Biggest Cruise Ships: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Floating Cities

Cruise ships have been expanding in size over the years, contributing to the growth of the tourism industry worldwide. These floating giants provide a unique vacation experience, featuring luxurious accommodations, a wide range of entertainment and leisure activities, and diverse dining options. The biggest cruise ships represent the pinnacle of innovation in shipbuilding, design, and technology, attracting millions of passengers every year.

floating cities cruise ships

As of 2024, the largest cruise ships continue to expand in terms of capacity and scale, offering more amenities and entertainment options to cater to the ever-growing demand of cruising enthusiasts. The industry's leading cruise lines are investing in advanced technologies and architecture to make their ships greener, more energy-efficient, and more sustainable. This includes waste management systems, renewable energy sources, and other environmentally responsible practices.

Key Takeaways

  • The biggest cruise ships exemplify innovation and top-notch facilities, attracting travelers worldwide.
  • The industry is constantly developing technologies to improve sustainability and energy efficiency.
  • Modern cruise ships offer an extensive range of entertainment options and amenities for the ultimate vacation experience.

floating cities cruise ships

Current Giants of the Seas

The Icon of the Seas, launched in 2024, is a remarkable feat of modern engineering and the largest cruise ship in the world. This colossal vessel, a true floating city, measures an astounding 362 meters in length, making it longer than three football fields placed end-to-end. It stands at a towering height of 72 meters, which is equivalent to a 20-story building. The ship's gross tonnage, a measure of its overall internal volume, reaches an impressive 250,000 GT, signifying its massive size and capacity.

Designed to accommodate approximately 6,800 passengers along with a crew of 2,200, the Icon of the Seas offers an unrivaled level of comfort and amenities. Its 18 decks are filled with an array of attractions, including multiple pools, theaters, dining venues, and recreational facilities, making it a pinnacle of luxury cruising. The ship's innovative design and state-of-the-art technology also emphasize environmental sustainability, setting a new standard in the cruise industry.

The cruise industry has experienced significant growth over the past few decades, with numerous shipbuilding advancements leading to the creation of some of the world's largest cruise ships . Royal Caribbean, a leading cruise line, has been at the forefront of this development and now boasts a fleet of "Giants of the Seas" including Symphony of the Seas , Harmony of the Seas , Wonder of the Seas, Oasis of the Seas, and Utopia of the Seas. These ships are Oasis-class vessels and are renowned for their immense size and impressive onboard amenities.

Symphony of the Seas

Symphony of the Seas currently holds the title of the world's largest cruise ship, with a gross tonnage of 228,081. This spectacular vessel boasts 18 decks, has space for 6,680 passengers, and offers a multitude of activities and entertainment options for its guests. From waterslides to ice-skating rinks, the Symphony offers an unparalleled cruising experience.

Harmony of the Seas

Not far behind, the Harmony of the Seas is the second-largest cruise ship in the world, with a gross tonnage of 226,963. This magnificent vessel can accommodate up to 6,687 guests across its 18 decks and features the tallest waterslide at sea – the Ultimate Abyss – among its many diverse entertainment options.

Wonder of the Seas

The Wonder of the Seas, expected to debut soon, is poised to become the third-largest cruise ship by gross tonnage. Envisioned as another awe-inspiring Oasis-class ship, the Wonder of the Seas will continue Royal Caribbean's legacy of delivering innovative, fun-filled vacations to its passengers.

Oasis of the Seas

As the first of its class, the Oasis of the Seas made history in 2009 as the largest cruise ship at that time. With a gross tonnage of 225,282, this colossal vessel has space for 6,780 passengers and pioneered many of the incredible features that now characterize Oasis-class ships, such as its expansive Central Park and Boardwalk areas.

Utopia of the Seas

Though not yet launched, the Utopia of the Seas will be the latest marvel in Royal Caribbean's fleet of Oasis-class ships. Expected to boast similar amenities and jaw-dropping features as its sister ships , this highly anticipated vessel aims to provide yet another unforgettable cruising experience for its future guests.

These captivating vessels all showcase the astonishing achievements of modern shipbuilding and the cruise industry's dedication to providing unforgettable vacations for passengers of all ages. Each of these Royal Caribbean Oasis-class ships represents a remarkable milestone in cruise ship design and demonstrates the ongoing evolution of luxurious, jam-packed adventures on the high seas.

Rising Stars

Icon of the Seas

Slated for launch in 2023 , the Icon of the Seas will be a groundbreaking addition to the world of cruise ships. This innovative vessel will feature state-of-the-art technology and sustainability measures, aimed at reducing its environmental impact while providing guests with a luxurious experience . Its advanced design and features will set new standards for future cruise ships in the industry.

Carnival Celebration

Carnival Celebration is another highly anticipated ship set to make its debut in 2022 . As part of the renowned Carnival Cruise Line, this vessel will offer an exciting array of attractions, dining options, and entertainment for its passengers. Key highlights include:

  • Bold new designs and spaces
  • Innovative features that enhance guest experiences
  • A wide variety of dining and entertainment options to cater to all tastes

This remarkable ship is expected to pave the way for future vessels within the Carnival Cruise Line.

MSC World Europa

Another noteworthy vessel making waves in the cruise industry is the MSC World Europa from MSC Cruises. Set to launch in 2022 , this ship will boast cutting-edge technology and design. Notable features of the MSC World Europa include:

  • A unique, futuristic design that sets it apart from other cruise ships
  • State-of-the-art amenities for guests, such as innovative dining options and world-class entertainment
  • A strong commitment to sustainability, aiming to minimize the ship's environmental impact

With these impressive additions to the world of cruising, it is evident that the future of the industry is promising, offering guests unparalleled experiences aboard these groundbreaking vessels.

Design and Architecture

Innovative Decks

Cruise ship design has evolved significantly over the years, with modern vessels featuring innovative decks that cater to a wide range of passenger preferences. One of the most impressive examples is the Royal Caribbean International's Quantum-class ships , which have pushed the boundaries of what is possible onboard. These ships boast multiple decks with various attractions, from thrilling rides to relaxing gardens, ensuring enjoyment for every guest. Some key features include the SeaPlex , an indoor sports and entertainment complex, and the transformative Two70° venue, which seamlessly transitions from a daytime observation lounge to an atmospheric nighttime performance space.

Captivating Staterooms

The staterooms on today's largest cruise ships are carefully designed to maximize space and comfort. With a blend of functional layouts, luxurious amenities , and stylish décor, these accommodations cater to a variety of tastes and budgets. For instance, the Solstice ship from Celebrity Cruises offers several stateroom options, ranging from cozy interior rooms to extravagant suites with floor-to-ceiling windows and private verandas. Many innovative staterooms feature:

  • Virtual Balconies : High-resolution displays that project real-time exterior views onto interior stateroom walls
  • Family Suites : Connecting rooms and multi-level layouts that accommodate larger groups
  • Spa Staterooms : Designs and amenities that focus on relaxation and wellness, with easy access to onboard spas and wellness centers

Ultimate Abyss

The Ultimate Abyss is a prime example of how cruise ship architecture pushes the limits of entertainment and thrill-seeking. Found on Royal Caribbean's Oasis-class ships, this 10-story slide is the tallest and most thrilling slide at sea, reaching speeds of up to 9 miles per hour. The slide starts on the Pool and Sports Zone deck and takes riders through a series of twists and turns before finally reaching the Boardwalk neighborhood at the bottom. This adrenaline-pumping attraction demonstrates how advanced engineering techniques and innovative design elements come together to create unforgettable experiences onboard modern cruise ships.

Capacity and Scale

Passenger capacity.

The largest cruise ships in the world, such as the Symphony of the Seas , are built to accommodate a massive number of passengers. With a capacity of over 6,000 people, these ships offer a wide range of amenities and services to cater to their diverse clientele. Additionally, as the industry grows, newer ships continue to push the boundaries of size and capacity, making it possible for even more passengers to enjoy a cruise vacation.

Crew Numbers

Aside from the impressive passenger capacity, the largest cruise ships employ a substantial number of crew members. Crew numbers often exceed 2,000, ensuring that customer service standards are met, and the needs of passengers are well taken care of. The high crew-to-passenger ratio is crucial in maintaining the smooth operation of such large-scale vessels.

The gross tonnage of a cruise ship is an important indicator of size and scale. The Symphony of the Seas , for example, boasts a gross tonnage of 228,000 GT, making it one of the largest cruise ships in operation today. Gross tonnage is a measure of a ship's overall internal volume, helping to determine its capacity in terms of passengers, crew, and amenities. The increase in gross tons over the years has been driven by economies of scale in the cruise shipping industry, as larger ships can offer more amenities while still operating efficiently.

The capacity and scale of the world's largest cruise ships are truly impressive, with thousands of passengers and crew members aboard providing an unparalleled travel experience. As such, the enduring popularity of these vessels can be attributed to their ability to cater to a large clientele while maintaining a positive guest experience, supported by significant crew numbers and impressive gross tonnage measurements.

Sustainability on the Seas

LNG-Powered Ships

One of the biggest advancements in cruise ship sustainability is the use of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a primary fuel source for propulsion and power production. LNG-powered ships produce significantly lower emissions than traditional diesel-powered vessels, contributing to a more environmentally-friendly cruising experience.

The use of LNG as a fuel for cruise ships not only reduces harmful emissions like nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and particulates, it also produces 50% less carbon dioxide compared to traditional marine fuel. This helps minimize the cruise industry's overall environmental impact and aligns with global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Several major cruise lines have recognized the benefits of LNG and have made significant investments in developing and implementing LNG-powered ships in their fleets. For example, the AIDAnova is the first cruise vessel to run entirely on LNG, and it has paved the way for more energy-efficient and eco-friendly ships in the future.

Apart from using cleaner fuel, the new generation of LNG-powered ships also boast innovative features to reduce energy consumption on board. These include:

  • Advanced hull designs and coatings for better hydrodynamics
  • LED lighting systems, which consume less energy
  • Highly efficient HVAC systems for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
  • Waste heat recovery systems that use excess heat from engines for onboard heating and hot water

While the adoption of LNG-powered ships is a significant step towards sustainable cruise tourism , it is essential for the industry to continue exploring other technologies and strategies to minimize its environmental impact.

Some of these emerging technologies include installing solar panels, using battery-powered systems for short durations, implementing advanced wastewater treatment systems, and investing in shoreside power infrastructure for reduced emissions while ships are in port.

In conclusion, the implementation of LNG and the continuous innovations to reduce energy consumption and emissions are critical steps for the cruise industry in its pursuit of sustainability. By embracing these advancements, cruise lines can contribute to a cleaner and more responsible future for ocean travel.

Entertainment and Amenities

Onboard Activities

When it comes to onboard activities, the biggest cruise ships offer a wide array of options for travelers. Passengers can enjoy thrilling slides such as on the world's largest cruise ship , or relax at the spacious health and spa facilities . Additionally, many ships now feature unique attractions such as rock climbing walls, zip-lines, and even ice-skating rinks.

Dining Options

The dining options on these massive ships are as diverse as the activities. From casual buffets to exquisite fine dining, the biggest cruise ships cater to all tastes and preferences. Most large cruise ships offer multiple large dining rooms that can accommodate 500-plus guests. Furthermore, many ships include specialty restaurants and cafes for passengers who want to explore different cuisines or enjoy a quick snack.

Bars and Theaters

For guests who prefer entertainment in the form of shows and performances, the biggest cruise ships boast state-of-the-art theaters with captivating productions . These ships also offer a variety of bars and lounges where passengers can socialize and enjoy live music or themed events. For instance, on Carnival Cruises' "fun ships" , guests can indulge in lively experiences in various venues onboard.

Casinos and Promenades

When it comes to casinos and promenades, the largest cruise ships provide an immersive experience for those who love gaming, shopping, or simply strolling. Elegantly designed casinos with a variety of table games and slot machines create an exciting atmosphere for guests, while the promenades, filled with shops and attractions owned by the cruise lines , give travelers the opportunity to explore diverse activities and buy souvenirs in a comfortable environment.

Cruise Lines and Fleets

The cruise industry is dominated by several major players, each boasting impressive fleets and offering a wide range of cruise experiences for passengers. In this section, we will explore three of the leading cruise lines and their respective fleets: Royal Caribbean International , MSC Cruises , and Carnival Cruise Line .

Royal Caribbean International

Royal Caribbean International is known for its innovative and large-scale ships. Currently, the cruise line operates a fleet of 26 ships, many of which hold the title of being among the largest in the world. These vessels brim with groundbreaking features like zip lines, surf simulators, and robotic bartenders.

Their flagship series, the Oasis-class , is a testament to the company's commitment to constant innovation. These colossal ships can accommodate over 6,000 passengers and offer an unmatched array of entertainment options. Some of the notable ships within the Oasis-class include Oasis of the Seas , Allure of the Seas , Harmony of the Seas , and Symphony of the Seas .

MSC Cruises

While it may not have the same global recognition as Royal Caribbean, MSC Cruises offers a more European-inspired experience. With a fleet of 18 ships, MSC Cruises emphasizes elegance and sophistication on board. Their ships boast culinary delights and stylish interiors that combine class and comfort.

The Meraviglia-class ships, in particular, are known for their special "Yacht Club" concept, which offers an exclusive and luxurious enclave for discerning guests. Ships in this class include MSC Meraviglia , MSC Bellissima , and MSC Grandiosa .

Carnival Cruise Line

As the largest cruise line in the world, Carnival Cruise Line operates a fleet of 24 ships and is well-known for its "Fun Ship" concept. They have long focused on providing an accessible and enjoyable cruise experience for families and cruisers of all ages.

Carnival ships are defined by their lively atmosphere, colorful décor, and an array of engaging activities that cater to all interests. While not as large as Royal Caribbean's Oasis-class , Carnival's Vista-class still packs a punch in terms of size and range of amenities. Ships in the Vista-class include Carnival Vista , Carnival Horizon , and Carnival Panorama .

Cruise enthusiasts have a plethora of options to choose from when deciding which cruise line and fleet best suits their needs and interests. Whether it's the groundbreaking innovations of Royal Caribbean, the European charm of MSC Cruises, or the boisterous fun offered by Carnival Cruise Line, there is something for everyone in the vast and ever-growing world of cruise travel.

Planning Your Voyage

Choosing the Right Cruise

When planning a vacation on one of the world's biggest cruise ships, it is important to choose the right cruise that suits your preferences and budget. Explore various cruise lines and their offerings in terms of services, amenities, and destinations. From luxurious and sophisticated vessels such as Cunard to more value-oriented options, there is a cruise for everyone.

Consider the size of the ship and the number of passengers. Some travelers prefer smaller ships with fewer guests, while others enjoy the excitement of a large, bustling cruise liner with thousands of passengers. Keep in mind that bigger cruise ships usually offer a wider variety of activities and entertainment options.

Booking and Reservations

To secure a spot on your desired cruise ship, it is crucial to make your booking and reservations well in advance. Early planning typically results in better prices and a wider selection of available rooms. Some cruise lines offer promotions and discounts, so be sure to research the best deals available for your chosen cruise.

When booking, take into account additional factors such as travel insurance and any shore excursions you may want to participate in. Booking your excursions ahead of time can help ensure you don't miss out on your desired activities while on vacation.

Consider using a travel agent who specializes in cruises. They can assist you in finding the best deals, help you choose the right cruise, and answer any questions you may have about your trip. Alternatively, you can book directly through the cruise line or an online travel agency.

