be found in riverways just about anywhere in the world — as long as you choose a winning cruise line like those on this year's World's Best Awards list. Our reader favorites service the waterways of Europe, South America, Asia, and beyond.

How Voting Works

Every year for our World's Best Awards survey, T+L asks readers to weigh in on travel experiences around the globe — to share their opinions on the top hotels, resorts, cities, islands, cruise ships, spas, airlines, and more. Over 186,000 T+L readers completed the 2024 survey. A total of more than 700,000 votes were cast across over 8,700 properties (hotels, cities, cruise lines, etc.).

For the cruise category, respondents were asked to rate individual ships; the results were combined to generate scores for cruise lines in different categories based on number of cabins.

Ships were specifically rated on the criteria below:

• Cabins/facilities
• Itineraries/destinations
• Excursions/activities

For each characteristic, respondents could choose a rating of excellent, above average, average, below average, or poor. The final scores are averages of these responses.

What Readers Loved

Indeed, slow travel has become all the rage, with Travel + Leisure readers looking to river cruising to help them explore every inch of their destination at a leisurely 8.6 knots per hour.

"Our first river cruise was on Avalon Vista, and that experience turned us on to do more river cruising," one reader wrote about this year's No. 2 river cruise line, Avalon Waterways. "The trip was immediately a hit when we checked into our suite, and there was a bottle of Champagne and a box of chocolates for my birthday. Such a nice touch."

The reader also noted how spectacular the staff, food, and amenities were on board, but particularly called out the unbelievable excursion options, which on Avalon include wine tastings through France, kayaking the canals in Amsterdam, and learning something new with a cooking class through Austria.

But still, there was one river cruise line that captured the hearts of readers even more — their No. 1 pick, Aqua Expeditions. Read on to see what T+L travelers loved most about this line and all the rest who made this year's World's Best list.

Aqua Expeditions

Service. Service. Service. That's what T+L readers praised most about their experience on board Aqua Expeditions. "Exceptional service and staff. Unique excursions and experiences that you could not get anywhere else," one reader said. "It's hard to describe the casual luxury, the detail-oriented staff, the spacious cabins, and the general feeling of total relaxation that Aqua Mekong exudes," another added. "I can't stress how warm, welcoming, and ready to serve the entire staff is." The cruise line took home the No. 1 spot for the second year in a row thanks to this and more, including its distinct staterooms like those on its Aqua Mekong ship, which feature deep wood accents and emerald green pops of color, and its fantastic dining options on Aqua Nera , which serves local Peruvian cuisine using the freshest ingredients possible. "It was amazing," one more reader noted of their experience. "Beautiful areas, excellent service!"

"It's hard to describe the casual luxury, the detail-oriented staff, the spacious cabins, and the general feeling of total relaxation that Aqua Mekong exudes."

The Full List

1. Aqua Expeditions

Reader Score: 98.85

2. Avalon Waterways

Reader Score: 95.91

3. The Oberoi Cruisers

Reader Score: 95.75

Reader Score: 95.71

5. Grand Circle Cruise Line

Reader Score: 95.61

6. Uniworld Boutique River Cruises

Reader Score: 94.83

Reader Score: 94.73

8. Riverside Luxury Cruises

Reader Score: 94.62

Reader Score:  91.00

10. AmaWaterways

Reader Score: 90.09

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The detection of a massive harmful algal bloom in the Arctic prompts real-time advisories to western Alaskan communities

by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

In the summer of 2022, a research cruise detected a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) in the Bering Strait region of western Alaska. This expedition provided a dramatic example of science utilizing new technology to track a neurotoxic HAB, and effectively communicate information that protects remote coastal communities in real-time.

The large spatial scale, high cell density, long duration, and potent toxicity of the 2022 HAB event "posed an unprecedented risk to human and ecosystem health as well as maritime subsistence harvest activities in the Bering Strait region and beyond," according to the journal article "Tracking a large-scale and highly toxic Arctic algal bloom: Rapid detection and risk communication," published in Limnology and Oceanography Letters .

