Oasis of the Seas: Blurring the Lines Between Cruise Ship and Floating City

After a three-month break, a return to zootiness, in the form of the world’s newest, longest, biggest, strongest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean International’s http://www.royalcaribbean.com/ Oasis of the Seas, which just pulled into Fort Lauderdale this week, to her new berth at Port Everglades, Florida, www.porteverglades.net/about-us is in order.

This ship’s dimensions are just staggering:

1,187 feet total length (yes, that’s closing in on a quarter-mile)

208 feet wide (yes, that’s two-thirds of a football field)

213 feet above the water line (the height of a 20-story building)

225,000 tons displacement (450 million pounds)

Six Diesel engines generating a combined 130,000 horsepower

Accommodates 8,461 passengers and crew

Cruising speed of 22.6 knots (or about 27 mph for you landlubbers)

It is, at its intended contingent of 8,000 plus souls, literally a floating city, by most municipal measurements – if the United States Census Bureau was involved, it would be categorized as such.

This is, in fact, a mega-hybrid machine, but not exactly a Toyota Prius www.toyota.com/prius or Chevrolet Volt http://www.facebook.com/chevroletvolt. Three Wärtsilä http://www.wartsila.com/ 16-cylinder engines produce 25,290 hp each, while three 12-cylinder engines each crank out 18,590 hp, with the total output converted to electricity. That prodigious power is then used for the operation of the lights, elevators, electronics, galleys, water treatment plant, and every other power-consuming system on or in the vessel, including propulsion.

No, there’s no mighty Mercury outboard http://www.mercurymarine.com/ or Volvo Penta stern drive www.volvo.com/volvopenta pushing this puppy through the seas. Rather, propulsion comes from three, 26,800 hp "Azipods" http://www.abb.com/ or azimuth thrusters, suspended under the stern (again, for you landlubbers, this is the rear of the ship), each containing a massive electric motor driving a 20-foot diameter propeller. Each Azipod is independently rotatable, so no rudders are needed to steer the ship. Docking (again, landlubbers, think parallel parking here) is managed with the help of four 7,380 hp bow thrusters mounted in tunnels (the bow is the front of the ship). Want to be wowed and entertained? Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzHem_zie-c

It enjoys some unique and unusual features as the world’s largest floating city. For instance, the Central Park Neighborhood is the first ever “living park at sea” as the folks at RCI fancy to call it, with 12,175 plants, 62 vine plants, 56 trees and bamboo, some over 24 feet tall. RCI proudly points out that it will go through nearly 625,000 gallons of fresh water each day…although some might say this is a dubious honor.

It has twenty-one swimming pools and jetted hot tubs, including the largest sea-going pool, the AquaTheater, which at nearly eighteen feet deep accommodates diving performances viewed both above and below-decks. Heck, swimming that deep could probably induce the bends in unseasoned amateurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness

Now, to me – and maybe just to me, mind you – the Oasis of the Seas looks much less like a sleek, seagoing ocean liner, and much more like a Las Vegas hotel that’s been stuffed into a ship’s hull. Just look at her! Deck upon deck upon vertical deck, squared up and stacked up, layer on layer, more Italian torte than Norwegian nymph. But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it would be hard to imagine RCI spending the megabucks it took to build this behemoth unless it had a business model that would support the effort, so the beauty, to RCI, must be in the bookings.

Zooty to be sure, and certainly high-zoot stuff for those prepared to pony up their pennies to ply the planks and peruse the pulchritude. Me? Well, for now, I think I’ll just step into a nice 1953 Chris Craft Riviera 16, fire up the mighty Hercules marine engine, and go carve some late-autumn morning glass on the local pond.

-Zzoott-

To add a bit here - why, oh, why is this story getting so many, many, many pageviews? I hope all the folks at Royal Caribbean http://bit.ly/xy3lEo appreciate the exposure!

-Zzoott-