Here are some essential aspects to consider when planning your cruise vacation :

  • Budget: Determine how much you are willing to spend on your cruise vacation, including accommodations, excursions, and amenities.
  • Destination: Research the various itinerary options and choose your preferred destinations.
  • Season: Are there specific times of the year when your desired destinations are more enjoyable? Consider weather conditions and local events.
  • Duration: Select the length of your trip based on your preferences and available vacation time.
  • Travel needs: Take into account your individual or family needs, such as dietary requirements, accessibility, or child-friendly facilities.

By considering these factors and planning ahead, you can ensure a memorable and enjoyable experience on board some of the world's biggest cruise ships.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the newest additions to Royal Caribbean's fleet?

Royal Caribbean has recently welcomed new additions to their fleet, such as the Odyssey of the Seas which features innovative amenities, and a range of world-class dining and entertainment options. Another notable ship is the Wonder of the Seas , which showcases impressive onboard experiences and thrilling activities for passengers of all ages.

Which cruise lines are considered the best for luxury experiences?

Luxury-minded travelers often prefer cruise lines like Regent Seven Seas, Crystal Cruises, and Silversea. These cruise lines offer upscale accommodations, fine dining, and personalized service to ensure guests have a truly indulgent experience.

What advancements have been made in LNG-powered cruise ships?

LNG-powered cruise ships are becoming more popular due to their reduced environmental impact. For example, Carnival Cruise Line has introduced LNG-powered ships, such as the Mardi Gras , which utilize this cleaner-burning fuel, resulting in lower emissions and greater fuel efficiency.

How do the sizes of the latest mega cruise ships compare to the Titanic?

The latest mega cruise ships dwarf the Titanic in size. The Titanic was approximately 269 meters (882 feet) long, while modern mega ships, like the Symphony of the Seas , measure over 362 meters (1,188 feet) in length. Similarly, modern cruise ships can carry more than twice the number of passengers that the Titanic could accommodate.

As of 2024, what is the name of the world's largest cruise ship?

As of 2024, the world's largest cruise ship is the Wonder of the Seas , operated by Royal Caribbean. It has a gross tonnage of more than 236,000 and can accommodate over 6,000 passengers.

Can you list the current top 3 largest cruise ships operating globally?

As of 2024, the top 3 largest cruise ships operating globally are:

  • Wonder of the Seas by Royal Caribbean
  • Symphony of the Seas by Royal Caribbean
  • Harmony of the Seas by Royal Caribbean

These ships offer passengers a wide range of innovative amenities and unparalleled experiences on their voyages.

floating cities cruise ships

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How Floating Cities Will Work

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Floating city on the ocean

­Millions of people take cruises each year; but when their cruise ends, they usually return to their homes on land. Wouldn't it be great if there was a cruise that never ende­d? That's the basic idea behind a floating city , and an ocean vessel called Freedom Ship is trying the concept out.

Unlike a cruise ship, Freedom Ship plans to have permanent residents. The ship would circle the globe every two years and offer everything available in your hometown, including urban areas, a hospital, college, and one of the world's largest shopping malls.

While progress on the Freedom Ship has been anchored in recent years, its aim is to become a home for the rich and famous. In this article, we'll take a look at the plans for this floating city and see how it compares to today's largest cruise ships!

The World's Biggest Ship

The construction of floating cities, life at freedom ship, fun and secure, eco-friendly living on the seas, risks of living on a floating city.

Artist rendering of a floating city called Freedom Ship.

­­No cruise ship that has ever been built would compare to the enormity of Freedom Ship. Imagine a mile-long stretch of 25-story-tall buildings in New York City; now imagine that floating on the water. If you can picture such floating structures, then you get the­ general idea of Freedom Ship's size.

At a proposed size of 4,320 feet (1,317 meters) long, 725 feet (221 m) wide, and 340 feet (103 m) tall, the ship is taller than the length of a football field and wider than two football fields put together. And not only can a ship that size float on water, but all that floating architecture may be able to navigate the world's oceans as well.

Freedom Ship will dwarf any ocean-going vessel operating today -- it will be nearly four times longer than any current cruise ship. For example, the largest cruise ship as of 2023 (the " Icon of the Seas ") is approximately 1,198 feet in length. The Freedom Ship, meanwhile, would measure an astounding 4,320 feet in length. In addition, it would weigh 2.7 million tons, which outclasses the Icon of the Seas' 250,800 tons by a massive margin.

Building the Structure

Freedom Ship will be built on top of 520 airtight steel cells that will be bolted together to form a sturdy base. Each cell will be 80 feet (24 meters) tall, between 50 and 100 feet (15 and 30 m) wide and between 50 and 120 feet (15 and 37 m) long. These cells will be assembled to form larger interconnected platforms that are about 300 x 400 feet (91 x 122 m).

These larger units will then be taken out to sea, where they will be put together to form the ship's nearly mile-long base. The rest of the ship will be constructed on top of this base. Norman Nixon, who developed the idea of a floating city, has said that it will take about three years to finish the ship once construction begins.

Engine Power

It will take a tremendous amount of engine power to push the gigantic ship through the water. The vessel will be equipped with 100 diesel engines that can generate 3,700 horsepower each. Developers project the cost of each engine to be at least $1 million.

That may give you an idea of how expensive the project is. Although the total cost of Freedom Ship has not been released, the last estimate stood at $10 billion. The ship's high construction cost will be passed on to residents, but that's only if the project receives the financial backing it requires to get started.

Floating cities will be approximately four times the size of the biggest cruise ships.

­Freedom Ship proposes to make 17,000 residential units that will be home to more than 60,000 people, including residents and all of the personnel that will be required to maintain the ship. The floating city will continuously circle the world and will travel to most of Earth's coastal cities, offering residents the ability to see the entire globe without leaving their home.

All of the ship's employees will be given food, housing, uniforms, medical and dental care, plus a continuing education program. The ship will contain all of the features that any modern city might have, including:

  • A $200 million hospital
  • A 3,800-foot (1,158-m) landing strip, which will serve private planes and some small commercial aircraft that carry no more than 40 passengers
  • Hangars for private aircraft
  • A marina for residents' yachts
  • A large shopping mall
  • A school system offering K-12 and college education
  • A golf driving range
  • Bicycle paths
  • 200 open acres for recreation

Perhaps unsurprisingly, affordable housing is not a major focus for Freedom Ship. Suites were set to start at $121,000 for a 300-square-foot room and go up to $11 million for a 5,100 square foot suite on the ship's exclusive 21st floor, where prices start at $3 million! Keep in mind, these prices have not been adjusted to reflect post-pandemic inflation.

For those who could afford to live on Freedom Ship, the most attractive feature may be that it has no local taxes, including income tax, real estate tax, sales tax, business tax and import duties. However, residents would have to abide by federal tax laws in their home country.

For entertainment, residents can visit one of the many restaurants, casinos, nightclubs and theaters. Residents will also enjoy tennis, basketball, bowling, putting greens, swimming pools, gyms, a skating rink, and fishing from the ship's marina. Each home will have 100 channels of worldwide satellite TV channels and local programming from nearby countries. Internet access will be available in each unit.

Just like your own hometown police department, Freedom Ship would have a security force onboard to patrol the ship at all times. In addition, the ship's entire crew would receive security training. An electronic security system would be installed to offer further protection to residents.

In addition to all of these benefits, Freedom Ship would also be environmentally friendly , according to its developers. There would be no sewage treatment plant and no sewage to spill. The ship would use incinerator toilets, which cost about $3,000 apiece, to burn all sewage. The ashes would be put in the flower beds. Waste oil would be burned in an exhaust steam plant to generate electricity, instead of being dumped in the ocean.

Meanwhile, all used glass, paper, and metal will be recycled and sold. Freedom Ship International estimates that each resident will produce 80 percent less waste on the ship than at his or her current home on land.

­The concept of a floating city comes with some unprecedented challenges. Perhaps the most obvious risk is related to climate change, as rising sea levels could lead to unpredictable issues either navigating the oceans or attempting to dock. Beyond the sea level rise, floating cities would have to plan for climate refugees who are seeking shelter. As extreme weather intensifies (as a result of climate change), floating homes could be particularly vulnerable.

There are also environmental concerns about floating cities. For example, how might vital marine ecosystems, from large marine mammals to brain coral banks, be impacted by a mammoth floating city living in its midst? From rising seas to unseen ecological effects, the risks involved with these floating structures are difficult to predict.

Lots More Information

Related howstuffworks articles.

  • How Cruises Work
  • How Submarines Work
  • How Diesel Engines Work
  • How much water is there on Earth?
  • Why can boats made of steel float on water when a bar of steel sinks?

More Great Links

  • Freedom Ship
  • Discovery.com: Engineering the Impossible: Freedom Ship
  • Freedom Ship Creator Norman Nixon Answers Your Questions - July 2000
  • Freedom Ship 'Will Be Target For Terrorists' - May 2000
  • Popular Mechanics: City at Sea - February 1998
  • Economic Means To Freedom
  • Freedom Ship Is Not About Freedom

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Innovation for Good

Solutions to today's biggest challenges

Innovation | August 12, 2021

Are Floating Cities a Real Possibility?

A scale model of Oceanix City, a concept capable of supporting more than 10,000 residents, will be featured in the Smithsonian’s upcoming ‘Futures’ exhibit

Oceanix mobile.jpg

Elissaveta M. Brandon

Contributing Writer

With the world’s population nearing 7.9 billion, and estimates projecting that it will reach 9.7 by 2050, architects and urban planners naturally speculate about cities of the future.

In the 1960s, the visionary architect Yona Friedman imagined Spatial City ( Ville Spatiale ), a city raised on stilts that could straddle existing cities. Around the same time, the influential British architecture collective Archigram drew up Plug-In City , a computer-controlled, adaptable megastructure of a city with removable units. And just this year, the speculative architect and film director Liam Young proposed Planet City , in which the Earth's entire population could live in one hyper-dense city the size of Tokyo, devoting the rest of the planet to rewilding.

But what if the most promising model for a future city wasn't on land?

Floating cities—with modern amenities and commercially-viable real-estate—have long been a dream of utopias, from Buckminster Fuller’s unrealized proposal for a floating city in Tokyo Bay in the 1960s, to the entrepreneur Lazarus Long’s quest for a new island nation on an unclaimed Caribbean shoal in 1999. But with the number of people displaced as a result of the climate crisis reaching 40.5 million in 2020 , and sea-level rise continuing to threaten the future of coastal cities, offshore living is beginning to sound less like a whimsical proposal and more like a credible alternative. At least that is what the founders of Oceanix , a company invested in designing and building floating cities, believe.

In the Face of Rising Seas, Are Floating Cities a Real Possibility?

In 2019, the UN-Habitat —a United Nations program that advocates for sustainable urban development—convened a roundtable of architects, designers, academics and entrepreneurs who discussed the viability of floating cities as a solution to climate change and affordable housing. Hosted together with Oceanix, the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering and the U.S.-based Explorers Club, the day-long conference introduced the idea of Oceanix City.

This hurricane-resistant, zero-waste city would be comprised of 4.5-acre hexagonal floating islands that each house 300 people. Six of these islands would form a ring-shaped village articulated around a sheltered harbor. And six of these villages would form a small city of 10,800 people. Hypothetically, the numbers could add up indefinitely.

Designed by Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), in collaboration with Oceanix, the city may seem like something out of a science-fiction novel, but Oceanix is now gearing up to build a prototype of a 5-acre city for 300 residents (that’s the equivalent of one Manhattan block, but with over half the density) in a yet-to-be determined location.

“The cities we’re talking to are incredibly keen to leverage this technology to prepare for their own future,” says Oceanix CEO Marc Collins.

floating cities cruise ships

Oceanix at the Smithsonian

A scale model of Oceanix City will be featured in the upcoming exhibition, “Futures,” at Smithsonian’s Arts & Industries Building (AIB) in Washington, D.C. Opening in November, the show seeks to explore what lies ahead for humanity through the lens of art and technology. Balancing futuristic concepts like flying cars with problem-solving technological innovations like biodegradable burial urns, the exhibit will present a multifaceted look into what's next.

"What we really wanted to demonstrate is there isn't a singular pathway to a specific kind of future," explains Ashley Molese, the exhibition’s curator. "And there are multiple pathways and multiple futures that emerge out of these pathways."

The exhibit is organized into four themes that will unfold across AIB’s four monumental halls. In Futures Past , visitors can explore past visions of the future, through artifacts like an experimental Alexander Graham Bell telephone, early androids and the Bakelizer —a machine that was used to create an early form of brittle plastic called Bakelite. “You can’t understand the future until you understand the past,” says Molese. Futures that Unite showcases visions for how we can relate to one another and create a peaceful, inclusive world, from a Covid-friendly support robot that tackles loneliness to a video game that can be played using the eyes. Futures that Work focuses on problem solving, with an algae bioreactor that cleans as much air as a 400-acre forest and a sustainable brick made from mushrooms on display. And in Futures that Inspire , museumgoers will see bold, seemingly impossible visions that could one day prove possible.

Preview thumbnail for Limited Edition: Futures Merch Available Now!

Limited Edition: Futures Merch Available Now!

Galactic gifts from the time-traveling museum experience

This last section is where the model of Oceanix will live. Measuring 5.5 by 5.5 feet, it will present a bird’s eye view of a city that can support more than 10,000 residents.

"You see a model and you can start to imagine it in your own backyard," says Molese.

And perhaps you should start to imagine it, because Oceanix is now fully funded by a private (and at this point, secret) venture capital firm. And with French company Bouygues Construction already on the team, a prototype of a 300-person city, still seeking an exact location, is ready to be built in just three years.

How It All Started

Oceanix was dreamed up by Polynesian entrepreneur Marc Collins Chen, who first saw floating cities as a solution to climate adaptation while he was minister of tourism in French Polynesia. In this role from 2007 to 2008, Collins Chen was tasked with assessing the long-term effects of sea level rise on the islands. Six years later, a 2013 study published in the journal Nature Conservation confirmed what Polynesians already suspected: about a third of French Polynesia’s 118 islands were projected to be submerged by rising seas over the next 60 years.

If seawalls are too costly, thought Collins Chen, do you start thinking about managed retreat?

The idea of moving people, buildings and other assets from areas deemed vulnerable to sea-level rise has garnered mixed reviews. While some recognize its inevitability, others still see it as a last resort. With Oceanix, Collins Chen and his cofounder Itai Madamombe are hoping to flip perceptions: "We would advance instead of retreat," he says. Instead of running away to high grounds, people and cities themselves would push beyond the edge of the water.

In 2014, Kiribati, a neighboring cluster of islands in the South Pacific, purchased nearly eight square miles on a Fiji island, marking the world’s first international land purchase intended for climate refugees. And in 2019, Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo announced plans to move its capital from the ever-sinking city of Jakarta to Borneo, citing rising sea levels and the chronic flooding of Jakarta as reasons.

According to a paper authored by University of Delaware's disaster researcher A.R. Siders and published in Science this June, managed retreat could involve advancing onto floating infrastructure. A self-prescribed "advocate for audacious climate adaptation,” Siders argues that long-term adaptation will involve some form of managed retreat, like "building floating neighborhoods or cities," or "turning roads into canals in an effort to live with the water."

floating cities cruise ships

Retro Visions of Future Cities

Iterations of floating cities, both fictional and real, have captured the human imagination for centuries. In Jules Verne’s science fiction novel Propeller Island , published in 1895, a French string quartet sails on a floating city designed to travel the waters of the Pacific Ocean. And in the much-derided, 1995 action film Waterworld , Kevin Costner, who has developed gills, fights for survival in a post-apocalyptic world where most of the globe is underwater after the melting of the polar ice caps.

