Posted on 10/30/2009 8:46:14 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
World’s largest cruise ship sets sail
Oasis of the Seas features 2,700 cabins, can accommodate 6,300 passengers
The Associated Press
updated 11:06 a.m. ET Oct. 30, 2009
HELSINKI - The world's largest cruise liner on Friday began its maiden voyage to Florida, gliding out from a shipyard in Finland with an amphitheater, basketball courts and an ice rink on board.
The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 1,200 feet (360 meters) from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew.
Commissioned by Royal Caribbean International, the ship cost $1.5 billion and took two and a half years to build at the STX Finland Oy shipyard in Turku, southwestern Finland.
The liner has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children. There is also an ice rink that seats 780 spectators and a small-scale golf course.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Giant floating petri dish...
Good call!
I’ve seen images of that thing. I would not want to be on it while crossing the North Atlantic in November. It does not look seaworthy enough for open ocean. It has to be a bear to handle in any kind of wind; it actually looks top heavy. sd
I want it!
I’m sorry, that’s just stupid.
Cruise ships are basically floating resorts with a few side trips thrown in.
This one has so much going on I’m sure there’s never a dull moment, but I”m not sure how restful it would be to vacation on it!
I would rather sail the “Spray” around the world
than go out in that monstrocity.
Somalia’s waiting!
A lot would depend on who you went with. wink. wink. :)
It looks extremely top heavy.
“This one has so much going on I’m sure there’s never a dull moment, but I”m not sure how restful it would be to vacation on it!”
***
When my mother was alive, we cruised five times. Mom was reasonably healthy then, but there were times when she wuld get tired. So she would park herself in a deck chair or someplace and just read or snooze.
There is no law that says you have to participate in everything that the cruise has to offer. Yes, there are a lot of things going on, but the beauty is that you can them all, some of them, or none at all.
Thought experiment:
Remove all of the US governments overbearing regulation/taxation and put the Unions back in their rightful place. Reign in overuse and abuse of the Civil courts via "loser pays" and prosecuting frivolous lawsuits with jail time for both plaintiff and lawyer.
We'd be building these things for orbital use...
Cruise lines are making new ships huge...each new one is larger than the last one. My last cruise was on the Grand Princess; at the time the ship was brand new. One day I looked out the balcony and noticed that the railings didn’t mesh together right. Apparently, this ship was rushed into manufacture and still had some bugs about it. An employee said that once the sailing season was over, the ship was going to be returned to the shipyard for some tinkering.
Some bugs are expected I guess. But as I recall from the story of the Titanic, the rivets were of a lower grade iron than standard. If you are going to call a ship unsinkable, you had better make it right with the right materials and workmanship. If nothing else, the Titanic teaches us that there is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. And that is why these ships are more prepared for emergencies now than they were back in 1912.
Interesting thread in CruiseCritic.com discussing whether the Oasis is selling weel...or not.
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1083417
There are several ship yards on the Great Lakes that could build something like this. Trouble is, they couldn’t get through the Welland Canal.
Wonder if it has a shooting range
It's the Sea Cloud II, holds about 60 passengers.
Low freeboard - amidships is going to be wet.
Would you go on the maiden voyage of a ship called Hell-Sinki?
I look at this ship and I see something just asking to be attacked. Either by terrorists, weather, fire, etc. Ship of fools indeed.
but what weight of metal can it throw?
How much you want to bet the water system and ship are constantly contaminated with the Noro virus ... My wife and I went on a Recency Cruise once, we saw them throwing their garbage overboard at sea in black trash bags, that was my last cruise ship, never again ...
Been on that and the WindSpirit. Amazing ships and huge rooms.
Numero uno requirement is that you must like crowded places to go on a ship cruise. But city downtowns are dirty, dangerous, and you must return to your house every night, so you buy an expensive ticket on a floating city that’s safe and clean and just as crowded as a city downtown. You win.
It sits up a bit too high for me.
My thoughts exactly; One person with Swine Flu, airborn TB, etc can infect a ton of people before the ships crew even know it and there you go your out at sea, hundreds of miles away from anything and by then it is too late, EVERYONE IS TRAPPED on a floating germ factory. People trapped in their cabins, forced to wear masks and perpetually wash their hands with “hand sanitizer”. Such a “good time”... NOT!
We do. They're called nuclear powered aircraft carriers.
Scary design, in any kind of heavy seas this thing looks like a POSIDON Adventure waiting to happen.
I believe it would have been nice if the article had given the ship’s tonnage. It’s got to be over 200,000 ton, at least twice as heavy as a carrier.
BuilderAker Yards, Turku, Finland
Owner/ManagerRoyal Caribbean International
Power:
Output 60MW
Performance:
Service Speed 20.2kt
Capacities:
Passenger Capacity 5,400
Main Dimensions:
Length (overall) 1,181ft
Breadth (moulded) 154ft
Height (above waterline) 213ft
Draught 30ft
Tonnage:
Displacement 100,000t
Gross Tonnage 220,000t
Engines:
Main Engines8 Wartsila V12 diesel engines generating 17,500hp each, main propulsion system three 20 MW azimuthing Asea Brown Boveri Azipods
Looks WAY awesome to me! I’d love to go!
Maybe that’s why there heading to Florida. Less ice in the water.
When I look at this:
I cannot help but think the big sucker is just too deadgum top heavy!
But what do I know?
It’s too big to fail.
My only question is, why aren’t US companies building ships like this?
Same reason no cruise line will ever be a U.S.company. TAXES TAXES TAXES.
What astonishes me is what was built with 1.5 Billion dollars. Give the Federal government 1.5 billion and that money wouldn’t get past the lawyers they would hire to implement a project.
If this kid shows up on the passenger manifest, start to worry.
Those smaller vessels are nice too.
I did once consider a cruise on something smaller...till I found out that the passengers had certain responsibilities for steering the ship. Nope. If I’m going to pay good money, I want someone else to guide the ship along, clean the cabins and cook meals for me.
And I can only imagine the amount of sewage this monster will dump just a few miles offshore...............
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