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and its partners, noted that, to their knowledge, the 2022 event was the largest HAB event documented in polar waters to be caused by the single-celled organism Alexandrium catenella, which produces neurotoxins called paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs).

Toxins produced by this organism as it proliferates or "blooms" can accumulate in organisms that consume the algae, and the toxins can then be transferred through the food web, causing illness or mortality of marine animals and potentially fatal Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) in people who eat contaminated seafoods.

The bloom of Alexandrium stretched at least 600 kilometers (~370 miles) from the northern Bering Sea to the southern Chukchi Sea at its peak. While concentrations of A. catenella in excess of 1,000 cells per liter are considered dangerous, the measured maximum concentrations in this bloom exceeded 174,000 cells per liter—a record breaker for Arctic waters. In addition, the high toxicity of the Alexandrium cells compounded the poisoning risk from the bloom, according to the researchers.

The 2022 event "represented a striking example of northward bloom advection"—i.e., transport—"from subpolar waters, as well as eastward penetration into Alaskan Coastal waters due to local wind forcing. This mixing of nutrient-rich Bering Sea water with warm coastal waters likely fueled A. catenella growth and accumulation," the article states.

"As continued warming shifts the Pacific Arctic towards more favorable conditions for A. catenella blooms, comprehensive monitoring and response resources will be essential in mitigating the impacts of future bloom events."

"A goal of this study is to bring more attention to some of the serious issues this region is facing, knowing that as climate changes and the Arctic continues to warm, it's more likely that we are going to see blooms like this occurring in polar waters. We are hopeful that this research can motivate more robust testing and monitoring," said lead author Evie Fachon, a biologist and Ph.D. candidate in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/WHOI Joint Program.

Fachon, who led the HAB team on the cruise, recalled watching from the research vessel R/V Norseman II as data came in from an Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB), a robotic microscope that was configured to sample near-surface waters, collect imagery of the phytoplankton community along the cruise track, and enable real-time detection of the A. catenella bloom as it spread into Arctic waters during the course of two back-to-back cruise legs lasting a total of six weeks.

"As we recorded the cell concentration getting higher and higher as the vessel tracked north, we knew we needed to provide that information to people in the region who could be impacted," she said.

Working in collaboration with tribal and state governments and other regional hub community-based groups in Nome, a communications plan had proactively been planned, allowing for rapid situational awareness and public health precautions to be conveyed to people in remote areas.

With many western and northern Alaskan coastal communities relying on a diverse array of marine resources for subsistence and commercial harvest activities, researchers and collaborators distributed risk advisories to tribal governments, regional media, and the public shortly after the 2022 bloom was detected. The efforts "mobilized a rapid and unprecedented regional response in an area with little experience of HABs, much less one of this magnitude," the researchers noted.

Gay Sheffield, the Marine Advisory Program Agent for Alaska Sea Grant, recalled that within 24 hours of assisting with the first regional advisory, the tribally owned Norton Sound Health Corporation (NSHC) had its community-based health clinics on alert for symptoms of PSP, a novel human health risk to the Bering Strait region.

Sheffield, a co-author of the journal article, was able to re-route a marine mammal carcass survey to alert people and provide educational as well as emergency response information on Little Diomede Island, which is in the middle of the Bering Strait between the Alaskan mainland and Chukotka, Russia.

The community at Diomede Island was at the epicenter of the unprecedented high cell counts and high toxicity during the event. "I had just 15 minutes on the helipad to caution people to not harvest their primary subsistence seafoods such as walruses, bearded seals, clams, and tunicates and to provide people with printed advisory and educational materials. It was a difficult message to have to give—and certainly for the community to receive—regarding human health, food safety, and food security concerns," the researcher explained.

Another example of the advisories' reach was when a local family had unexpectedly caught a large clam near St. Lawrence Island located at the southern end of the Strait in the northern Bering Sea and wanted to share that clam with their youngest child. However, due to the regional advisories, the family instead sent the clam to the NSHC in Nome for toxicity testing.

Subsequent test results showed this clam had more than five times the federal seafood regulatory limit for the PST called saxitoxin. The incident was a sobering example of this new health threat to regional peoples. The researchers said they are not aware of anybody who got sick during the bloom event.