In the early 1960s—in the real world—a wealthy Japanese developer commissioned Buckminster Fuller, the architect who popularized the geodesic dome , to build Triton City on the water in Tokyo Bay. Designed as a series of floating city blocks with permanent connections to mainland Tokyo, the city was to hold apartments, schools, parks and stores. Triton City was never built—the developer died and the concept died with him—but many other floating cities, of varying scales, have seen the light of day. More than 13,000 people live on stilted houses connected by a 23-mile boardwalk in Brunei’s Kampong Ayer , a floating settlement that dates back more than 600 years. In Lagos, Nigeria, the community of Makoko sits on precarious stilts hovering over a fetid lagoon, with little access to electricity and clean sanitation. And on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, the indigenous Uros people have lived on floating islands (62 of them!) for over 4,000 years. For some like the Makoko community, migration to water was a desperate measure driven by the sheer lack of adequate infrastructure and affordable housing on land. For others, it was triggered by political unrest; as the Inca Empire expanded, it pushed the Uros people to evacuate onto the lake.

Living with the water, be it on floating structures or in extremely close proximity, can also be simply a natural consequence of topography. In the low-lying country of Denmark, for example, about 80 percent of the population lives in urban areas near the coast. "It's very much a part of the Danish DNA," says Kai-Uwe Bergmann, a partner at BIG, the Danish architecture studio behind Oceanix City.

In 2016, BIG stacked upcycled shipping containers on floating platforms to create buoyant student housing in the Copenhagen Harbor. Dubbed Urban Rigger , the community currently houses about 100 students, with room for a green courtyard, a roof terrace and an underwater community room. Urban Rigger was a sort of prelude to Oceanix, or as Bergmann calls it, "a proof of concept." With its monumental scale, Oceanix is a whole other beast, with a certain set of challenges.

The Challenges to Building a Floating City

"Whenever you're doing something that floats you have to start thinking about ballast, and wave action and how the energy that is built into the waves will start to work with whatever floating structure," says Bergmann.

So BIG started looking at floating pods: how to support them, how to connect them, and how to protect them from wave forces. The end-result is a modular city designed to facilitate a man-made ecosystem with a circular economy. Anchored in the UN Sustainable Development Goals , a 17-point blueprint for “better and more sustainable future for all,” it features technologies like Biorock , which can be used to make robust artificial reefs for corals to grow. The city also challenges the take-make-waste economy through partnerships with the Center for Zero Waste Design . For example, food waste would be converted to energy and compost in community gardens, single-use packaging would be eliminated, and sewage would be treated in algae ponds.

“What we hope is to truly start thinking about a different model, a future model that is structured differently,” says Bergmann. “Some people could view this as very provocative because it would start to question their systems, and maybe there would be a reluctance to try something out that might start to impact the way business is actually done.”

Reluctance to the project does exist. Oceanix has been vilified as a “ vanity project for the rich ,” and a “ moonshot response to climate change ” that would barely make a dent in cities like Jakarta, where as many as 5 million people could need to evacuate from the sinking city. The city’s first location will either confirm or dispel these concerns.

Communities experiencing the effects of sea-level rise could be prime candidates, as could places with already established floating communities that can help “push and support these ideas,” Bergmann explains. He cites Singapore is a potential contender. “Here’s a country that is finite,” he says. Through unremitting land reclamation, Singapore has grown in size by almost a quarter, but the process has its limits. And since it involves dumping sand, rock, soil and cement into the water, land reclamation has a strong impact on marine ecosystems, too. “What if you just accept that you could build on floating platforms as opposed to semi-land?” says Bergmann.

Singapore, of course, is just a guess at this stage. Collins Chen, the Oceanix CEO, says the company is in conversation with 12 different countries. Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and "both coasts" of the U.S. are being considered, but the exact location is yet to be confirmed. What is known is that Oceanix City belongs near the shore, where geological features would keep it sheltered and "where coastal cities need to grow," says Collins Chen.

As the climate crisis escalates, more than 1 billion people will live in countries with insufficient infrastructure to withstand sea-level rise by 2050, according to The Institute for Economics and Peace. At this rate, it would take over 9,000 Oceanix cities to rehome these projected climate refugees.

While floating cities alone can’t solve climate change, for Molese, the “Futures” exhibition curator, such projects have a lot to contribute to the discourse.

“What we're trying to say is: we've got real problems and we need to problem-solve for them, but we can’t do that if we’re so disenfranchised and disinterested in creating a better scenario," she says. "Most radical experiences don't have a precedent."

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Elissaveta M. Brandon

Elissaveta M. Brandon | | READ MORE

Elissaveta M. Brandon is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in Curbed , Metropolis , Architectural Digest and more. She writes about architecture, cities and the life in between.

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International Edition

December 25, 2020

Could Floating Cities Be a Haven as Coastlines Submerge?

“Seasteader” housing built on platforms would rise and fall with the tides, but practical challenges are huge

By Daniel Cusick & E&E News

A conceptual floating city

A conceptual floating city featuring a sheltered marina and wind-deflecting cylindrical buildings surrounded by vegetated buffers.

Simon Nummy The Seasteading Institute

By century’s end, tens of millions of U.S. coastal property owners will face a decision embodied in the popular exhortation, “Move it or lose it.”

But there’s an option for people who can’t imagine a home without an ocean view. It’s called “seasteading,” and it could be a 21st-century antidote to the nation’s disappearing shorelines.

“Floating cities” could become climate havens for people whose lives and livelihoods are tethered to the sea or nearby coast, according to the San Francisco-based Seasteading Institute.

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In many cases, floating colonies would be populated by people whose homes are rendered uninhabitable by rising seas and storm surges that chew away at the edge of the continent.

Residents would live in modern homes built atop modular platforms that rise and fall with the tides. Some communities could be linked to the mainland by bridges and utility lines. Others could exist miles offshore as semiautonomous cities or even independent nations.

“Nearly half the world’s surface is unclaimed by any nation-state, and many coastal nations can legislate seasteads in their territorial waters,” says the Seasteading Institute, which has embraced floating cities with a near-religious fervor.

A few would occupy converted cruise ships flying under independent flags. Others would look like condominium complexes built atop ocean freighters or barges. All will provide offshore refuge from traditional seaside communities where climate hazards are becoming a part of daily life.

As an added benefit, floating cities could enjoy a limitless supply of desalinated water, while homes and businesses would be powered by microgrids pulsing with wind and solar energy.

Transportation would require little more than two feet or two wheels, and be entirely carbon-free. In deeper water, floating cities could rely on aquaculture, hydroponics and rooftop gardens. Other essentials could be delivered by barge or ship.

It’s a tough sell, often punctuated by eye rolls.

“The thing I usually hear when I first talk about this is, ‘Oh, you want to build ‘Waterworld,’” said landscape architect and seasteading advocate Greg Delaune, referring to the 1995 postapocalyptic film starring Kevin Costner as a kind of Mad Max of the sea.

“You know, that’s not really the image we want people to conjure up, but it’s often the first thing that comes to their minds. I get it,” added Delaune, who recently co-founded the Deep Blue Institute, a Louisiana-based organization dedicated to building marine-based resilient communities.

Delaune is convinced that southeast Louisiana—one of the fastest-sinking coastlines in the world—could be a U.S. prototype for such a community, where floating structures—homes, businesses, parks and marinas—would offer a more stable life than a sinking marsh.

When hurricanes and storms threaten, as is increasingly common on the fast-warming Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, modular floating cities could be partly disassembled and moved into safe harbor or to calmer waters, proponents say.

The details of how that would happen remain sketchy. But ship-based communities already have the luxury of movement, and back-bay communities would garner some protection from the ocean shore.

Futuristic as it sounds, seasteading is not new, and its adaptability to the United States is already being tested through other human-inhabited offshore infrastructure.

The Dutch model

Oil and gas platforms host hundreds of workers for months at a time. And as energy companies migrate into deeper water, floating platforms are becoming the norm. For proof, cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Netherlands, a climate-threatened country whose fate is tied to the sea.

“The Dutch have been doing this for 400 to 500 years. Now they’re selling their ideas around the world,” Delaune said. “I see no reason why we can’t design and build sustainable, resilient sea-based communities right here, borrowing on some of the same marine-resilient infrastructure that made the United States a leader in these other offshore activities.”

Experts say the origins of floating cities also lie in the Netherlands, where Dutch engineers have spent centuries adapting to life at the ocean’s doorstep. Much of the western half of the country is below sea level, and Amsterdam, with a population of 1.1 million, is nearly 7 feet below the adjoining North Sea.

The Dutch way of coastal adaptation, distilled in the phrase “living with water,” has informed urban planning in waterfront cities around the world, notably its use of highly engineered infrastructure like dikes, dams and floodgates. The Army Corps of Engineers incorporated such approaches into the redesigned Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project built after Hurricane Katrina.

Lesser known but gaining notoriety are the floating homes developed over the last two decades around Amsterdam, one of the lowest-lying cities in the world. They include IJburg, a planned residential district east of Amsterdam where more than 120 floating homes will make up “Waterbuurt West,” a floating suburb on an inland bay called the IJ. When fully developed, IJburg will support 18,000 floating homes for 45,000 people.

But what of the United States, where cities like Boston, New York, Miami, Houston and New Orleans are equally threatened by storm surges and rising seas? Experts say it’s a slow process, in part because much of the coastal adaptation conversation has focused on shoreline protection, home elevations and coastal retreat.

“The Dutch have this mentality that we can experiment. The U.S. mentality is we can’t change anything,” said Dale Morris, director of strategic partnerships at the Water Institute of the Gulf, a national nonprofit based in Baton Rouge, La., that provides research and technical support to communities preparing for sea-level rise and other climate change impacts.

For eight years after Katrina, Morris worked for the Dutch government as a liaison to Louisiana and other coastal states facing challenges around water management, flood control and climate adaptation.

Morris is an advocate for floating cities in the United States, but he is also a realist. In an interview, he said floating cities are impeded by social, political, economic and cultural barriers. Among them are the long-standing American ideals of abundant land and natural resources, and the notion that people can spread out as cities become denser, dirtier and more expensive.

That hasn’t happened. Today, 95 million Americans, nearly 30% of the U.S. population, live in coastline counties, according to the Census Bureau, compared with roughly 80 million people in 2000.

Coastal cities also experience some of the most disruptive and costly climate change impacts, as evidenced by the frequency of tropical storms like Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Harvey, which hit two of the nation’s largest urban areas. Other hazards include peak rain events, or “rainbombs,” that quickly overwhelm urban infrastructure.

And while storm surge flooding from hurricanes is catastrophic and occasional, king tides and sunny-day flooding can occur daily and are equally damaging to low-lying cities, experts say.

“There are visionaries who are investing in these important ideas, and the technology that allows us to do innovative things is improving all the time,” Morris said. “But the economic components of these ideas have to be addressed. There’s an iterative process between vision and reality.”

But, Morris noted, “it’s also true that without inspiration or vision, there is no progress.”

Big ideas, big failures

That’s where advocates have their work cut out for them.

In the United States, much of the enthusiasm for floating cities is channeled through the Seasteading Institute, which was founded by Patri Friedman, an entrepreneur and grandson of the Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, also a libertarian.

Friedman and colleague Joe Quirk, the institute’s president, wrote the bible of floating cities, titled “Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians.” In it, they say “seasteaders are radically misunderstood by landlubbers.”

Quirk did not make himself available for an interview, but in an email to E&E News, he said, “Not only is seasteading the quickest, cheapest solution to sea-level rise, we will increase the amount of life on the ocean with every seastead we build.”

While not a developer, the institute is a portal for information and advocacy materials, including research papers, blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos explaining and extolling the virtues of floating human habitation. Its website also provides a list of “active” seasteading projects.

Quick also co-created Blue Frontiers, a company that worked with French Polynesia in 2017 to establish a semiautonomous floating city off the Pacific island nation. With pilot costs estimated at between $30 million and $50 million, the project gained significant momentum before it was postponed indefinitely by the government for political reasons, according to the firm.

Most floating cities are overseas, but the institute’s list includes Delaune’s effort—called the “Louisiana Opportunity Zone Initiative,” or “Blue Tech Delta”—as well as several projects that remain under development or did not materialize.

One in California called Ventive SeaTech aims “to build permanent ocean communities for the masses, using modular structures designed to make ocean living safe, comfortable and affordable.”

Its primary product, the “floathouse,” is shaped like a capsule with windows. It’s described as “a finished home, ready to move in, and is intended to be a year-round home for individuals or a family” by Ventive SeaTech.

Another long-awaited project, conceived in 2011 by a California firm called Blueseed, would establish a floating city on a cruise ship parked in international waters about 12 miles offshore from San Francisco.

Its developers describe it an “entrepreneurial incubator” and “the Googleplex of the sea,” where international tech startups could collaborate on projects near Silicon Valley without obtaining visas to enter the United States. It raised several million dollars in seed money, including from the well-known tech financier Peter Thiel, but it has been mothballed for six years.

Where Blueseed stumbled early, another cruise ship city that was set to sail this month imploded days before leaving dry dock. The MS Satoshi, conceived as a Bitcoin-based technology hub anchored in the Gulf of Panama, was rerouted to a scrap yard in India after its owner, Ocean Builders, could not find an insurer to underwrite the floating city.

In a statement, Ocean Builders said it had “hit the roadblock of having no insurance company willing to insure the MS Satoshi upon dropping anchor in the Gulf of Panama. The closest we came was a company toying with us with a million dollar premium for a maximum of $5 million in coverage, nothing close to the coverage we would need to be legally compliant.”

The company said it will issue refunds for 100 cabins it auctioned last month for between $50,000 and $100,000 each.

For U.S.-based seasteaders like Delaune, the bridge to a floating city could be years, or even decades, away. But he is not discouraged.

Since arriving in New Orleans, he has been canvassing the region for receptive audiences. He has found a few, including at the Tulane University School of Architecture, where a primary research effort is focused on implementing ideas that emerged a decade ago through the city’s water management planning process called the “Dutch Dialogues.”

“I have my pitch deck, and I’ve been rolling it out down here over the last few months,” Delaune said. “The big spin is the dying wetlands east of New Orleans, the buffer areas, the barrier islands: People cannot live in these places anymore.”

Delaune says the project could take years to materialize. But as Louisiana undergoes a multibillion-dollar restoration of its coastline, floating communities can be a part of the solution.

“These people don’t want a Silicon Valley or NASA project to drop into their backyards,” he said. “But when your people are leaving and your economy is dying, there is no plan B except to move away.”

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at  www.eenews.net .

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Crafting the Floating Cities: Cruise Ship Design and Innovation

October 20, 2023 By Contributor Leave a Comment

Cruise ship design and innovation play a pivotal role in shaping the incredible floating cities that capture the hearts of travellers worldwide. This article will take you on a unique journey into the intricate process of creating these maritime marvels, highlighting the careful planning and creative ideas that have revolutionised the cruise experience.

floating cities cruise ships

Balancing Beauty, Functionality, and Safety

Designing cruise ships, essentially floating cities, requires a delicate balance between aesthetics, functionality, and safety. A ship’s visual appeal is vital in attracting passengers and creating lasting memories. Every inch of the ship is carefully designed to provide a visually stunning environment, from the majestic atriums to the plush cabins. However, looks aren’t everything; functionality is equally crucial. The ship’s layout is meticulously planned to use space best, ensure smooth guest navigation, and facilitate efficient crew operations.

