Though we can’t speak from experience about all of the 43 mega-liners sailing the world today, we have sailed on ten of them including Royal Caribbean’s Voyager, Navigator, Freedom, Liberty, Oasis and Allure of the Seas; Princess’ Grand and Star; Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 and Carnival’s Conquest. We define a mega-liner as a ship exceeding 100,000 gross tons.
Our big ship experience began 23 years ago in 1998 when we sailed the Mediterranean aboard Princess Cruises’ Grand Princess during its Inaugural Season. It was a ship that stood out above all others in size, accommodations and shipboard activities and is pictured below docked at Venice, Italy. It easily claimed the title of the world's largest cruise liner weighing, a then staggering, 109,000 gross tons.
Its debut, however, was eclipsed a year later, in 1999, with the introduction of Royal Caribbean’s 137,000 ton Voyager of the Seas setting a whole new mega-liner standard with its unique Royal Promenade of shops, bars, eateries and signature sports car parked on the shipboard street, ice skating rink and rock climbing wall. Four more in the same Class: the Explorer, Adventure, Navigator and Mariner of the Seas followed in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Royal Caribbean rapidly became the premier innovator of the cruise industry in 2006 with another new Class of ships – the Freedom of the Seas, 154,000 tons followed by the Liberty and Independence of the Seas in 2007 and 2008. The company added a Flow-rider for onboard surfing and H2O Zone for kids to its growing mix of innovations.
Then in December of 2009, Royal Caribbean’s piece de resistance of all cruise ships – The Oasis of the Seas, at a mind boggling 225,000 tons, arrived with two Flow-riders, two rock climbing walls, a Rising Tide Bar to carry patrons from an even larger Royal Promenade to an outdoor Central Park two decks above surrounded with 12,000 live plants and trees, restaurants and park benches, a Zip Line stretching 85 feet diagonally from the port to starboard side high above the ships’ adjoining Boardwalk area, a full size outdoor Carrousel, an Aqua Theater with amphitheater style seating and dancing waters at its stern, an ice rink, putt-putt golf and other amenities enjoyed on its Voyager and Freedom class ships. The Oasis was joined by its twin sister, Allure of the Seas, a year later in December of 2010. The layout of this latest class of ship is shown in the RCCL illustration below:
In today’s world, Princess mega-liners, now owned by Carnival, simply do not measure up to the Royal Caribbean fleet in variety, activities and sheer size. Carnival ships, known more for their party like atmosphere, also lack the range of activities and size found on Royal Caribbean mega-liners. Cunard, on the other hand, with its Queen Mary 2 occupies a category all its own having been built to serve two different markets: Transatlantic Crossings and Cruising. We have only experienced it as a cruise liner in the Caribbean. It is a beautiful 149,000 ton ship, more formal than other lines, has a unique attraction of an onboard Planetarium, excellent speakers and London type theater. Compared to Royal Caribbean, however, like Carnival and Princess it does not have a comparable range of experiences when compared to RCCL.
In our view, which we are sure you have already determined, Royal Caribbean International stands out in both uniqueness and the size of its ships. They are truly destinations in themselves and deserve the title of the Best of the Best on both counts! Detailed reviews of the Oasis of the Seas and the Allure of the Seas can be found in this blog on its preceding pages.
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