"When we planned the research cruise, we wanted to document the dynamics of a very important and poorly understood process connected to climate and a changing environment in Alaska," said journal co-author Don Anderson, academic advisor to Fachon and a senior scientist in the Biology Department at WHOI, where he also serves as director of the U.S. National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms.

"Science has advanced to allow us to obtain this real-time offshore HAB information, and to show how important it is to society," Anderson said. "We demonstrated how this sophisticated instrument, the IFCB, provides critical information from the ship, can be the centerpiece of a regional observing system, even in very remote and underserved—in terms of accessibility, power, and internet—areas."

Collaboration between the researchers and regional communities "was key for better communication and outreach in real time during this dangerous situation," Sheffield said.

"The bloom was a threat to the diverse marine wildlife that regional people and communities rely on for their nutritional, cultural, and economic well-being. This incident shows that researchers and western Alaskan communities benefit by working together, which is a strategy the Bering Strait region excels at—especially in times of trouble. With the climate continuing to warm, we will have to adapt to this new problem, and we are at the beginning phase of that."

Journal information: Limnology and Oceanography Letters

Provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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Trust, more than knowledge, critical for acceptance of fully autonomous vehicles: Study

by Sara Zaske, Washington State University

While not yet on the market, fully autonomous vehicles are promoted as a way to make road travel dramatically safer, but a recent study found that knowing more about them did not improve people's perception of their risk. They needed to have more trust in them too.

This study adds to the evidence from other research that knowledge alone is not enough to sway people's attitudes toward complex technology and science, such as gene editing or climate change. In this case, Washington State University researchers found that trust in the autonomous vehicles' reliability and performance played the strongest role in improving perceptions of the technology's risk.

That may be critical to whether this technology will ever be realized, said Kathryn Robinson-Tay, lead author of the study published in the Journal of Risk Research .

"Autonomous vehicles are such consumer-oriented products. Whether they are used or not is really dependent on whether people will buy them," said Robinson-Tay, a doctoral student in WSU's Murrow College of Communication. "We found there was no significant relationship between people's knowledge and their risk perceptions of autonomous vehicles—without the mediation of trust."

While some cars with autonomous features, like Tesla's adaptive cruise control, are on the roads now, fully driverless vehicles are not yet available. By some estimates, if they do become available, they could improve traffic safety by 90%. But that likely depends on their wide adoption, and currently, perceptions of their safety are very low. A 2022 Pew Research poll showed 44% of Americans have a negative view of autonomous vehicles.

For this study, Robinson-Tay and her advising professor Wei Peng conducted a representative, cross-sectional survey of 323 adults in the U.S. using Census-based quotas for age, gender and race to ensure a diverse sample. The participants answered questions about their knowledge and perceptions of autonomous vehicles and their risk. While trust emerged as the most influential factor, people's desire to experience using fully autonomous vehicles also indirectly led to improved perceptions of risk.

The fact that fully autonomous vehicles are not yet available even to try out may be part of the problem, but their very autonomous nature may also hinder their acceptance, said Peng, a WSU communications researcher.

"It's basic psychology that people want to interact with the things they use. They want to control them through physical touch. With fully autonomous vehicles, you do not need to touch them, so people may feel they are very risky or unsafe," he said.

News reports about accidents with partially autonomous vehicles has also likely hurt perceptions, the researchers said.

"Accidents happen all the time on the road every day, but people tend to overestimate the risk of something that's new, or that they're less familiar with," Peng said.

Regardless, this study's findings point to the need to build trust with the public if fully autonomous vehicles are to ever take to the roads.

"Proponents should do their best to communicate the benefits, and the risks, of autonomous vehicles in an effort to increase both knowledge and trust ," said Robinson-Tay. "It's really important to communicate as honestly as possible so people can have a balanced understanding of what they're exactly getting into with purchasing one."

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In March 2024, a brigadier general in Ukraine’s military counterintelligence service sat on a naval drone. The Ukrainian Sea Baby drone was named Avdiivka ; the general was identified as “Hunter.”