Above all, safety takes precedence in cruise ship design. With thousands of passengers on board, their well-being is paramount. The ships incorporate advanced fire suppression systems, emergency evacuation plans, and state-of-the-art navigation equipment to provide a secure environment. Every element is engineered to meet the highest safety standards, from the ship’s foundation to the finishing touches.

floating cities cruise ships

Innovative Features That Transform the Cruise Experience

Cruise ships, including renowned names like P&O Cruises , have transformed by introducing innovative features. Private balconies are a prime example, now adorning most modern cabins. These balconies offer passengers a private outdoor space with breathtaking ocean views, revolutionising the cruise experience and providing a sense of tranquillity and luxury.

Onboard technology is another game-changer, enhancing the guest experience. With smart technology, cruise ships now offer digital amenities that simplify various aspects of cruising. Smart bracelets have become common as critical cards for cabin access and onboard purchases. They even help locate family and friends on the ship, improving convenience and safety.

The entertainment scene onboard has also evolved dramatically. Cutting-edge technology brings state-of-the-art theatres, immersive virtual reality experiences, and even robot bartenders to cruise lines. These innovations guarantee a high level of enjoyment throughout the journey.

Environmental and Sustainability Challenges

Cruise ships face environmental challenges, primarily due to their reliance on fossil fuels for propulsion. While strides have been made with cleaner technologies like liquefied natural gas (LNG), the industry is still working towards reducing its carbon footprint. Managing waste generated on board, including food waste and non-biodegradable materials, is crucial to prevent ocean pollution.

floating cities cruise ships

Preserving marine ecosystems is another critical concern. Cruise ships visit some of the world’s most sensitive areas, such as coral reefs and polar regions, already threatened by climate change and other human activities. Designing more eco-friendly ships with advanced technologies to reduce their impact on these ecosystems is vital for the industry’s sustainability.

Cruise ship design and innovation have brought travellers immense joy and unforgettable experiences. To ensure the future of these floating cities remains captivating and environmentally responsible, the industry must focus on alternative fuels, improved waste management, and eco-friendly technologies. By addressing these challenges, the industry can continue to provide remarkable cruise adventures while respecting the environment.

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Home » The Pros And Cons Of Cruising On A Large Ship

The Pros And Cons Of Cruising On A Large Ship

Last updated on September 16th, 2023 at 09:32 pm

Large cruise ships, often referred to as mega-ships or floating cities, come with both advantages and disadvantages.

In general terms, we speaking of cruise ships that hold in excess of 4000 passengers with features that you won’t see on smaller cruise ships .

Here are some of the pros and cons associated with large cruise ships:

Table of Contents

The Pros Of Sailing On A Large Cruise Ship

Variety of amenities.

Large cruise ships are like self-contained resorts, offering a wide range of amenities such as multiple restaurants, bars, pools, theaters, fitness centers, casinos, and more. Passengers have access to numerous entertainment options without leaving the ship.

Luxurious Accommodations

These ships often have spacious and well-appointed cabins with modern amenities, providing passengers with comfortable living spaces during their journey.

Entertainment and Activities

With their large size, these ships can offer an array of entertainment options, including Broadway-style shows, live music performances, water parks , rock climbing walls, and even virtual reality experiences.

Diverse Dining Options

Mega-ships typically have multiple restaurants serving various cuisines, catering to different tastes and dietary preferences.

Cruising Economies of Scale

Due to their large passenger capacity, these ships can offer economies of scale, potentially resulting in lower per-person costs for accommodations, meals, and entertainment.

Destinations and Itineraries

Large cruise ships can travel longer distances and visit a wider variety of ports, allowing passengers to explore multiple destinations within a single trip.

The Cons Of Sailing On A Large Cruise Ship

Crowds and lines.

The most prominent drawback of large cruise ships is the potential for crowded common areas, long lines at dining venues, and congested pool decks. This can lead to a less relaxing experience for some passengers.

Environmental Impact

Large cruise ships have been criticized for their significant environmental impact, including air and water pollution, and their potential to damage fragile marine ecosystems in port areas.

Limited Port Access

While these ships can visit a variety of destinations, their size may limit their ability to dock at smaller ports , requiring passengers to be transported to shore via tenders (small boats), which can be time-consuming.

Homogeneous Experience

The sheer size of these ships can sometimes result in a homogeneous onboard experience, where the ship’s design and amenities might overshadow the uniqueness of the destinations being visited.

Safety Concerns

While modern cruise ships adhere to stringent safety regulations, the sheer number of passengers and crew members can make emergency situations more complex to manage.

Cultural and Local Impact

In certain ports, the influx of large cruise ships and their passengers can lead to concerns about the preservation of local culture, overcrowding, and strains on local infrastructure.

Health Considerations

Large cruise ships can be conducive to the spread of illnesses due to the close proximity of passengers and crew members. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this concern, leading to cruise industry shutdowns and increased health protocols.

The Anatomy Of A Large Cruise Ship

Large cruise ships, often referred to as mega-ships or floating resorts, are massive vessels designed to accommodate thousands of passengers and offer a wide range of amenities and entertainment options.

These ships have become a hallmark of the modern cruise industry, offering a unique way to explore various destinations while enjoying luxurious accommodations and onboard experiences. Here are some key features and aspects of large cruise ships:

Amenities and Entertainment On Large Cruise Ships

One of the defining characteristics of large cruise ships is the vast array of amenities and entertainment options they offer. These ships function as floating resorts, providing passengers with a wide range of activities and experiences, including:

– Multiple restaurants offering diverse cuisines

– Bars, lounges, and nightclubs

– Broadway-style theaters hosting live performances

– Pools, water parks, and water slides

– Fitness centers, spas, and wellness facilities

– Casinos and gaming areas

– Sports courts and activities like rock climbing and mini-golf

– Movie theaters and outdoor movie screens

– Shopping areas with boutiques and duty-free shops

– Art galleries and exhibitions

Accommodations On A Large Cruise Ship

Large cruise ships feature various types of accommodations, including interior and ocean-view cabins, balcony staterooms, suites, and even luxurious penthouses.

These cabins often come with modern amenities such as flat-screen TVs, minibars, and Wi-Fi access. Suites may offer additional perks like private balconies, butler service, and exclusive access to certain areas of the ship.

Dining Options On A Large Cruise Ship

Mega-ships typically offer a variety of dining venues, ranging from main dining rooms to specialty restaurants. Passengers can experience a diverse range of cuisines, from casual buffet options to fine dining experiences. Specialty restaurants may focus on specific cuisines like Italian, Asian, steakhouse, or seafood.

Onboard Activities On A Large Cruise Ship

In addition to entertainment and amenities, large cruise ships provide a wide range of onboard activities to cater to passengers of all ages and interests. These activities can include cooking classes, dance lessons, trivia contests, art auctions, wine tastings, spa treatments, and more.

Itineraries and Destinations On A Large Cruise Ship

Due to their size and range, large cruise ships can embark on a variety of itineraries, visiting multiple destinations during a single voyage. Passengers have the opportunity to explore different ports, cultures, and attractions, making it a convenient way to travel and experience diverse locations.

Crew and Service On A Large Cruise Ship

To cater to the needs of thousands of passengers, large cruise ships are staffed by a significant number of crew members, including housekeeping, dining, entertainment, and hospitality staff. These crew members work to ensure that passengers have a comfortable and enjoyable experience throughout their journey.

The 12 Largest Cruise Ships

Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas

Due to set sail in 2024:

Gross Tonnage: 250,800 tons

Length: 1,198 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,610/7,600

Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas

Gross Tonnage: 235,600 tons

Length: 1,188 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,734/7,084

Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas

Gross Tonnage: 228,081 tons

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,518/6,680

Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas

Gross Tonnage: 226,963 tons

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,479/6,687

Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas

Gross Tonnage: 226,838 tons

Length: 1,187 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,602/6,771

Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas

Gross Tonnage: 225,282 tons

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,484/6,780

MSC World Europa

Gross Tonnage: 215,863 tons

Length: 1,093 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,400/6,762

Costa Smeralda

Gross Tonnage: 185,010 tons

Length: 1,106 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,224/6,554

Costa Toscana

Passengers (Double/Max): 5,224/6,554

P&O Cruises Iona

Gross Tonnage: 184,700 tons

Length: 1,130 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 5,200/6,600

P&O Cruises Arvia

MSC Euribia

Gross Tonnage: 184,001 tons

Length: 1,087 feet

Passenger Capacity (Double/Max): 4,816/6,335

Is Bigger Always Better – You Decide

In essence, the choice between a large cruise ship and a smaller vessel depends on individual preferences and priorities. Some passengers prioritize the abundance of amenities and activities, while others seek a more intimate and authentic experience that smaller ships or boutique cruise lines can offer.

There are plenty of options out there to choose from, but if you can, it would be great to cruise on both a large and smaller ship to really experience the difference.

This page contains affiliate links for which we may receive financial compensation when a purchase has been made through one of our affiliate partners.

About Jonathon Hyjek

Jonathon is the tech guy behind CruiseportAdvisor.com. When he's not stuck in front of his computer, Jonathon enjoys travel & cruising (even after being on a cruise ship that caught fire - a story for another day!)

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Oliver Franklin-Wallis

The dizzying story of Symphony of the Seas, the largest and most ambitious cruise ship ever built

S ymphony of the Seas – which, on its maiden voyage from Barcelona in March 2018 became the largest passenger ship ever built – is about five times the size of the Titanic . At 362 metres long, you could balance it on its stern and its bow would tower over all but two of Europe’s tallest skyscrapers. Owned and operated by Miami-based cruise line Royal Caribbean, it can carry nearly 9,000 people and contains more than 40 restaurants and bars; 23 pools, jacuzzis and water slides; two West End-sized theatres; an ice rink; a surf simulator; two climbing walls; a zip line; a fairground carousel; a mini-golf course; a ten-storey fun slide; laser tag; a spa; a gym; a casino; plus dozens more shopping and entertainment opportunities. To put it another way, Symphony of the Seas might be the most ludicrously entertaining luxury hotel in history. It just also happens to float.

Picture a cruise ship. You’re likely imagining crisped-pink pensioners bent double over shuffleboard, cramped cabins, bad food and norovirus. And, once upon a time, you’d have been right. But in the last decade or so, cruise ships have gone from a means of transport to vast floating cities with skydiving simulators ( Quantum of the Seas ), go-karting ( Norwegian Joy ), bumper cars ( Quantum again) and ice bars ( Norwegian Breakaway ). Restaurants offer menus designed by Michelin-starred chefs. As a result, the cruise industry is experiencing a golden age, boosted by millennials and explosive growth in tourists from China. More than twenty-five million people set sail on a cruise liner in 2017.

“Most people’s idea of a cruise is ‘Oh God, I’m going to be packed in with five thousand people I don’t want to talk to and getting bored out of my tree,” says Tom Wright, founder of WKK Architects, who has worked on cruise ships and land hotels. “In fact, it’s like going to a hotel that just moves magically over night.” (As one cruiser I met on Symphony ’s fan page put it, “We get to see five destinations, and I only have to unpack once.”)

For many, a maiden cruise is rarely the last. From Southampton to Venice to Barbados, ports are full of white-hulled ships packed with repeat customers. Industry satisfaction ratings regularly exceed 94 per cent. And, as Richard Fain is fond of saying: nobody gets those kinds of numbers. Not even chocolate companies.

Fain is chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, a position he has held since 1988. (RCL comprises three lines: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Azamara Club Cruises.) Now 69, Fain is square-jawed, broad and handsome. More than anyone, he is responsible for the transformation of cruise ships from modes of transport to mega-attractions. ( Symphony is one of his. So are the world’s second-, third- and fourth-largest cruise ships.) A gifted salesman, the first time you meet he’ll lean in, tilt his head just so, and ask you straight: “Have you cruised?”

It was Fain who realised that the cruise industry’s image problem was in fact an opportunity. Convince sceptical land-lovers that cruise ships aren’t outdated, boring and, as an industry joke put it, full of “the newlywed and the nearly dead”, and Royal Caribbean could lock up customers for life. The problem was just one of perception.

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To attract a new kind of customer, Fain needed a new kind of ship. To build it, he hired Harri Kulovaara, a Finnish naval architect who made a name for himself designing passenger ferries. Kulovaara has a round, boyish face and glasses with such thick upper frames it has the effect of a monobrow. Growing up in the coastal city of Turku, he would watch the ferries sail out of the harbour for Sweden each morning, and spend every moment he could on the water. After graduating in the late 80s, he designed two groundbreaking ferries for Finnish company Silja Line. They included a 150-metre, two-deck-high promenade down the centre, culminating in a huge window at the aft. The window brought natural light into the centre of the ship – before that, dark, depressing places – and created a natural, street-like hub for passengers.

Fain, who has a keen eye for design himself – his mentors included Jay Pritzker, the Hyatt Hotels co-founder and creator of the Pritzker Architecture Prize – took notice. “When Richard saw [the Kulovaara-designed] Silja Serenade , he said, ‘I’d like to have this kind of ship.’ The [Royal Caribbean] technical department told him it couldn’t be built,” explains Kulovaara. So, in 1995, Fain hired him to help run the company’s shipbuilding department alongside Njål Eide, a Norwegian architect who had become a legend in shipbuilding. (Eide had designed the first hotel-like atrium at sea, now a commonplace feature.) The company was planning to commission a carbon copy of its existing flagship, Sovereign of the Seas . “We’re not going to build that, Harri,” Fain told him. “We need something better.”

That “better” was 1999’s Voyager of the Seas . Costing upwards of $650 million (£469m), it was 75 per cent bigger than the previous-largest cruise ship, exceeding Panamax – the width of the Panama Canal, an industry-standard measurement. They introduced a central promenade, similar to that which Kulovaara had designed for Silja Line, ending in two banks of panoramic lifts. It was on Voyager that Royal Caribbean introduced the first ice rink at sea, and climbing walls on the rear funnel. (Fain initially thought climbing walls were a bad idea. Now they’re an industry standard.)

If you want to pinpoint the moment ship design went crazy, it’s with the launch of Voyager. Suddenly, cruising was in an amenities arms race. “There was a big shakeup,” says Trevor Young, vice president of new building at Royal rival MSC Cruises. “Companies started to treat the cruise liner as a floating resort, rather than as a ship.” Consider: since the launch of the RMS Queen Elizabeth in 1940, the record for largest passenger ship had changed hands twice. Since Kulovaara joined Royal Caribbean, the record has been broken 11 times. Kulovaara has designed ten of them.

“We don’t set out to build the largest ships,” Kulovaara told me, somewhat sheepishly. “The goal is to build the best ship. But we have so many ideas that we need a little bit more space.”

Cruise-ship architects face constraints that would confound their land-based counterparts. Ships need to be able to face North Atlantic storms, Baltic snow and blistering Caribbean heat in equal measure. The hull is beset on all sides by waves, which cause not only perpetual motion, but vibrations through the steel structure – as do the engines and propellers. A ship at sea is its own island: it must generate its own energy and water, and treat its own waste. There is no fire service nor ambulance, so every crew member is fire trained and the on-board medical centre must be able to handle almost any kind of emergency (including death: all ships have a small morgue, a necessity for a pastime so beloved by the elderly). Some maintain a brig, in case of onboard miscreants – though I’m told their use is rare.

Kulovaara’s New Build department is located in Royal Caribbean’s Innovation Lab, which is based in PortMiami – the largest passenger port – in Biscayne Bay, Florida. The team has around 200 people, including naval architects, interior designers, engineers and project managers. “When I started to get involved we didn’t use CAD,” says Fain. “We used SAD, or ‘scissors-aided design’, because what you did was spread out your drawing on the dining room table and then cut and paste it.” Today, the Innovation Lab includes extensive prototyping and testing facilities, and a large virtual-reality “cave” simulator to allow Kulovaara’s designers and architects to walk around interior spaces throughout the design process.

