Posted on 10/29/2010 5:40:23 AM PDT by WesternCulture
HELSINKI, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- The world's largest cruise ship "Allure of the Seas," built in Finnish Turku Shipyard, left Turku on Friday and proceeded directly to Florida Fort Lauderdale of the United States.
The construction of cruise ship "Allure of the Seas" was completed and handed over to Royal Caribbean International on Oct. 28. The cruise ship will be serving its first cruise trip in December 2010.
The "Allure of the Seas" is an architectural fantasy on the sea. It is 361-meters long, 66-meters wide, 72-meters high above the water, and its gross tonnage is up to 225,000 tons. There are altogether 16 decks and 2,704 passenger cabins in the vessel, which maximum capacity is 6,360 passengers and a crew of 2,100.
The "Allure of the Seas" seems like a large-scale maze. There are many facilities as the same as cities on land in the creative cruise ship. The designers implanted the concept of "community" to the ship, and divided it into 7 theme zones, such as catering, entertainment, fitness, leisure life, etc. Different kinds of people at different ages can possibly choose their own activity zone they prefer, as the same as living in cities.
The "Allure of the Seas" seems like a moving city on the sea. In addition to provide people with dining, leisure, sport and entertainment activities, a large amount of waste in the vessel also needs to be treated. Environmental protection and cutting down emissions have become the principle goals for designing and building this cruise ship. In terms of energy efficiency, "Allure of the Seas" consumes far less energy per passenger than smaller ships of the same type.
The cruise ship used the latest available technology to reduce air, water and other aspects of emissions and equipped with very advanced sewage treatment system, in order to treat all the water to fulfill required binding quality before discharging into the ocean.
The "Allure of the Seas" will take 13 days to sail to its home base of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale. The ship's first cruise, a seven-night jaunt to the Caribbean, starts Dec.5.
A great accomplishment by a small country!
Although often associated with their Scandinavian “Viking” neighbors; Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the inhabitants of Finland never were Vikings.
But, apparently, they too can build ships.
(Perhaps the following is slightly off-topic, but all the same it might be of interest to some people here)
Furthermore, they also know how to fight. Little, brave Finland is the only country to ever defeat the Soviet Union (with the possible exception of Afghanistan, depending how one views the Soviet-Afghanistan War).
Even before Finland became a sovereign nation, the Finns were feared by the Russians and many others. One major reason to the success my Sweden enjoyed in her wars with Russia, Denmark and the Catholics at the time Finland was a part of Sweden was the role of the elite Finnish light cavalry known as the “Hakkapeliitta”. This name derives from their war cry “- Hakkaa päälle, pohjan poika!”, meaning “Hack on, son of the North” or less literally translated “Cut them down, Nordic sons!”
In fact, “Hakkaa päälle!” still is the motto of the Finnish Army.
Some might view it as barbaric, but that matters little considering they could do what the troops of Hitler could not.
Anyhow, some nice videos featuring this magnificent ship:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thRYv5kzE0Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fqrhmUnPO4
How many Muslim prayer rooms does it have?
A vacation spot for those who fear travel on land and crave the security of the womblike ship
Two words: Poseidon Adventure.
I can't think of worse timing for this delivery. My family and I have taken cruises in the past and are bombarded with brocures from all the major lines. Everyone seems desperate to fill their ships. A two week cruise to Hawaii with we were looking at 2 years ago and which would have cost about $10K for the three of us can now be had for about $6K. I can't imagine how Royal Caribbean is going to fill this monster AND all the other mega-liners that they have in service.
The fun of the cruise occurs when you and 6,360 of your new best friends all try to find your luggage and get a cap to the airport within the two to three hour disembarkation window.
“How many Muslim prayer rooms does it have?”
- Are there lots of Muslims in Fort Lauderdale?
Allure of the Seas departure from Turku, Finland 29.10.2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qzOtg5l8y8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwgY5oonLzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpwLQGGdL90
Having recently cruised the Adriatic Sea on a “small” ship of about 2000 pax, I’ve experienced the wait to get off. Every day. Sometimes a few times.
I wonder how they solve that problem in a ship many times that size. Its not just in the number of tender stations, but the logistics of staggering departing passengers, and apportionment to each station. On the ship I was on, they made use of numerous theaters and gathering points, passed out little colored stickies, hold up “lolly pop” signs to gather ‘round, and have escorts to follow.
Oh, we can't have the people making their own choices. That's not good for diversity.
Last Position Received
http://goo.gl/9aem
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?mmsi=311020700
My husband and I cruised on her sister ship Oasis last month. Never felt crowded, had super fast debarking at all the ports (she was full that week). When you go during hurricane season, the bigger the ship the smoother the ride :)
Do they have enough life boats for all the passengers? Looks like it holds a lot of people.
- As it is a bit difficult to travel completely incognito these days, a good idea could be to use the poste restante service of your local post office. In that way they'll get to deal with all of the junk mail and at least over here in Europe they do so for free.
“Everyone seems desperate to fill their ships.”
- Yes they are.
We Scandinavians can often get hold of very cheap tickets to different cruises as the left over tickets often are dumped on smaller, non-dollar and non-Euro markets (Norway and Iceland are not members of the EU while Denmark and Sweden are EU members but don't have the Euro). The reason these tickets are not sold to a reduced price in Britain, Germany, America etc is that people who've paid the full price are likely to get annoyed finding out someone else has payed much less than they have.
Perhaps, it's not that very irritating for an American to find out that Anders Eriksson from Stockholm has paid 800 Swedish crowns..
We had a 10am flight out of Ft Lauderdale so we self disembarked. Got off the Oasis at 6:15. It took less than 15 minutes from our room to the curb to get a cab to the airport. We spent most of that time waiting to board our flight home. They have it down to a science......was very quick.
I think industry standard is lifeboat capacity of at least 150% total crew and passengers.
I was on the Oasis in July 2010. I loved it. No waits on or off. (Except for customs in countries, RC can’t control that.) My MIL wanted to take this cruise, I didn’t see what the big deal was about. I was wrong. We had a blast!
I am booked on the Allure for Christmas week 2011.
“My husband and I cruised on her sister ship Oasis last month. Never felt crowded, had super fast debarking at all the ports (she was full that week). When you go during hurricane season, the bigger the ship the smoother the ride :)”
- Nice to hear.
Personally, I don’t think I would feel bored or feel as there was too much of a crowd onboard a ship like that.
I love travelling by car, by train, by ship and by plane. I even enjoy walking:)
Regards from Gothenburg, Sweden!
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