Against all odds, Ukraine is still standing almost two and a half years after Russia’s massive 2022 invasion. Of course, hundreds of billions of dollars in Western support as well as Russian errors have helped immensely, but it would be a mistake to overlook Ukraine’s creative use of new technologies, particularly drones . While uncrewed aerial vehicles have grabbed most of the attention, it is naval drones that could be the key to bringing Russian president Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

These naval-drone operations in the Black Sea against Russian warships and other targets have been so successful that they are prompting, in London, Paris, Washington, and elsewhere, fundamental reevaluations of how drones will affect future naval operations. In August, 2023, for example, the Pentagon launched the billion-dollar Replicator initiative to field air and naval drones (also called sea drones) on a massive scale. It’s widely believed that such drones could be used to help counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

And yet Ukraine’s naval drones initiative grew out of necessity, not grand strategy. Early in the war, Russia’s Black Sea fleet launched cruise missiles into Ukraine and blockaded Odesa, effectively shutting down Ukraine’s exports of grain, metals, and manufactured goods. The missile strikes terrorized Ukrainian citizens and shut down the power grid , but Russia’s blockade was arguably more consequential, devastating Ukraine’s economy and creating food shortages from North Africa to the Middle East.

With its navy seized or sunk during the war’s opening days, Ukraine had few options to regain access to the sea. So Kyiv’s troops got creative. Lukashevich Ivan Volodymyrovych , a brigadier general in the Security Service of Ukraine , the country’s counterintelligence agency, proposed building a series of fast, uncrewed attack boats. In the summer of 2022, the service, which is known by the acronym SBU, began with a few prototype drones. These quickly led to a pair of naval drones that, when used with commercial satellite imagery, off-the-shelf uncrewed aircraft, and Starlink terminals, gave Ukrainian operators the means to sink or disable a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, including the flagship Moskva and most of the fleet’s cruise-missile-equipped warships.

To protect their remaining vessels, Russian commanders relocated the Black Sea Fleet to Novorossiysk, 300 kilometers east of Crimea. This move sheltered the ships from Ukrainian drones and missiles, but it also put them too far away to threaten Ukrainian shipping or defend the Crimean Peninsula. Kyiv has exploited the opening by restoring trade routes and mounting sustained airborne and naval drone strikes against Russian bases on Crimea and the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting the peninsula with Russia.

How Maguras and Sea Babies Hunt and Attack

The first Ukrainian drone boats were cobbled together with parts from jet skis, motorboats, and off-the-shelf electronics. But within months, manufacturers working for the Ukraine defense ministry and SBU fielded several designs that proved their worth in combat, most notably the Magura V5 and the Sea Baby .

Carrying a 300-kilogram warhead, on par with that of a heavyweight torpedo , the Magura V5 is a hunter-killer antiship drone designed to work in swarms that confuse and overwhelm a ship’s defenses. Equipped with Starlink terminals, which connect to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites , and GPS, a group of about three to five Maguras likely moves autonomously to a location near the potential target. From there, operators can wait until conditions are right and then attack the target from multiple angles using remote control and video feeds from the vehicles.

Larger than a Magura, the Sea Baby is a multipurpose vehicle that can carry about 800 kg of explosives, which is close to twice the payload of a Tomahawk cruise missile. A Sea Baby was used in 2023 to inflict substantial damage to the Kerch Strait Bridge. A more recent version carries a rocket launcher that Ukraine troops plan to use against Russian forces along the Dnipro River, which flows through eastern Ukraine and has often formed the frontline in that part of the country. Like a Magura, a Sea Baby is likely remotely controlled using Starlink and GPS. In addition to attack, it’s also equipped for surveillance and logistics.

Russia reduced the threat to its ships by moving them out of the region, but fixed targets like the Kerch Strait Bridge remain vulnerable to Ukrainian sea drones. To try to protect these structures from drone onslaughts, Russian commanders are taking a “kitchen sink” approach, submerging hulks around bridge supports, fielding more guns to shoot at incoming uncrewed vessels, and jamming GPS and Starlink around the Kerch Strait.