The essential consideration when designing a cruise ship is flow of human traffic. “They have a relatively high density of population. How can you spread the people and make sure they find their way?” asks Kulovaara. “Understanding how people behave, anticipating how they behave, is key.” With nearly 9,000 people on board including crew, distributing attractions evenly across the ship is crucial. Hence, Symphony ’s two main theatres are at opposite ends. The casino is central, but below the Royal Promenade. (A rule of thumb is that it takes the first two days of a cruise just to get your bearings.)

Perhaps even more important is the movement of the ship’s 2,200 crew, who must be able to access galleys and stores in the bowels of the ship easily. There are safety considerations, too: today’s megaships are split vertically into six or more fire zones, which can be isolated in case of an emergency. Muster stations (usually large public areas) must be evenly spread. Even corridor width is calculated for the necessary flow of passengers in the event of an emergency.

Once the major spaces are sketched out, there’s the onerous task of plumbing. “The big part of building a ship, 85 per cent, is what you don’t see. It’s the air conditioning, the electric systems, the water systems, power generation,” says Kulovaara. Cruise ships are built using concurrent design: while the keel and lower hull are being cut, the top of the ship is still being laid out. “We do the conceptual design and the architectural design,” says Kulovaara. “The naval architects think about hydrodynamics, hydrostatics, hull forms. Then we transfer that to the shipyard and they do the final engineering.”

As the ship is so vast, the detailed design work is commissioned out to multiple architectural firms. Restaurant architects design restaurants; caravan designers tend to be good at state rooms (the industry term for cabins). “We have probably 100 architects who have worked closely with us for a long time,” says Kulovaara. Early in the design process, Royal holds open competitions to design new spaces. “The reason is if you do it in-house, you become blind to change.”

When trying to introduce “anything extraordinary”, Kulovaara assigns a special projects team. With Voyager, New Build had sketched a blank space in midship for a new entertainment venue. The team proposed an indoor arena including a synthetic ice surface, “glice”. Kulovaara assigned the project to Boston-based Wilson Butler Architects. The firm has since worked on several of Royal Caribbean’s wildest schemes, including a viewing platform that extends high above Quantum of the Seas . “We’ve become pretty good at problem solving,” says Butler.

In January 2018, I went to visit Symphony under construction in Saint-Nazaire, France. It was a miserable day: grey mist hung in the air like gauze, but the ship was still visible several kilometres away. The shipyard, STX France, is one of the few equipped to build liners of Symphony ’s scale. The decks are built upside down, in around 80 huge sections – each can weigh upwards of 800 tonnes – and are then robotically welded together like vast LEGO blocks. On the dockside, deck sections of a new MSC Cruises ship lay idle. The legs of an offshore rig stood monolithic, the platform unattached. Symphony was running ahead of schedule.

Kulovaara, Fain and the Royal Caribbean management team were visiting another of their ships, Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Edge , due to sail in November 2018. While they attended meetings, Timo Yrjovuori, the project manager for Symphony ’s build, gave me a tour of the ship. Another Finn, Yrjovuori has light stubble and blond hair hidden under his yellow hard hat. As we boarded Symphony ’s lower decks, the ship was teeming with activity. More than 1,000 workers were undertaking the final outfitting, and the sounds of sawing, welding and industrial vehicles cut through a riot of languages and radio stations.

Symphony is the fourth ship in Royal Caribbean’s Oasis class, which launched in 2009. Oasis of the Seas was another paradigm shift in ship design: 50 per cent larger again, at 225,000 gross tonnes, it was almost double the industry average. Each Oasis-class ship costs more than $1 billion, not including the vast new cruise terminals Royal Caribbean built in Miami to hold them. “The complexity of building ships goes up exponentially” with size, Kulovaara says. (Previously, the largest lifeboats on the market carried 150 people. In designing Oasis , Royal Caribbean also had to develop a new class of 370-person lifeboats. Symphony has 18 of them.)

The Oasis class’s crowning glory is its split superstructure: 18 decks tall, its central section is a progression of Voyager’s promenade design. The aft is divided up the middle by an 11-deck valley, giving it a horseshoe shape. Standing in the centre of the Boardwalk (Oasis ships are split into seven “neighbourhoods”) feels like standing in Manhattan, with mini-skyscrapers on each side. The chasm is bridged by a Sun deck at the top; from there the 11-storey Ultimate Abyss slides curl down to the Boardwalk.

“To split a cruise liner down the middle in this way was a really big departure,” says Tom Wright, who helped in the development of the exterior spaces for the Oasis class ships. “It’s probably the biggest departure ever by the cruise industry.”

Yrjovuori and I toured the ship. Below decks, Symphony of the Seas is like an Amazon warehouse, a cathedral to logistics. The ship’s bowels are split by a two-lane corridor, nicknamed I-95 after the US highway. In the main galleys are bathtub-sized food processors and dishwashers closer in appearance and size to car washes.

Food is stored in bungalow-sized cold rooms. Even here, flow is king: the layout of the room has been meticulously optimised by observing chefs and service staff to maximise output at peak time; because cold food guarantees unhappy passengers, all of Symphony ’s restaurants are designed with a set maximum distance from galley to table.

“The level of hygiene is extreme,” Yrjovuori announced, as we passed a hand-washing station. Though ship-wide outbreaks of sickness make the news at least once a year, the total number of passengers who fall ill is a fraction of one per cent. But close quarters enable outbreaks, so sanitation regulations at sea are stringent. Every part of the ship, from lift buttons to the casino’s chips, are sanitised daily; interior materials have to stand up to the high level of chlorination from the constant cleaning. Rubbish is frozen in vast storage containers to slow bacteria growth and is only removed in port.

In midships above the Royal Promenade lies perhaps Symphony ’s most remarkable feature: Central Park, an open-air garden enclosed by the upper cabins. Its development was another first, and was fraught with challenges. “I suggested it was going to be a grassy field,” says Wright. Fain loved the idea, but a grass park at sea seemed insane: the deck faces salt air, scorching Sun and foot traffic from thousands of passengers almost every day of the year.

“We do a lot of research,” explains Kelly Gonzalez, Royal’s vice president of newbuilding architectural design. Gonzalez, who leads the design of the ships’ public spaces, is Kulovaara’s closest collaborator; the two have worked together for 20 years. “We hired a grass and lawn expert from the University of Florida. We did a machine test, which was a rolling wheel with sneakers on it that would simulate footsteps.”

The results were not encouraging. “The immediate response is always ‘We’ll tweak it,’” says Fain. “We said no, this is not a tweak. This is a design flaw.”

Kulovaara called a charrette – a closed-doors design retreat that Royal has used for problem-solving since Voyager. “We went back to redesign it,” he says. Their solution was a landscaped garden with 12,000 plants and trees. It required extensive engineering, right down to the soil. “It’s a kind of volcanic exploded clay, so it’s not as dense as it would be on a land-based arboretum,” explains Butler, whose firm worked on the engineering. “On land you put in a sprinkler system and the soil gets saturated. We can’t afford that wet weight, so we do underground watering.” Botanists were consulted, as were ports’ various customs agencies for rules on foreign plant species.

Even unfinished, it’s remarkable: an airy urban park, floating on a skyscraper with an open-air café and performance space thrown in, all in the middle of the ocean.

After the park, we toured Symphony ’s accommodation. Its state rooms are pre-fabricated en masse and inserted into the ship like huge Jenga blocks. Yrjovuori’s army of outfitters were busy adding mattresses and other finishing touches.

More than half of Symphony is taken up by state rooms. “We always say the millimetres matter,” says Harold Law, a senior architectural associate who oversees their development. A centimetre saved by using a thinner veneer might, along the length of the ship, mean an extra cabin per deck. Storage is honed with IKEA-like precision (the secret is calculating average luggage size plus a little extra, for souvenirs).

State rooms must be acoustically insulated – to shield occupants from their neighbours, but also vibrations from the engines, nightclubs or an overhead skydiving machine. The bathroom units are subjected to an incline test: a blocked toilet must still drain at 10° of ship tilt without spilling into the room.

The biggest challenge comes when designing the interior rooms. “Traditionally on inside rooms there’s no natural light, so you can lose track of time very quickly,” says Law. (Days at sea distort time – Symphony ’s lifts contain screens reminding passengers what day of the week it is.) On 2014’s Quantum of the Seas , Royal Caribbean introduced Virtual Balconies, floor-to-ceiling screens which show a live camera feed of the outside view. There are four cameras, because during testing, they discovered that a feed facing the wrong direction causes seasickness. “You have the sensation of the motion of the ship; the visual has to match,” Law says.

“We’re constantly using design to alter the perspective of the room environment,” says Gonzalez. Uplighting and mirrors can help ceilings feel taller. The right pattern on a carpet can lengthen or shorten a space, or provide a subliminal help with wayfinding. One problem with such huge ships is the absurdly long corridors, so the architects insert fake arches or obstacles to make them appear shorter. On Quantum , Royal introduced lenticular wall art, which changes whether you’re walking fore or aft.

Celebrity Edge will introduce perhaps the biggest change in state-room design since balconies were introduced in the 80s. “I was watching the cruise ships going out from Miami one day,” explains Xavier Leclercq, Royal’s senior vice president of New Build and innovation. “I counted the passengers on their balconies – only two per cent of people [were] using them.”

Kulovaara’s team commissioned some research and came to a counterintuitive conclusion: offer passengers balconies and they say they want them, but few actually use them. So, on Celebrity Edge , Wright – the ship’s lead architect – and Royal’s New Build team eliminated balconies entirely. Instead they designed what they call the Infinite Veranda: floor-to-ceiling windows, the upper half of which lowers entirely to create an indoor balcony. As a result, Edge ’s entry-level state rooms are 23 per cent larger and bathrooms 20 per cent bigger than the previous standard. “The cruise industry is incredibly conservative,” says Wright. “To change the structure of how it’s always been done – it’s really quite a big deal.”

In November 2017, before my visit to France, I flew to New York to see the future of cruise ship design. Royal Caribbean had rented a space in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard to demonstrate what it calls Project Excalibur. Guests from the travel industry lounged on white leather sofas, ordering drinks via an app. Wi-Fi beacons tracked our locations, and the waiters’ custom-designed trays included a smartphone displaying our picture, so we never had to go to the bar.

The feature will debut on Symphony of the Seas and be rolled out across the entire Royal fleet. On the main stage, huge 4K screens on robotic arms delivered a dance performance (the show, something of a novelty gimmick, is featured on Quantum-class ships), before Fain made his presentation.

Kulovaara watched from the side of the room. New Build were early in the masterplanning phase for Royal’s next class of ship, codenamed Icon, which is planned to debut in 2022. Notably, Icon class, at 200,000 gross tonnes, will be smaller than Oasis. Instead, the focus is on efficiency, an urgent trend in an industry long criticised for cruise ships’ environmental impact, which included burning huge quantities of fuel and, for several decades, dumping of waste water. (Today, black water – the ship’s sewage – is treated on board, and only dumped into the sea when it reaches near drinking-water purity.)

“Energy efficiency is something we have a lot of pride in,” says Kulovaara. They expect Symphony to be, by weight, the most energy-efficient ship at sea (a claim currently held by Harmony ). “We were able to improve the ship’s energy efficiency by 20 per cent with about 100 different initiatives. The hull form was improved, the propellers were improved, the air conditioning controls were improved, the lighting system was improved.” New Royal ships feature hulls that emit tiny bubbles to reduce drag, meaning the ship in effect sails on air.

After Fain’s pitch for Excalibur, we were given a rundown of the attractions Icon might eventually bring. Some, like a shallow VR sushi-eating experience, felt more like gimmicks for the tech press in attendance. But other elements seemed inevitable: check in via facial-recognition, and a Star Trek -like bridge of the future which included augmented-reality displays showing live data streams. Perhaps the most significant demo was the least well attended: a hydrogen fuel cell, which will be used to generate electricity on Icon, supplementing existing diesel engines. Icon will also be the first of Royal’s fleet to run on liquefied natural gas; Carnival, AIDA and MSC also all have LNG ships under construction, as part of an industry-wide move to meet emissions targets.

Icon’s design is still a closely-held secret, and Kulovaara would only speak in veiled terms. “We’re looking at how the infrastructure has been done on a cruise ship for the last 40 years, and we believe that there is the potential of doing drastically different things,” he said. The last time we spoke, in January, the outline for Icon was coming together, but the design was still lacking… something, so they took a break to look for inspiration. “A ship’s lifespan is at least 25 years. So we have to plan that a ship is still relevant, purposeful and efficient, more than 20 years ahead.”

Right now, Kulovaara has 13 ships on order. In 2014, Royal Caribbean became the world’s largest cruise line by passenger capacity (Carnival is still larger by total passengers, primarily because it offers shorter cruises). Other cruise lines have followed Fain’s lead: in 2017, MSC Cruises announced plans to build four 200,000-tonne World class ships, with split hulls remarkably similar to Symphony . Arch-rival Carnival has ordered two 180,000-tonne ships, due in 2020.

Still, Symphony ’s record as the largest ever looks like it won’t be broken for a while. “The ships are now large enough and give us a platform that we can really do some amazing things,” says Fain. “So a gut answer is: I don’t personally see a need to build larger. But never say never.”

Back on Symphony of the Seas , Yrjovuori momentarily lost his bearings. We stopped and, taking our cue from the stairway’s decor, set off downwards. The sky was getting darker and it had started to rain. Construction was winding down for the night, and for the first time the ship’s corridors were quiet. “It’s maybe romantic, but I think ships have a kind of soul,” he said. “It’s not like a building. They have a kind of personality. ”

It was a few weeks before Symphony would set out on final sea trials. “It’s such an interesting moment in the ship’s life, when she first meets the sea,” Leclercq told me, back on shore. “It’s like a baby being born. Thousands of people, thousands of skill sets… it’s a big human adventure.” When Harmony was floated, the locals in Saint-Nazaire took to the water to meet her. “Thousands of boats were in the water. It was a beautiful day.”

Symphony of the Seas already has bookings until the end of 2019. At the time of my visit, the ship’s Facebook page was filling with passengers excitingly monitoring its progress and discussing itineraries. Kelli Carlsen, an American teacher based in Oslo, told me she booked after her and her husband spent their honeymoon on Harmony of the Seas . “It was once in a lifetime,” she said – until it wasn’t. They’re booked for June 2018. The week after they disembark, she and a friend are cruising again, on Serenade of the Seas. They’re joining the ship late, in Rome, but Carlsen says she doesn’t mind. “There’s so many stops. We just go for the ships, really.”

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

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A Dutch Architect’s Vision of Cities That Float on Water

By Kyle Chayka

The Thâtre LÎle Ô in Lyon seen across the water.

In a corner of the Rijksmuseum hangs a seventeenth-century cityscape by the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerrit Berckheyde, “View of the Golden Bend in the Herengracht,” which depicts the construction of Baroque mansions along one of Amsterdam’s main canals. Handsome double-wide brick buildings line the Herengracht’s banks, their corniced façades reflected on the water’s surface. Interspersed among the new homes are spaces, like gaps in a young child’s smile, where vacant lots have yet to be developed.

