When I was a kid, I saw the movie "Poseiden Adventure". The ship in the movie was modeled after the Queen Mary, a grand old ship that was eventually retired to Long Beach, California, where it is now a floating Museum, Hotel, Restaurant & conference center.
As a kid I read all about the Queen Mary and other famous ocean liners. In 1997, I got to visit the Queen Mary in Long Beach; it was a long held dream-come-true. It was facinating and really fun.
With the advent of Jet planes, the popularity of large ocean liners declined; they couldn't attract enough passengers to justify their operating expenses. So cruise ships became smaller, and specialised in visiting exotic locations.
As these cruise ships became fancier over the years, offering more frills, they also started becoming larger again. The Cunard line's Queen Mary II is considerably bigger than the old Queen Mary, and quite luxurious:
Until recently, the Queen Mary II held the title of largest cruise ship. But this year, the Royal Caribbean cruise line will wrest that title away, with it's newest cruise ship, "Freedom-of-the-Seas":
From Fox News, an excerpt:...Freedom of the Seas, which arrived this week in New York Harbor from Southampton, Britain, is 237 feet tall and 1,112 feet long with 15 passenger decks.
Standing upright on its bow, it would be taller than the Eiffel Tower. The ship comes in at 160,000 gross registered tons, a standard measurement of carrying capacity that is about 100 cubic feet for each ton.
Built by Norwegian shipbuilder Aker Yards ASA, the ship cost $800 million and can carry more than 4,000 passengers. The world's previous largest ship, the Queen Mary 2, can carry about 3,000 people and is 151,400 gross registered tons. The Titanic's gross registered tonnage was 46,329.
If you want to sail on the new ship, it won't be cheap.
Prices for seven-day voyages range from $1,900 per couple for an interior room during the low season to nearly $2,500 for the same-size cabin with a balcony during high season, said Cindy Dangel, an on-board sales manager.
A deluxe room that sleeps 14 and costs $22,000 during peak season is booked until 2008, she said.
A three-level dining room seats 2,140. There are more than 2,000 deck chairs and an ice-skating rink. The fitness center measures 9,700 square feet and includes a boxing ring. The spa provides luxuries from teeth whitening to massages and a 13th-floor deck offers a rock climbing wall and a big wave pool with simulated surfing.
Royal Caribbean's newest liner will be docked in New York Harbor and Cape Liberty in Bayonne over the next few days before it leaves on May 18 for a trip to Boston.
The ship's maiden voyage was last month, from Hamburg, Germany, to Oslo, Norway, but it won't have paying passengers until it leaves from Miami for the western Caribbean next month.
While the ship's New York area arrival is generating a big buzz, its grand scale might not appeal to everyone.
Bigger isn't always better, and a large ship can be overwhelming and impersonal, said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of cruisecritic.com, a Web site devoted to cruise travel information.
"You're always thinking about what you should be doing next," she said. "Expect lines. Expect congestion."
She said on a ship of this scale, passengers may be tempted to skip some of the ports.
"This ship, more than any other ship out there, represents the on-land resort experience. There's so much to do you really don't have to get off," she said.
The interior Promanade deck:
Some of the cabin rooms:
Ships have sure come a long way, in speed, safety and comfort. I'm not much of a traveller these days, but a ship like this would certainly be tempting.
Related Links:
About Your Ship: Freedom of the Seas
Freedom of the Seas: ship overview
Freedom of the Seas: Cabins
World's Largest Cruise Ship Christened in New Jersey
1 comment:
You got to tour the SS United States? Lucky you! I read all about it when I was a teen. It was the fastest ship on the seas, and the largest American ocean liner.
It's been in storage now for a long time. There are efforts to refurbish it and sail her again, but I think that it would be hard for it to compete with modern vessels. Old technology, very expensive to run. I wouldn't be suprised it it ends up permenantly docked somewhere, like the old Queen Mary is in long beach, and used as a museum, hotel, restaurant and convention center.
Right now it's moored in Philidelphia. Here is a link:
SS-UNITED-STATES.COM
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