While the war remains largely stalemated in the country’s north, Ukraine’s naval drones could yet force Russia into negotiations. The Crimean Peninsula was Moscow’s biggest prize from its decade-long assault on Ukraine. If the Kerch Bridge is severed and the Black Sea Fleet pushed back into Russian ports, Putin may need to end the fighting to regain control over Crimea.

Why the U.S. Navy Embraced the Swarm

Ukraine’s small, low-cost sea drones are offering a compelling view of future tactics and capabilities. But recent experiences elsewhere in the world are highlighting the limitations of drones for some crucial tasks. For example, for protecting shipping from piracy or stopping trafficking and illegal fishing, drones are less useful.

Before the Ukraine war, efforts by the U.S. Department of Defense to field surface sea drones focused mostly on large vehicles. In 2015, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency started, and the U.S. Navy later continued, a project that built two uncrewed surface vessels , called Sea Hunter and Sea Hawk . These were 130-tonne sea drones capable of roaming the oceans for up to 70 days while carrying payloads of thousands of pounds each. The point was to demonstrate the ability to detect, follow, and destroy submarines. The Navy and the Pentagon’s secretive Strategic Capabilities Office followed with the Ghost Fleet Overlord uncrewed vessel programs, which produced four larger prototypes designed to carry shipping-container-size payloads of missiles, sensors, or electronic countermeasures.

The U.S. Navy’s newly created Uncrewed Surface Vessel Division 1 ( USVDIV-1 ) completed a deployment across the Pacific Ocean last year with four medium and large sea drones: Sea Hunter and Sea Hawk and two Overlord vessels, Ranger and Mariner. The five-month deployment from Port Hueneme, Calif., took the vessels to Hawaii, Japan, and Australia, where they joined in annual exercises conducted by U.S. and allied navies. The U.S. Navy continues to assess its drone fleet through sea trials lasting from several days to a few months.

In contrast with Ukraine’s small sea drones, which are usually remotely controlled and operate outside shipping lanes, the U.S. Navy’s much larger uncrewed vessels have to follow the nautical rules of the road. To navigate autonomously, these big ships rely on robust onboard sensors, processing for computer vision and target-motion analysis, and automation based on predictable forms of artificial intelligence , such as expert- or agent-based algorithms rather than deep learning.

But thanks to the success of the Ukrainian drones, the focus and energy in sea drones are rapidly moving to the smaller end of the scale. The U.S. Navy initially envisioned platforms like Sea Hunter conducting missions in submarine tracking, electronic deception, or clandestine surveillance far out at sea. And large drones will still be needed for such missions. However, with the right tactics and support, a group of small sea drones can conduct similar missions as well as other vital tasks.

For example, though they are constrained in speed, maneuverability, and power generation, solar- or sail-powered drones can stay out for months with little human intervention. The earliest of these are wave gliders like the Liquid Robotics (a Boeing company) SHARC , which has been conducting undersea and surface surveillance for the U.S. Navy for more than a decade. Newer designs like the Saildrone   Voyager and Ocius Blue Bottle incorporate motors and additional solar or diesel power to haul payloads such as radars, jammers, decoys, or active sonars. The Ocean Aero Triton takes this model one step further: It can submerge, to conduct clandestine surveillance or a surprise attack, or to avoid detection.

Ukraine’s success in the Black Sea has also unleashed a flurry of new small antiship attack drones. USVDIV-1 will use the GARC from Maritime Applied Physics Corp. to develop tactics. The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit has also begun purchasing drones for the China-focused Replicator initiative. Among the likely craft being evaluated are fast-attack sea drones from Austin, Texas–based Saronic .

Behind the soaring interest in small and inexpensive sea drones is the changing value proposition for naval drones. As recently as four years ago, military planners were focused on using them to replace crewed ships in “dull, dirty, and dangerous” jobs. But now, the thinking goes, sea drones can provide scale, adaptability, and resilience across each link in the “kill chain” that extends from detecting a target to hitting it with a weapon.