For the Dutch architect Koen Olthuis, the painting serves as a reminder that much of his country has been built on top of the water. The Netherlands (whose name means “low countries”) lies in a delta where three major rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt—meet the open expanse of the North Sea. More than a quarter of the country sits below sea level. Over hundreds of years, the Dutch have struggled to manage their sodden patchwork of land. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the country’s windmills were used to pump water out of the ground using the hydraulic mechanism known as Archimedes’ screw. Parcels of land were buffered with raised walls and continuously drained, creating areas, which the Dutch call “polders,” that were dry enough to accommodate farming or development. The grand town houses along Amsterdam’s canals, as emblematic of the city as Haussmann’s architecture is of Paris, were constructed on thousands of wooden stilts driven into unstable mud. As Olthuis told me recently, “The Netherlands is a complete fake, artificial machine.” The threat of water overtaking the land is so endemic to the Dutch national psyche that it has inspired a mythological predator, the Waterwolf. In a 1641 poem that coined the name, the Dutch poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel exhorted the “mill wings” of the wind pumps to “shut down this animal.”

Olthuis has spent more than two decades seeking ways to coexist with the wolf. His architectural firm, Waterstudio, specializes in homes that float, but its constructions have little in common with the wooden houseboats that have long lined Dutch canals. Traditional houseboats were often converted freight ships; narrow, low-slung, and lacking proper plumbing, they earned a reputation in the postwar period as bohemian, sometimes seedy dwellings. (Utrecht’s onetime red-light district was a row of forty-three houseboat brothels.) Waterstudio’s signature projects, which Olthuis prefers to call “water houses,” look more like modern condominiums, with glassy façades, full-height ceilings, and multiple stories. In the past decade, as severe weather brought on by climate change has caused catastrophic flooding everywhere from Tamil Nadu to New England, demand for Waterstudio’s architecture has grown. The firm is currently working on floating pod hotels in Panama and Thailand; six-story floating apartment buildings in Scandinavia; a floating forest in the Persian Gulf, as part of a strategy to combat heat and humidity; and, in its most ambitious undertaking to date, a floating “city” in the Maldives.

Image may contain Water Waterfront Architecture Building House Housing Villa Condo City Grass Plant and Chair

One evening in January, I met Olthuis for dinner at Sea Palace, a Chinese restaurant in a three-story pagoda built on a boat hull in the harbor near the center of Amsterdam. Created based on a similar structure in Hong Kong, it has seating for some nine hundred people and bills itself as the largest floating restaurant in Europe. On its opening night, in 1984, the boat began to sink, and more than a hundred diners had to evacuate; the builders’ calculations hadn’t accounted for the fact that Hong Kongers weigh less on average than the Dutch. In the end, the surplus crowd was served dinner al fresco on the shore, and, the story goes, a Dutch tradition of Chinese takeout was born.

Olthuis is fifty-two years old and gangly, with a stubbled chin and graying hair swept back in the shaggy style typical of Dutch men. He dresses in all black year-round, even, to his wife’s chagrin, packing black trousers for summer vacation. But his vibe is less severe aesthete than restless inventor. He drives a plug-in hybrid car that he never bothers to charge, eats instant ramen every morning for breakfast, and had an entire floor of the home he designed for his family, in Delft, carpeted in AstroTurf, so that his three sons can play soccer indoors. During our dinner, he drank two Coke Zeros, which augmented his already considerable aura of activity and churning thought. Midway through the meal, he picked up his chopsticks and held one upright in each fist, to illustrate the poles that tether many of Waterstudio’s buildings to the beds of the bodies of water they float on.

He put down one chopstick and picked up a bowl of kung-pao chicken, which represented the concrete foundations that, somewhat counterintuitively, allow many of his houses to float. “Concrete weighs 2.4 times more than water, so if you make a block of concrete it will immediately sink,” he explained in lightly accented English. “But if you spread it out, if you make a box filled with air, then it starts to float.” The poles are anchored sixteen feet into the water bed and extend several feet above the surface; the floating concrete foundation is fastened to the poles with rings. Olthuis slid the bowl slowly up and down the length of the chopstick to demonstrate how the foundation can rise and fall along the poles with the fluctuations of the water. Whereas Sea Palace is essentially a glorified barge, resting atop the water on pontoons, Waterstudio’s concrete bases give its projects a stability approximating that of land-bound construction, at least when the waters beneath are still. “You can’t compare them,” Olthuis said of his buildings versus the one we were sitting in.

He peered through the restaurant’s windows at the bustling commercial strip onshore. “This area would be fantastic to place maybe a series of floating apartment buildings and affordable housing for students,” he said.

Subway busker plays air guitar.

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The Dutch government’s approach to water management is primarily defensive. New pumping stations are being built to keep pace with the higher volumes of water brought on by climate change. A program to raise seawalls has been funded through 2050. But Harold van Waveren, the top expert on flood-risk management at Rijkswaterstaat, the agency that oversees the country’s larger canals, dams, and seawalls, told me that the threats posed by water have become increasingly unpredictable as the sea level rises and storm surges grow more extreme. “We just finished a study that says at least three metres, even five metres, shouldn’t be a problem in our country,” he said, referring to projected surges. “On the other hand, will it stop at three metres? You never know.”

Olthuis believes that the Netherlands should give certain flood-prone parts of the land back to the water—a managed surrender to the elements rather than a Sisyphean battle against them. He held up the dish of chicken, now representing one of the country’s polders. The polders, numbering more than three thousand, are like a series of bowls, he said. For centuries, the Dutch have made their land habitable by laboriously keeping the bowls dry. But habitability does not have to depend on dryness, Olthuis argues; on the contrary, building on water can be safer and sturdier than building on reclaimed ground. “I think some bowls should be full,” he said, suggesting that flooding the land would amount to little more than a natural evolution of a man-made system, not unlike the way skyscrapers transformed cities a century ago. “It’s just an update to the machine.”

Living on the water is an old form of ingenuity, one that has often been driven by necessity. Half a millennium ago, in what is now Peru, the indigenous Uros people used thatches of reeds to build floating islets in Lake Titicaca, likely as a safe haven from Incan encroachment. Around thirteen hundred people live on the islands to this day. Tonlé Sap, a lake in Cambodia, is home to thousands of people from the country’s persecuted Vietnamese minority, who are forbidden to own property on land. Their fishing villages, adapted to the lake’s dramatic seasonal ebbs and flows, include floating barns, floating karaoke bars, and floating medical clinics. Olthuis has long been interested in what he calls “wet slums,” urban waterfront areas where rudimentary wooden dwellings are often built on stilts, as in the sprawling neighborhood of Makoko, in Lagos. “What you see is poor people adapting to the situation,” he told me. “If they can’t find land, then they find a way to build on water. Those people are innovators.”

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Olthuis likes to say that Waterstudio creates “products, not projects.” The firm’s goal is not to build dazzlingly unique structures but, instead, to standardize and modernize floating construction with designs that can be replicated en masse. One of Olthuis’s favorite projects to date was also the least expensive: a prototype of a floating home made from “bamboo and cow shit” in a flood-prone area in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. The building had steel frames for durability, a layout that accommodated multiple families, and an onboard stable to house farm animals in times of flooding. Such simple structures are part of Olthuis’s concept of City Apps—“on-demand, instant solutions” that can float into neighborhoods to add resources such as classrooms, medical clinics, and energy facilities. He envisions persuading cities around the world to install hundreds of thousands of floating affordable-housing units to help alleviate overcrowding and gentrification. “It’s a lifetime of trying to connect the dots toward that future,” he said.

So far, though, most Waterstudio buildings are smaller-scale luxury products, amounting to what Olthuis called “innovation at the cost of the rich.” One morning, I visited a floating home that Waterstudio built on the Rhine near the city of Leiden, about twenty miles from Amsterdam. Behind a tall, vine-covered fence was a garden with a brick pathway leading to a two-story, two-thousand-square-foot home with floor-to-ceiling windows and a long balcony. One of more than two hundred floating houses that Waterstudio has completed throughout the Netherlands, it was commissioned, in 2021, by Erick van Mastrigt, a seventy-one-year-old retired Dutch financial executive, as a home for him and his wife.

Van Mastrigt met me at the front door, dressed in a leisurely ensemble of a quarter-zip sweater and espadrilles. “If you asked me ten years ago, ‘Me on a houseboat?’ No, I don’t think so. I never had a plan like that,” he said. Van Mastrigt and his wife had previously lived across the street, in a traditional home with a Dutch gabled roof, a filigreed façade, and a thousand-square-foot garden. In 2016, they bought a houseboat on the river for their adult son to stay in when he was visiting. But then the son moved to Thailand. Tired of maintaining their large house and its landscaping, the couple decided to downsize. The old houseboat was too small, but its site presented a possibility. They found Waterstudio online; the house cost about 1.5 million euros to complete, a figure that Olthuis estimates is ten or fifteen per cent higher than the cost of building a similar structure on land. The couple moved in last year and recently sold their previous home.

In the house’s vestibule, van Mastrigt flipped a switch to open a hatch in the floor, revealing a low-ceilinged storage area, cluttered with luggage, built into the hollow of the concrete foundation. On the main floor, an open kitchen abutted a double-height dining room. Along one side of the building was a space, like an aquatic driveway, which in warm months houses the couple’s motorboat. I looked up and noticed, above the dining table, a crystal chandelier mounted on a long, thick metal pillar, made slightly less obtrusive with a coat of the same dusky-pink paint that covered the ceiling. If the chandelier dangled only by a chain, van Mastrigt explained, it would swing with the slightest movement of the water.

The chandelier was just one example of a conspicuous incongruity between the building’s high-tech functionalism and the couple’s taste in décor. Down a hallway was a living room furnished with leather armchairs and paintings of traditional Dutch interiors in gilded frames. “Many of the things we still have here were from the old house,” Mastrigt explained. (They even keep a photo of the house on the bedroom wall.) A tiny elevator connected to the second floor. From the upstairs balcony, the view across the river was drably industrial: a metal-sided boat-rental warehouse, stacks of multicolored shipping pallets, an auto-repair shop. Next door was an old, uninhabited houseboat. Like any optimistic gentrifier, van Mastrigt chose to see the merits of his undeveloped surroundings. “You don’t have direct neighbors,” he said. “You can make a lot of noise.”

Olthuis’s career is a union of his matrilineal and patrilineal family trades. In Dutch, Olthuis means “old house”; on his father’s side, architecture and engineering have been practiced for five generations. In The Hague, tile mosaics on the façades of several Art Nouveau buildings bear the name of the architect who designed them: Jan Olthuis, Koen’s great-great-grandfather. On his mother’s side, the family name is Boot, Dutch for “boat.” Olthuis’s maternal grandfather, Jacobus, was the third in a line of Boots to run a shipyard in the village of Woubrugge. A tinkering streak runs in the family: in the nineteen-fifties, Jacobus, who also had a pilot’s license, added ice runners and an airplane wing to a boat and “sailed” the contraption over frozen ponds. I asked Olthuis how his parents met, and he seemed surprised to recall that even this detail of his personal history had an element of aquatic destiny: it was on a cruise around Italy.

Still, Olthuis’s path to building on water was fairly circuitous. The Netherlands is known for industrial design, and Olthuis’s home town, Son, lies outside Eindhoven, the industry’s hub. Olthuis’s father worked for Philips, the electronics company, in television engineering, at the time when black-and-white sets were being replaced by color ones. Olthuis recalls a period when the family would receive a new experimental TV model every month, including one with a teletext printer that could spit out sports scores and other onscreen information on a receipt-like scroll. As a child, during stays with his grandparents, Olthuis would spend hours in Jacobus’s home workshop, building model boats, cars, and helicopters. When he was thirteen, he began helping a friend who repaired motorbikes, which they rode up and down country roads before they were old enough to legally drive. He worked for a time at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Eindhoven, washing dishes and parking cars, and considered a career in hospitality. But, when his girlfriend at the time decided to study architecture at the Delft University of Technology, he followed her there and enrolled in the same program.

A beaver nears the center of a large tree it's gnawing through while other beavers look from the ground.

Olthuis’s student days, in the early nineties, coincided with the rise of “starchitects,” global builder-celebrities who imprinted their projects with dramatic aesthetic signatures. Rem Koolhaas, a fellow-Dutchman who founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, had become known for his conceptual rigor and his audaciously cantilevered designs, including the wave-shaped Nexus World Housing, in Fukuoka, and the Maison à Bordeaux, a private residence in France equipped with a giant elevator platform to carry its wheelchair-bound owner between floors. Olthuis told me that he found the starchitectural approach unappealingly ego-driven. “They’re more focussed on building a statue for themselves than for society,” he said. During a university conference, though, he found himself serving as a chauffeur for the famous Polish American architect Daniel Libeskind, and the two formed a connection. Libeskind made Olthuis a sketch that he’s kept to this day, of a windmill in a landscape that they’d driven through. (A fan of numerology, Libeskind also calculated that Olthuis’s career would peak in 2031. “I’ve still got some time left,” Olthuis joked to me.) Olthuis admired Libeskind’s spirit of experimentation, and the sense of social meaning with which he imbued projects such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin. “He taught me that architecture could be about more than just the buildings,” Olthuis said.

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After graduating, Olthuis got a job at a large architecture firm run by one of his former professors. For his first project, a traffic-control center in Wolfheze, he had an initial flirtation with architecture on the water, designing a structure that would be raised up on a plinth above a shallow artificial pond. But he found the firm’s corporate culture stultifying. “There was not that much spirit among young architects that you could change the world,” he said. An engineering student from the Delft University of Technology, Rolf Peters, was working for a company that was entering a competition to design a master plan for IJburg, a new Amsterdam neighborhood built on artificial islands rising out of IJmeer lake. Olthuis joined the team, and, though their entry didn’t win, he and Peters decided to work together again to devise housing for the neighborhood.

The winning plan designated plots for houseboats but had no specifications about what kinds of structures would fill them. In the Netherlands, a houseboat is sold along with the rights to its site on the water, just as a traditional house is legally attached to the plot of land it sits upon. For decades, houseboats have lined Amsterdam’s downtown canals. “When you walk through them, your head touches the ceiling, it’s damp, it’s low, it’s unstable,” Olthuis said. “But they were on the best locations, so we thought—maybe it was youthful enthusiasm—we can do better.” They also saw a business opportunity. On land, many young architects were competing to build in limited space. On the water, Olthuis said, they would be “the king with one eye in the land of the blind.” Waterstudio launched out of Peters’s home, in Haarlem, in 2003.

The firm’s first breakthrough came the following year, with the design of a glass-walled houseboat for a wealthy family in the tulip trade. Called the Watervilla Aalsmeer, the home would be anchored on a lake near the warehouses where flower auctions are held. According to building regulations at the time, the size of the new structure had to match that of the traditional one-story houseboat it was replacing. But Olthuis and Peters discovered that there were no restrictions on building beneath the water. Their design had a footprint of more than two thousand square feet and incorporated flashy features such as wardrobes that lowered into the concrete foundation at the touch of a button, like weapon caches in a supervillain’s lair, and a windowless underwater home theatre with seating for twenty. The building became a local media sensation. “We had six or seven camera crews in one house,” Olthuis recalled. One television segment featured Olthuis, then clean-shaven and in his early thirties, perching on a plush white sofa in the living room. He recalls telling people at the time, in retrospect too bullishly, “In 2010, we will see floating cities all over the world.”

For the homes in IJburg, the city of Amsterdam decided that developers should follow housing codes rather than shipbuilding ones. Floating buildings would be required to have proper insulation and sewage systems that connected to the city’s infrastructure; they would also be allowed to rise two stories above the water. Prospective residents could enter a lottery to buy water plots in the neighborhood. In 2008, Waterstudio became the first firm to place a floating home in IJburg. The structure, which is still docked in its original location, has three stories, with bedrooms built into the foundation. When it was first craned into the water, it sank twenty-five centimetres deeper than regulations allowed. (The homeowner later won a lawsuit against one of the contractors for making the structure heavier than it was designed to be.) The team solved the problem by creating inflatable jetties, filled with air and water, that formed a walkway around the building and lifted it back up. Olthuis told me, “From then on, we could use these systems in all our projects.”

