Hi Steve -- actually I've been lucky enough to do two Tiger Cruises, the 2nd was November 2010. I'm not sure how many Navy ships offer Tiger Cruises, but yes, everyone aboard had a chance to invite family and/or friends aboard. It's usually limited to one or two Tigers per crew member. What happens is that after 7 months in the Middle East, lots of crew jump ship (take leave meeting family) in Honolulu, leaving lots of open berths on the ship. It took about 10 days each Tiger cruise from leaving Pearl Harbor to arriving in San Diego, via dropping the Marines off in Camp Pendleton. So anyone that has an active duty Navy officer/enlisted person on a ship returning from someplace should inquire. They're not very good about "advertising" Tiger Cruises and for security reasons can't even tell you the date the Tiger Cruise will depart until very last minute, which is a pain resulting in higher priced one way flights to Honolulu. But well worth the extra hassle for us to keep our Navy crews safer. So if you know someone on a long deployment in the Navy, ask if there's a Tiger Cruise when they return. Not sure how many they offer in the Atlantic, both times I did it was on the Pacific side. There were about 250-ish Tigers each time I did it, but this is on a large ship, and I know the two ships that accompanied us back last time, the USS Pearl Harbor and USS Dubuque, both had Tigers aboard as well, but not as many since they're much smaller ships. We even had a 5K run on deck on the last Tiger Cruise! They re-arranged the flight deck, positioned two harrier jets at either end and that was the course - run around the ends of the harrier jets! Very fun and I even have the t-shirt! Cheers! Jan

P.S. Photo is watching an A-1 Abrams tank load onto a LCU, a 135 foot updated version of the D-Day landing craft. To load the LCU's they have to lower the back of the ship 8 feet so the water comes in and they can float out -- you can see the water if you look carefully at the edge of the ramp to the LCU. I didn't get to see loading the LCU's on the first Tiger Cruise, so this was interesting! I had no idea the logistics that go into this. My son was on the bridge at the time, responsible for keeping the ship moving the the right direction with the wind and waves to allow the LCU's to disembark and return safely ... i.e. with as little wave action as possible.