Today, to attack a ship, most navies generally have one preferred sensor (such as a radar system), one launcher, and one missile. But what these planners are now coming to appreciate is that a fleet of crewed surface ships with a collection of a dozen or two naval drones would offer multiple paths to both find that ship and attack it. These craft would also be less vulnerable, because of their dispersion.

Defending Taiwan by Surrounding It With a “Hellscape”

U.S. efforts to protect Taiwan may soon reflect this new value proposition. Many classified and unclassified war games suggest Taiwan and its allies could successfully defend the island—but at costs high enough to potentially dissuade a U.S. president from intervening on Taiwan’s behalf. With U.S. defense budgets capped by law and procurement constrained by rising personnel and maintenance costs, substantially growing or improving today’s U.S. military for this specific purpose is unrealistic. Instead, commanders are looking for creative solutions to slow or stop a Chinese invasion without losing most U.S. forces in the process.

Naval drones look like a good—and maybe the best— solution . The Taiwan Strait is only 160 kilometers (100 miles) wide, and Taiwan’s coastline offers only a few areas where large numbers of troops could come ashore. U.S. naval attack drones positioned on the likely routes could disrupt or possibly even halt a Chinese invasion, much as Ukrainian sea drones have denied Russia access to the western Black Sea and, for that matter, Houthi-controlled drones have sporadically closed off large parts of the Red Sea in the Middle East.

Rather than killer robots seeking out and destroying targets, the drones defending Taiwan would be passively waiting for Chinese forces to illegally enter a protected zone, within which they could be attacked.

The new U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leader, Admiral Sam Paparo , wants to apply this approach to defending Taiwan in a scenario he calls “ Hellscape .” In it, U.S. surface and undersea drones would likely be based near Taiwan, perhaps in the Philippines or Japan. When the potential for an invasion rises, the drones would move themselves or be carried by larger uncrewed or crewed ships to the western coast of Taiwan to wait.

Sea drones are well-suited to this role, thanks in part to the evolution of naval technologies and tactics over the past half century. Until World War II, submarines were the most lethal threat to ships. But since the Cold War, long-range subsonic, supersonic, and now hypersonic antiship missiles have commanded navy leaders’ attention. They’ve spent decades devising ways to protect their ships against such antiship missiles.

Much less effort has gone into defending against torpedoes, mines—or sea drones. A dozen or more missiles might be needed to ensure that just one reaches a targeted ship, and even then, the damage may not be catastrophic. But a single surface or undersea drone could easily evade detection and explode at a ship’s waterline to sink it, because in this case, water pressure does most of the work.

The level of autonomy available in most sea drones today is more than enough to attack ships in the Taiwan Strait. Details of U.S. military plans are classified, but a recent Hudson Institute report that I wrote with Dan Patt, proposes a possible approach. In it, a drone flotilla, consisting of about three dozen hunter-killer surface drones, two dozen uncrewed surface vessels carrying aerial drones, and three dozen autonomous undersea drones, would take up designated positions in a “kill box” adjacent to one of Taiwan’s western beaches if a Chinese invasion fleet had begun massing on the opposite side of the strait. Even if they were based in Japan or the Philippines, the drones could reach Taiwan within a day. Upon receiving a signal from operators remotely using Starlink or locally using a line-of-sight radio, the drones would act as a mobile minefield, attacking troop transports and their escorts inside Taiwan’s territorial waters. Widely available electro-optical and infrared sensors, coupled to recognition algorithms , would direct the drones to targets.

Although communications with operators onshore would likely be jammed, the drones could coordinate their actions locally using line-of-sight Internet Protocol–based networks like Silvus or TTNT . For example, surface vessels could launch aerial drones that would attack the pilot houses and radars of ships, while surface and undersea drones strike ships at the waterline. The drones could also coordinate to ensure they do not all strike the same target and to prioritize the largest targets first. These kinds of simple collaborations are routine in today’s drones.

Treating drones like mines reduces the complexity needed in their control systems and helps them comply with Pentagon rules for autonomous weapons. Rather than killer robots seeking out and destroying targets, the drones defending Taiwan would be passively waiting for Chinese forces to illegally enter a protected zone, within which they could be attacked.