Woman wakes up in bed and sees husband standing twisted.

Waterstudio’s IJburg home provided the template for a new generation of water houses in the Netherlands. Today, there are more than twenty floating neighborhoods throughout the country. The homes in IJburg are arranged in a grid resembling miniature city blocks, with narrow docks in lieu of sidewalks. At night, the houses glow like lanterns against the dark water. Buying into the neighborhood has proved a worthy investment: the houses were built for around three hundred thousand euros apiece and now sell for several times that. During my stay in Amsterdam, I rented a room in a B. and B. in IJburg called La Corte Sconta, run by a pair of siblings from another city of water, Venice. The rental bedrooms are on the bottom of three levels, below an open-plan kitchen and a cozy plant-filled common area with wide sliding windows that look onto the water. When I descended the stairs and entered my room, at one end of a short hallway, I noticed that the windows were small and high on the wall, like they would be in an English basement. Peering out, I saw that the surface of the lake rose right up to the bottom of the window, which meant that the floor I was standing on was some six feet underwater. One of the siblings, Auro Cavalcante, who lives on the top floor, told me that he only feels the building moving when there’s a storm. The weather that night was clear, but I felt a slight wobbliness, or perhaps merely a psychosomatic case of sea legs, as I contemplated the lake surrounding me, pushing in from all sides.

Today, Waterstudio’s headquarters are situated in a former grocery store on a quiet residential street in Rijswijk, a small suburb halfway between The Hague and Delft. Olthuis lives ten minutes away, in a new neighborhood built over a train hub in Delft’s downtown. Somewhat contrary to his ideal of modest water-bound designs, he told me that he would move his family to a floating home only if he could acquire a plot of water large enough to accommodate a yard. (When I asked his wife, Charlotte, a chef, if she would be amenable to water living, she said, “I would like that, but maybe only for summer holidays.”) The firm’s office space, easily visible through its large storefront windows, is small and open, with rows of white tables where employees work. When I arrived one weekday morning, Olthuis was in the middle of his ramen breakfast. He saw me coming and greeted me at the door. “The street and the building are almost one,” he said.

Inside, a row of metal shelves running the length of the space was stacked with 3-D-printed models of projects ranging from the already built to the wholly theoretical: a floating hotel with a glass roof, to allow viewings of the northern lights; a spindly tower resembling a vertiginous stack of plates, meant as an artificial water-based habitat for plants and animals; a “seapod” mounted, like a lollipop, on a single pole sticking out of the water, with a home inside. Olthuis encourages an improvisatory approach to designs and materials. He had recently discovered that a recycling company was being paid to dispose of the worn-out blades of wind turbines, which are often buried in landfills. He and a Korean client were discussing the possibility of reusing the hollow fibreglass pieces as foundations for floating walkways, or, perhaps, as single hotel rooms, with windows cut into the sides. The blades would offer “architecture that we never could have made if we had to pay for it,” Olthuis said. Such resourcefulness extends to the use of new technologies. At one desk, Anna Vendemia, an Italian who has worked at Waterstudio since 2018, was sitting in front of a pair of monitors and using the artificial-intelligence tool Midjourney to generate renderings of a clamshell-shaped floating hotel suite, with curving glass windows and an onboard swimming pool, for a client in Dubai.

One row over, Sridhar Subramani, who joined the firm from Mumbai seven years ago, was working on a study commissioned by the city of Rotterdam. Home to the largest port in Europe, Rotterdam is situated on the Nieuwe Waterweg, a broad canal that forms the artificial mouth of the Rhone, flowing out to the North Sea. This position makes Rotterdam particularly vulnerable to flooding, and the local government has invested heavily in adaptive design. In 2019, a floating solar-powered dairy farm with a cheese-making facility on its bottom level opened in the city. The study conducted by Waterstudio was meant to show how a theoretical fleet of mobile floating structures could change locations throughout the day to accommodate city dwellers’ routines. In one concept, the platforms represented restaurants that could float to downtown office buildings during lunchtime and then move to residential neighborhoods in the evening. On Subramani’s computer screen, tiny building icons migrated around the Nieuwe Maas river in downtown Rotterdam like a swarm of worker bees.

Subramani has an architecture degree but describes himself as an “urban technologist and researcher.” Olthuis later told me, “Sridhar is more crazy than I am.” When Olthuis interviewed him for a job and asked why he wanted to make floating buildings, Subramani answered that his real goal was to make cities that float in the air, with the help of helium balloons. Rolf Peters, Waterstudio’s co-founder, left in 2010 to pursue independent projects. For the past decade, Olthuis’s partner at the firm has been Ankie Stam, a forty-four-year-old architect who handles the administrative and marketing sides of the business. “We always attract people who are different than the regular architecture students,” Stam told me as she assembled a plate of dark bread, Nutella, and sliced Gouda. “We don’t want to make just one very nice, beautiful building.”

Scattered around the office, like loose Lego bricks, were tiny 3-D-printed models of houses from the Maldives Floating City. On a tabletop, Olthuis unrolled an enormous sheet of glossy printer paper. It was an aerial rendering of the finished project: a tessellated network of water-bound platforms, like a man-made spiderweb, featuring rows of pastel-colored town houses. Estimated to cost a billion dollars, the development will be situated a fifteen-minute boat ride from the overcrowded capital of Malé. The complex will provide as many as thirteen thousand units of housing, which will rest in a shallow lagoon ringed by reinforced sandbars and coral reefs designed to break waves.

For the Maldives, an archipelagic country in the Indian Ocean, climate change already poses an existential threat. According to geological surveys, eighty per cent of the country could be uninhabitable by 2050. The idea for the floating city originated after the Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed, held a stunt cabinet meeting underwater, in scuba gear, in 2009, to promote awareness of the potential effects of climate change on the country. The Dutch consulate in the Maldives, drawing on the Netherlands’ international reputation in water-management technology, connected Nasheed to Waterstudio. “In the Maldives, we cannot stop the waves, but we can rise with them,” Nasheed has said of the project. But he left office in 2012, and since then Waterstudio has had to navigate four different Maldivian administrations, persuading each of the project’s importance in turn. “It’s a kind of education,” Olthuis said. “You have to start from zero.”

A first batch of four houses for the city was recently towed out into the ocean, and Olthuis estimated that construction would be completed by 2028. “It could be faster,” he said, adding that, because the homes are modular, multiple factories can be involved in manufacturing them at once. But previous projects have been delayed by zoning trouble, waffling developers, and poor local infrastructure. In 2016, the Times reported that ambitious Waterstudio projects in New Jersey and Dubai were scheduled to roll out their first units within a year. Eight years later, Olthuis described both as still awaiting construction. Waterstudio has produced fifteen design iterations for the New Jersey project. “This business is different than building on land,” he said. “You have to be very, very patient.”

Other firms have followed Waterstudio into floating real estate. The bulk of the Maldives project is being funded by Dutch Docklands, a commercial developer focussed on floating construction, which will supplement the affordable housing with its own luxury floating hotels and homes. (Olthuis is a minor stakeholder in the firm.) In 2021, Oceanix, a New York-based company, and BIG , a firm owned by the Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels, announced plans to build a floating development off the coast of Busan, South Korea. Oceanix touted the project as “trailblazing a new industry,” and trade blogs reported an estimated completion date of 2025, but as of now construction has yet to begin. (Oceanix’s co-founder and C.E.O., Itai Madamombe, said that it would likely start by the end of this year.)

Olthuis told me that, as competition from other, bigger firms has grown, Waterstudio has had to engage in a “little bit of a fight” for new jobs. “Our advantage is that we have twenty years of experience,” he said, “so we know a bit more the tricks and the problems, and that will keep us ahead of other people for the next three to five years.” Any attention brought to floating architecture is a good thing, in his opinion, so long as firms can deliver on their splashy promises. “There are not that many projects, and each of these projects has to succeed,” he said.

The most devastating natural catastrophe in modern Dutch history was the North Sea flood of 1953. Known as the Watersnoodramp, it resulted from an intense windstorm over the ocean meeting high spring tides. Residents in the north of the country were awoken in the middle of the night, on February 1st, by an initial deluge that inundated densely settled islands and filled carefully maintained polders. Railways flooded and telephone poles were destroyed, cutting off communication to the region. An official alert did not reach residents until 8 A . M ., by which time many were stranded in their attics or on their roofs. “It was as if we were spectators as the world ended,” one witness in the village of Kruiningen recalled. The next day, at 4 P . M ., another wave of water came, even higher than the first, and destroyed many of the structures that still stood. Some survivors waited days for large ships to reach the area. In all, nearly two thousand people died.

The disaster forced the Dutch government to confront the inadequacy of its aging dike system. Just weeks after the flood, a committee was formed to develop a national water-defense plan, which became known as the Delta Works, involving more than twenty thousand kilometres of new seawalls, dikes, and dams. Its crowning element, completed in 1998, was the Maeslantkering, a hulking steel storm-surge barrier separating the Nieuwe Waterweg canal from the North Sea.

One afternoon, Olthuis drove me through the countryside to the Maeslantkering. Outside Dutch city centers, the artificiality of the landscape becomes harder to ignore. The roads were the highest point in the topography; from the car’s passenger window, I could see down into farm fields below, which were dotted with pools of water from recent storms. Small canals traversed the uneven ground in straight lines. The land rose as we moved toward the coast—the lip on a giant bowl of kung-pao chicken—which created the strange sensation of looking upward to see the surface of the sea. Many of the canals running through the farmland were fortified with low hillocks covered in grass. “It takes almost nothing to break these,” Olthuis said of the barriers. “Don’t talk to terrorists, because if you want to screw up this country you only have to break a few dikes and then the whole system breaks. From here on half of Amsterdam will flood.”

The Nieuwe Waterweg was crowded with industrial ships and oil rigs heading out to sea. Wind turbines lined both shores. Olthuis pulled into a parking lot that looked out onto the Maeslantkering, which the architecture critic Michael Kimmelman has called “one of modern Europe’s lesser-known marvels.” Among the largest moving structures ever built, it is composed of two identical white steel frames, each weighing close to seven thousand tons, situated on opposite banks of the canal. A computer system tracks the levels of the Nieuwe Waterweg; if the water rises too high, the system activates and the two frames rotate from either bank, ferrying sections of curved steel wall that meet in the middle and seal the canal from the surging sea.

Olthuis and I walked up to a metal fence plastered with warning signs. The closest part of the steel frames stood a dozen yards away. Their trussing often earns them comparisons to the Eiffel Tower—they are only slightly shorter—but to me they looked more like a roller coaster turned on its side. Standing dwarfed beside them, I felt a heady, slightly ominous thrill.

The Maeslantkering is designed to withstand the kinds of storms that are projected to happen only once every ten thousand years. So far, outside of test runs, it has been activated on just one occasion, in December of last year, during Storm Pia. But Harold van Waveren, the flood-risk-management expert at Rijkswaterstaat, told me that, if severe storms grow more frequent and the Maeslantkering stays closed for too long, the river water that would otherwise flow out to sea would have no outlet and might flood the region regardless. “We need a whole spectrum of solutions, from very small scale to large scale,” he said. The country has taken steps toward creating more capacity for water, as Olthuis envisions. The so-called Room for the River project, completed between 2006 and 2021, deepened and widened stretches of rivers at thirty locations and replaced some artificial banks with sections of wetland landscape. Still, van Waveren seemed skeptical that floating architecture was the future. “I’m not sure if it’s possible on a large scale,” he said.

Jeroen Aerts, the head of the department of Water and Climate Risk at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and one of the country’s leading environmental researchers, was even more dubious. “Will there be large floating cities? I don’t see this happening, to be honest,” he said. Living on water “is not in the culture of Dutch people,” he continued. “On average, a Dutch person, you want to have a garden, you want two floors.” Olthuis agrees, in a fashion. The biggest obstacles to large-scale waterborne construction are not technological or financial, he said, but attitudinal. A NIMBY ism can set in when you ask Dutch people to imagine a wetter way of living. “They like it, but not in their back yard,” Olthuis said. “If you ask them if their garden should be water, they say no.” He spoke with frustration about the sluggishness of Dutch bureaucracy, and its reluctance to adjust its defensive posture toward the Waterwolf. The country is “stuck in engineering solutions that we already used for the last fifty years,” he said. New ones are urgently needed, “but the politicians are not ready.” We’d ascended a hill to get a better view of the canal. Ships passed continuously through the open Maeslantkering. The Netherlands’ familiarity with flooding has created paradoxical roadblocks to floating construction, Olthuis said: “If your country is threatened by water, your legal framework doesn’t allow you to be close to it.” Piecemeal ownership of floating structures is not allowed in the Netherlands, which disincentivizes developers who might want to build and sell multiunit housing. Plus, the parcels of Dutch water that are sold for houses remain limited in size, preventing the construction of taller floating buildings, like the Waterstudio apartments in Scandinavia. “The city has to rezone this water and then allow you to build plots of a hundred by a hundred feet,” he said. “We’ve drawn the plans many times. We’re still waiting for the right city or town to approve.”

To see Waterstudio’s most ambitious completed project, I had to travel outside the Netherlands, to the French city of Lyon. The Théâtre L’Île Ô floats in the Rhone off a paved waterside promenade near the Gallieni bridge. (“Ô” is a homophone for eau , the French word for “water.”) On a winter afternoon, multi-lane roads above the riverbanks roared with cars, but compared with the bustling Dutch rivers the water on the Rhone was quiet. The theatre comprises six tilted polygons made of white steel and cut through with irregularly shaped windows. Linked to the bank by three gangways, it protrudes from the river like shards of an iceberg.

The building, which opened to the public in early 2023, is the second location of Patadôme, a local organization that hosts performances for children. But Olthuis described the theatre, more loftily, as a “global, mobile asset,” a piece of public infrastructure that, if no longer wanted in Lyon, can simply be towed down the Rhone and docked in Avignon, perhaps, or in Marseille. Its current lease lasts eighteen years, and its modular design makes it adaptable to different uses. David Lahille, Patadôme’s director of business development, managed the construction project. “Today, it is a theatre,” he told me. “Tomorrow, if we want to change it to a school, it’s easy.”

The idea for the new theatre emerged in 2018, when control over Lyon’s waterways was transferred to the French federal government and the city launched an initiative to renew the waterfront. At the time, Patadôme had been looking to build a new space, but construction of theatres on land remains strictly regulated in France, owing to an old monarchic precedent dating to Louis XIV. A theatre on the water would be exempt from that rule. “We thought about buying a ship and modifying the ship,” Lahille said. They found Waterstudio, which suggested an ambitious new construction designed from scratch.

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An ebullient Frenchman with a background in engineering, Lahille recalled that, during the team’s first meeting at Waterstudio’s office, Olthuis pulled out a box of wooden blocks, spilled them out onto a table, and asked the clients to construct a model of the river landscape. Then he had them improvise a shape for the theatre using the same blocks, which eventually inspired the whimsically geometric design. “You become a child, trying to imagine,” Lahille said. Getting the project approved, though, required bureaucratic wrangling at both the local and national level, and in the end hinged on the enthusiasm of a single official, Jean-Bastien Gambonnet, who in 2021 was promoted to lead the local River Navigation Unit within the French Ministry of Ecological Transition. Gambonnet hustled to get approval from both Lyon and Paris. The process took about a year. “Here in France, usually, it’s more than ten years,” Lahille said.

