FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Ahh, the sea. The briny scent. The crisp breezes. The cloud of secondhand smoke.

While the rest of the hospitality industry has cracked down on smoking, cruise ships remain an exception, at least in parts of almost every ship.

But as new policies at two major lines show, the cruise industry is slowly dimming the smoking lamp.

Royal Caribbean International recently announced that starting in January, smoking will be banned in passenger cabins, making it the largest line to adopt that policy. Norwegian Cruise Line, which operates three ships in Hawai'i through its NCL America subsidiary, last month began tightening up, too. A few smaller lines are largely smoke-free, and kid-oriented Disney Cruises also bans smoking in staterooms.

While smoking has gradually been snuffed on airline flights, restaurants and many hotel chains, the cruise industry has lagged behind for two reasons: It caters to a large base of passengers outside North America, where smoking is more accepted and prevalent. And groups, a key part of the business, don't book non-smoking venues if even one member of the group would be excluded as a result.

Completely cutting out smoking has its consequences.

When Carnival Cruise Lines made its 2,052-passenger Paradise entirely smoke-free in 1998, the ship brought in less revenue than other Carnival ships. Carnival scrapped the ban in 2004.

But the smoking habit continues to recede in the United States, falling from 22.8 percent of adults in 1999 to 20.1 percent last year. So cruise lines are strategically reducing the opportunities to smoke, while doing their best not to alienate the minority of passengers who still indulge.

That works for Florence Schemer, a real estate agent from Jacksonville, Fla., who was waiting at Port Everglades on Monday to cruise on Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas.

"I'll come back and go again," said Schemer, a heavy cigarette smoker until about 20 years ago. "I wish everything was non-smoking."

Another firm mending but not ending its mixed smoking policy is Norwegian Cruise Line, which last month put further restrictions on which public areas allowed tobacco. Although Norwegian still lets passengers smoke in cabins, most other areas of the ships are off-limits, a spokeswoman said.

At Royal Caribbean, a new "wellness" theme helped trigger the smoking changes, spokesman Harrison Liu said. An onboard program dubbed Vitality will encourage passengers to take exercise classes, use the spa, pick active shore excursions and learn about healthier eating habits.

"This got some of our executives thinking about the entire cruise experience and trying to bring that in line with our new focus on wellness," Liu said.

So after Jan. 1, passengers on 18 of Royal's 21 ships face a cabin-cleaning charge tacked on to their bill if they're discovered smoking in their rooms. Smokers will still be free to light up on the veranda of balcony cabins, as well as the starboard side of the ship, Liu said.

Tellingly, the three ships temporarily exempt from the new plan all sail in parts of the world where smoking rates are far higher than in the U.S. They include the Rhapsody of the Seas, sailing in the Far East, and the Legend and Splendor of the Seas, which are on European itineraries.

Those ships won't adopt the new smoking rules until the summer of next year, Liu said.

Katrina Cheathom-Standors, who works for a pension check-processing firm in Chicago, said the change will put off smokers like her.

"A lot of the restaurants that don't allow smoking, I don't go to anymore," she said while finishing a cigarette prior to boarding the Enchantment of the Seas on Monday.

Married over the weekend, Cheathom-Standors said she picked the Royal Caribbean ship for the special honeymoon suite package, but said she wouldn't have gone on the line if the new policy had been in place.

"I would have found someplace else," she said.