Like Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Chinese navy will develop countermeasures to sea drones, such as employing decoy ships, attacking drones from the air, or using minesweepers to move them away from the invasion fleet. To stay ahead, operators will need to continue innovating tactics and behaviors through frequent exercises and experiments, like those underway at U.S. Navy Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron Three. (Like the USVDIV-1, it is a unit under the U.S. Navy’s Surface Development Squadron One .) Lessons from such exercises would be incorporated into the defending drones as part of their programming before a mission.

The emergence of sea drones heralds a new era in naval warfare. After decades of focusing on increasingly lethal antiship missiles, navies now have to defend against capable and widely proliferating threats on, above, and below the water. And while sea drone swarms may be mainly a concern for coastal areas, these choke points are critical to the global economy and most nations’ security. For U.S. and allied fleets, especially, naval drones are a classic combination of threat and opportunity. As the Hellscape concept suggests, uncrewed vessels may be a solution to some of the most challenging and sweeping of modern naval scenarios for the Pentagon and its allies—and their adversaries.

This article was updated on 10 July 2024. An earlier version stated that sea drones from Saronic Technologies are being purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit. This could not be publicly confirmed.

• Budget Drones in Ukraine Are Redefining Warfare ›
• U.S. Navy's Drone Boat Swarm Practices Harbor Defense ›
• Ukraine Made Its Naval Drones 'Deadlier' With Larger Warheads ... ›
• How Ukraine's Naval Drones Turned the Tide in the Battle of the ... ›

Bryan Clark is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. He is an expert in electronic warfare, naval operations, autonomous systems, military competitions, and war-gaming. Earlier in his career, Clark was special assistant to the U.S. chief of naval operations and director of his commander’s action group, where he led development of U.S. Navy strategy and implemented new initiatives in electromagnetic spectrum operations, undersea warfare, expeditionary operations, and in personnel and readiness management.

This reads more like a Pentagon press release than any sort of engineering article. I suppose it's expected when the writer works for an MIC think thank.

Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution

Notice to membership, windows on arm is here to stay.

• Northern Europe & Baltic Sea

COST of day trip to Moscow ??

By densol , February 26, 2012 in Northern Europe & Baltic Sea

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We have just booked a cruise to the Baltics for next year. I am trying to find out the average cost for a day trip to Moscow from STP. I have searched several times, and whilst I have read reviews and reports about the trips etc - I cannot actually see any examples of the costs. I imagine its quite expensive - but we want to do it so I need to budget LOL !!

Any ballpark figures ? :D

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We have just booked a cruise to the Baltics for next year. I am trying to find out the average cost for a day trip to Moscow from STP. I have searched several times, and whilst I have read reviews and reports about the trips etc - I cannot actually see any examples of the costs. I imagine its quite expensive - but we want to do it so I need to budget LOL !! Any ballpark figures ? Thanks

We did the Moscow trip through our cruise ship in late July 2008. Its cost was a little under $1000 pp. Now, that cost through this cruise line is a little over that $1000 pp cost. Now, most are using the high-speed rail connection versus the air flights as we did. I have seen some other numbers from other cruise lines and/or private firms that run $700-850.

Why cheaper or the differences? As cruise lines are pressured to keep their "sticker price" low, they need to make up some "margin" with ship tours, beverages, spa stuff, etc., to help cover their costs and gain some profit. Second, different tours provide various features. Our tour included going inside the famed and spectacular Kremlin Palace. Most Moscow tours don't feature that option and you cannot just walk up there and get in on your own. That Palace is where the Czars were crowned and all of the current/recent Russian leaders assumed their powers.

We could have saved a little if we had used a private tour to go to and visit Moscow, but, with my wife's pushing, we felt it was worth it to pay a little more, do it through the cruise line. If there had been any problems or mix-ups, it was the ship's duty to "make it right" and we would not have to worry.

If you have three days in St. Petersburg and/or have been there before, then the Moscow tour can work out very well. It's not cheap, but in my view, worth it!! Both are a few of my visuals from this super great city with such interesting history and dramatic architecture.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik . Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 66,454 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1426474

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 60,364 views.

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

One of the Kremlin Wall Towers in Moscow:

Walking on the famed Red Square of Moscow:

St. Basil's sits on Red Square and dates back to its 1555-61 construction on the orders of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV). It commemorates the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan and marks the geometric center of the city. This location has been the hub of its growth for Moscow since the 14th century. It was the tallest building in Moscow until the completion of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in 1600. This church was near destroyed in the 1930’s when Stalin was in control.:

Here is a small sampling of the Kremlin Royal Treasures of the Czars: Eggs & Jewels insicde the famed Armory.:

Moscow’s subways are called the “People’s Palaces” with their marble coverings and unique designs for each of the different and many stations.:

This is the interior for Moscow's most historic church, Assumption Cathedral or the Cathedral of the Dormition, inside the Kremlin walls. It is the mother church of Muscovite Russia. The church stands on Cathedral Square and was built in 1475–1479 by the Italian architect Aristotele Fioravanti. It was erected on the spot of an older 14th century cathedral of the same name:

We did the day trip to Moscow with Alla-tour and were very pleased with our tour. Our guide whose English was great was a wealth of information and the day went very smoothly. I checked the web site and Alla's prices for 2012 range from $884 a person for two down to $542 a person for 6 with the 5% cruisecritic discount. So if you can get a group together the per person price goes down considerably. You can try to do this on the roll call section of cruisecritic.

We did not go to the Palace and as Terry says this is not included generally in tours. However, we did go to the Diamond Fund, an amazing display of crown jewels and jewelry in the Armoury building but not really part of the Armoury. I would think you could include this if you had a small group and really wanted to see it. It is quite small and does not accommodate a large group. You can google "diamond fund kremlin" to learn more.

Here are some of my pictures

Red Square with St. Basil’s at the far end

Kremlin Cathedral Square

Bolshoi Theatre

Treasures at the Armoury

200 ton Tsar Bell

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

We did the day trip to Moscow with Alla-tour and were very pleased with our tour. Our guide whose English was great was a wealth of information and the day went very smoothly. I checked the web site and Alla's prices for 2012 range from $884 a person for two down to $542 a person for 6 with the 5% cruisecritic discount. So if you can get a group together the per person price goes down considerably. You can try to do this on the roll call section of cruisecritic. We did not go to the Palace and as Terry says this is not included generally in tours. However, we did go to the Diamond Fund, an amazing display of crown jewels and jewelry in the Armoury building but not really part of the Armoury. I would think you could include this if you had a small group and really wanted to see it. It is quite small and does not accommodate a large group. You can google "diamond fund kremlin" to learn more.

Well said, cadreamer! (nice photos, by the way).

We also used Alla. She is just a super person to work with and, if you get a group together, she will accomodate what YOU want to do!! You can check-out her Moscow tour at:

http://www.alla-tour.com/tours/1

As cadreamer suggests, go to your roll call on Cruise Critic & see if you can get a group together.

Terry, your pix, per usual, are awesome! Still envious! :)

Terry, your pix, per usual, are awesome! Still envious! :) jill

Appreciate, Jill, the kind comments! Envy is GOOD!!

Below are a few more visuals on Moscow that are more "interesting". Fascinating to having seen both cities, back-to-back. It really puts all of this unique Russian history and architecture in better perspective.

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik . Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 67,001 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

The famed KGB (Secret Police) Headquarters in Moscow where many entered and did not exit (alive) during the 1950’s and 1960’s:

Kremlin Treasures: Royal coaches:

Young Military Officers on the streets of Moscow with Soviet "High Hat".:

These are the series of smaller domes on the top of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in the Kremlin Cathedral Square area.:

Inside the newly, more westernized GUM Department Store:

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

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Cruise Guide

Whether you are a frequent cruiser or just getting ready for the first cruise adventure of your life, there are a few things to consider to get the very best of your cruise vacation. We compiled a list of “good to knows” for you before you board. Explore our cruise guide!

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