The theatre’s concrete foundation was poured five miles outside the city. The bridges over the Rhone are unusually low, so the top floor of the building had to be constructed in situ. When the floating platform was ready to be craned into the water, there was a question of whether the bank of the river was strong enough to bear the weight—fifteen hundred tons in total—so the contractors rushed to reinforce the bank in a matter of weeks, using twenty-metre-long steel piles. (Gambonnet told them that he would smooth out the paperwork after the fact.) “I said to the port owner, ‘Now you have one of the most powerful quays in France,’ ” Lahille said.

Walking into the theatre’s lobby, a visitor is surrounded from floor to ceiling by pale exposed beams of cross-laminated timber, a lightweight engineered wood. When I toured the space, a children’s production of “Animal Farm” was just letting out of the larger of two theatres, a cavernous auditorium with two hundred and forty-four stadium seats. Long strips of bamboo created wavelike patterns on the walls and ceiling, both for acoustics and to evoke the aquatic surroundings. Confetti dotted the floor, and children milled about onstage, inspecting a wooden barn. The windowless space seemed far too large to fit inside the building I’d entered, and in a sense it was: from the outside, a third of the theatre’s height is hidden beneath the river. “Right now, you are under the water,” one of the stagehands told me. He said that he could detect the building moving only when the occasional large boat passed by at high speed.

When the theatre opened, some locals complained that its modern design clashed with the city’s neoclassical stone architecture. “Very ugly,” one wrote in the comments section of a news article about the project. “Pretentious, both in substance and in form,” another wrote. Jean-Philippe Amy, the director of the Théâtre L’Île Ô, told me, “Lyon is a traditional city,” but added that the space has a way of converting visitors, especially the young ones who make up Patadôme’s target audience. Children can peek out the windows and see the current drifting by at eye level. On sunny days, reflections of the river’s rippling surface dance on the building’s façade.

This past December, the French Alps experienced a week of heavy rains. The Rhone, which ferries glacial meltwater down from the mountains, swelled with the excess precipitation. In the center of Lyon, where the Rhone meets the Saone, the current strengthened. On the night of December 12th, flooding was forecast, but the Théâtre L’Île Ô decided to forge ahead with a scheduled event hosted by the city’s Irish consulate. The water arrived sooner and more forcefully than anticipated. To enter the building, guests had to walk across a makeshift wooden bridge laid atop one of the gangways. From the first-floor windows, they watched the Rhone rush by. “You could see these trees going very fast on the flow,” Lahille recalled. He kept an eye on his phone, monitoring the river’s height, but as the land began to flood the crowd in the theatre’s underwater auditorium remained completely dry. When Lahille left, at 1 A . M ., the water on the banks reached his knees. From land, the theatre looked elevated, suspended on the swollen river. “The building survived, like a boat,” Lahille said. “It goes up and down, and it’s not a problem. The only problem is leaving it.” ♦

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FLOATING CITIES

It’s an unsinkable idea

The concept of settling the high seas is back—this time as a sustainable answer to sea-level rise, with an impressive team and UN support.

By Lucy Wang

Last April, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) convened scientists and visionaries at a high-level roundtable to discuss an ambitious, if contentious, solution to the threats of climate change—sustainable floating cities.  

The proposal, dubbed Oceanix City by Oceanix CEO Marc Collins Chen, is a scalable floating settlement designed to house 10,000 residents and generate all of its own energy and food on site.

Sound familiar? Although the idea of floating cities as an answer to rising sea levels is relatively new, the concept of settling the high seas is anything but.

Visions of marine utopias have existed for well over a century, surging in popularity during the 1960s with high-profile designs such as R. Buckminster Fuller’s Triton City and Kenzō Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan. Never realized, those ideas have long been dismissed as the stuff of science fiction.  

In 2008, American libertarian Patri Friedman, grandson of the free-market economist Milton Friedman, rebranded the concept as “seasteading” in pursuit of libertarian ideals. Along with engineer Wayne Gramlich, Friedman co-founded The Seasteading Institute (TSI), a nonprofit think tank for the promotion and creation of autonomous floating settlements in inter- national waters—where citizens would be free to experiment with new forms of government. Despite a few promising starts and a $1.7 million investment by PayPal founder Peter Thiel, however, seasteads have failed to move off dry ground.  

Oceanix floating city

Modularity is a key feature of the customizable design. Six combined modules form a “village,” while six connected “villages” add up to an Oceanix City of 10,000 residents.

Oceanix floating city growth

©OCEANIX/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

But Chen claims that Oceanix City will be different, partly because of lessons he’s learned from working with TSI. During his time as Tahiti’s minister of tourism, Collins Chen helped connect his native French Polynesia with TSI to establish a self-sufficient floating city within the territory’s Special Economic Zone and to test its viability as a climate-change solution. After both parties signed an MOU in early 2017, Collins Chen co-founded the Blue Frontiers company to develop and construct The Floating Island Project.

Mounting opposition from Tahitian locals to what appeared to be a floating tax-free haven for the wealthy, however, ended government support for the project in 2018. Borrowing elements from the failed project, Collins Chen moved on to found the floating cities company Oceanix, which he says will be free of the political baggage that sank the French Polynesian prototype.  

Unlike TSI’s autonomous libertarian utopias, Oceanix settlements will be floating extensions of host nations and subject to government rule. Most importantly, he adds, Oceanix City is being developed with a focus on egalitarian principles and environmentalism, rather than governmental reform and a bias towards the wealthy.  

Oceanix has put together an impressive team—including MIT scientists and Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group—to develop designs based on TSI’s principles of modularity and self-sufficiency. Created to withstand extreme climate events such as Superstorm Sandy, an Oceanix City comprises hexagonal modules constructed from hollow concrete caissons that buoy the “flood-proof” city upwards in the event of rising waters.  

Since the company will market the Oceanix City concept to governments worldwide, modularity is a key feature of the customizable design. Prefabricated off site, the 4.5-hectare floating platforms, which house 300 people each, can be joined together in a variety of configurations, with modules added or subtracted as needed. Six combined modules form a “village,” while six connected “villages” add up to an Oceanix City of 10,000 residents.

In reframing floating cities as a climate-change solution, Oceanix has earned support from the UN. Packed to the gills with sustainable tech—from locally grown food to water-to-energy plants, Oceanix’s floating city redesign promises zero-waste, self-sufficient living. One notable example is the unique application of Biorock to anchor the settlements while simultaneously creating artificial reefs for marine ecosystem regeneration. Developed in the late 1970s, the mineral-accretion technology uses electric currents in seawater to crystallize dissolved minerals into heavy limestone coatings that are two to three times stronger than ordinary concrete.  

Beneath the platforms are farming operations for seaweed, oysters, mussels, scallops, and clams, as well as Biorock artificial reefs for marine habitat.  ©OCEANIX/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

But Oceanix’s beautiful renderings and eco-friendly projections still bump up against looming questions that doomed past floating cities. Chief among these is technical feasibility. Although the company has cited the technology of modern floating structures such as cruise ships and aircraft carriers as proof of floating-city feasibility, the many component parts of Oceanix City, particularly the self-sustaining elements, have yet to be combined and tested on a city-sized scale.

Another question is cost. Joe Quirk, who co-founded Blue Frontiers alongside Collins Chen and serves as current TSI president, had estimated the initial costs of their ultra-modern seasteads to be on par with the most expensive real estate in the world, rivaling that of New York City and London. While Oceanix declined to share internal figures, they said affordability is a major goal.

The company’s inability to answer questions of technological feasibility and effects of economic inequality on access may be unsatisfying, but that’s precisely the reason why, they say, they’re steamrolling ahead to establish and study a working prototype as soon as possible.

Oceanix is currently in ongoing talks with over 10 cities to determine where the first prototype will be located. Collins Chen demurred on sharing which region was most likely to host an Oceanix City but noted with high confidence that an announcement will be made in the first half of 2020. Given that the company is headquartered in Hong Kong, we wager that the wealthy, land-strapped coastal cities in the South China Sea are the most likely to onboard the first prototype.

Until then, we’ll have to wait and see whether Oceanix’s good intentions will hold water and—most importantly— whether, if successful, Oceanix will be a climate-change solution that at-risk developing nations will be able to afford. Or will it be a luxury good attainable only by the rich?   

____________

Lucy Wang is a freelance writer and design editor @Inhabitat. Her work has appeared in Lawn & Landscape Magazine, Landscape Forms’ Insite, and Dwell.com.

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Cruise Ships: Floating Cities and Their Impact on Tourism and the Environment

Cruise ships have long captured the imagination of travelers worldwide, offering a unique blend of luxury, adventure, and the allure of the open sea.

These floating cities are marvels of modern engineering, providing guests with an array of amenities that rival those of the most lavish resorts on land.

From gourmet dining and Broadway-style shows to water parks and spa facilities, cruise ships offer something for everyone.

However, as the popularity of cruise vacations continues to grow, so too does the scrutiny over their impact on the destinations they visit and the environment at large.

This article seeks to explore the operational complexities of managing these massive vessels, their economic contributions to local tourism, and the challenges they pose to environmental sustainability.

Operational Marvels: Managing a Floating City

floating cities cruise ships

The logistics involved in operating a cruise ship are nothing short of staggering.

Every aspect of the ship’s operations, from food service and waste management to entertainment and guest accommodations, requires meticulous planning and coordination.

Cruise lines must also navigate the logistical challenges of docking at various ports, where they must unload and reload passengers, resupply for the journey ahead, and manage the logistics of shore excursions.

The coordination of these activities is a testament to the industry’s efficiency and the dedication of the crew members who work tirelessly to ensure a seamless experience for passengers.

Economic Impact: Boosting Local Tourism

Cruise ships are significant contributors to the economies of the ports they visit. The influx of tourists can provide a substantial boost to local businesses, including restaurants, shops, and tour operators.

Many destinations have developed infrastructure and services specifically catering to cruise ship visitors, helping to create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

However, this reliance on cruise tourism also raises questions about sustainability and the capacity of destinations to handle large numbers of visitors, highlighting the need for responsible tourism practices that benefit both the travelers and the host communities.

Navigating Environmental Challenges

floating cities cruise ships

The environmental impact of cruise ships has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years.

Concerns include air and water pollution , waste management, and the effect of large numbers of tourists on delicate ecosystems and historic sites.

In response, the cruise industry has begun to adopt more sustainable practices, such as investing in cleaner fuel technologies, implementing advanced wastewater treatment systems, and developing more eco-friendly shore excursions.

Despite these efforts, there is an ongoing debate about the adequacy of these measures and the need for stricter regulations to protect the environment and ensure the sustainability of cruise tourism.

The Future of Cruising: Innovation and Sustainability

As cruise lines look to the future, innovation and sustainability are at the forefront of their planning. New ships are being designed with environmental considerations in mind, featuring more energy-efficient systems and reduced emissions.

Additionally, the industry is exploring alternative fuels, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), and technologies like shore power , which allows ships to plug into local electrical grids while docked, reducing the need for onboard generators.

These advancements, along with efforts to engage in responsible tourism practices, are crucial steps toward mitigating the environmental impact of cruising and ensuring its viability as a popular travel option for generations to come.

Enhancing Guest Experience Through Technology and Innovation

floating cities cruise ships

Cruise lines are continuously seeking ways to enhance the guest experience through technology and innovation.

From virtual reality experiences that simulate adventurous excursions to mobile apps that allow passengers to customize their itineraries, technology is reshaping the cruise experience.

RFID wristbands, for example, serve as room keys, payment methods, and a way to track passenger locations for safety. Such innovations not only improve convenience and enjoyment for guests but also streamline operations, making the management of these floating cities more efficient.

The Role of Port Agencies in the Caribbean Region

In the Caribbean, a region synonymous with cruise vacations, port agencies play a pivotal role in the seamless operation of cruise visits. These agencies act as the crucial link between the cruise ships, port authorities, and local service providers.

They handle the logistical challenges of berth allocation, ensure compliance with local laws and regulations, and coordinate the provisioning of ships with fuel, water, and supplies.

Moreover, port agencies in the Caribbean are instrumental in organizing shore excursions, offering passengers a taste of the local culture, natural beauty, and adventure activities, while also ensuring that these activities are sustainable and beneficial to local communities.

Striking a Balance: Cruise Tourism and Local Economies

floating cities cruise ships

While cruise tourism brings significant economic benefits to the Caribbean and other destinations, there’s an increasing focus on striking a balance between welcoming tourists and preserving the local way of life and environment.

Issues such as overcrowding, strain on local infrastructure, and cultural dilution are prompting destinations and cruise lines to work together towards sustainable tourism models.

Initiatives may include limiting the number of ships in port at any one time, developing alternative attractions to disperse visitors, and investing in community projects that support local economies without compromising their cultural integrity or environmental sustainability.

Towards Greener Seas: Environmental Initiatives in the Cruise Industry

Acknowledging the need to protect the oceans and destinations that make cruising so appealing, the industry is taking strides towards greener operations.

Beyond the adoption of cleaner fuels and advanced waste treatment facilities, cruise lines are participating in research and conservation efforts aimed at preserving marine ecosystems.

Collaborations with environmental organizations and participation in global sustainability initiatives reflect a growing commitment to environmental stewardship.

These efforts are crucial in ensuring that the beauty and diversity of cruise destinations remain intact for future generations to explore.

Cruise ships, the majestic floating cities of the sea, offer an unparalleled blend of excitement, relaxation, and discovery.

As they navigate the pristine waters of the Caribbean and beyond, the role of port agencies, the drive for innovation, and the commitment to sustainable tourism and environmental stewardship are more important than ever.

By embracing technology, forging strong partnerships with destinations, and prioritizing green initiatives, the cruise industry is poised to continue its journey of offering memorable vacations that are both enjoyable and responsible.

The future of cruising is bright, with each voyage bringing us closer to a harmonious balance between exploring the world and preserving its wonders.

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What Are The Classes Of Cruise Ships

Published: December 16, 2023

Modified: December 28, 2023

by Brana Dear

what-are-the-classes-of-cruise-ships

Introduction

Cruise ships offer a unique and exciting way to explore the world’s oceans and waterways. Whether you’re looking for a relaxing vacation or an adventure-packed journey, there’s a cruise ship that suits your preferences. From small and intimate vessels to massive floating cities, cruise ships come in various classes, each offering a distinct experience for travelers.

Embarking on a cruise ship is like entering a world of luxury, comfort, and endless possibilities. You can unwind by the pool, enjoy world-class entertainment, indulge in gourmet dining, and explore stunning destinations along the way. But before you set sail, it’s essential to understand the different classes of cruise ships and what they have to offer.

Each class of cruise ship caters to specific needs and preferences. Whether you prefer a more intimate experience or a bustling, action-packed atmosphere, there’s a ship that will suit your style. Let’s take a closer look at the various classes of cruise ships to help you find the perfect match for your next adventure.

Small Cruise Ships

Small cruise ships are ideal for travelers looking for a more intimate and personalized experience. These ships typically accommodate fewer than 500 passengers, allowing for a relaxed and close-knit atmosphere on board. With fewer guests, you can expect exceptional service and attention to detail.

Small cruise ships often have a boutique feel, with elegant décor, spacious cabins, and a focus on luxury. These vessels can navigate smaller ports and remote destinations that larger ships cannot access, providing a unique opportunity to explore off-the-beaten-path locations.

Onboard facilities may include gourmet restaurants, cozy lounges, spa and wellness centers, and enrichment programs such as informative lectures and workshops. While small ships may not have the same extensive range of activities as larger vessels, they make up for it with their intimate ambiance and personalized experiences.

Destinations for small ships can vary widely, ranging from coastal and river cruises to expedition voyages. Coastal cruises offer the chance to explore picturesque towns and cities along scenic coastlines, while river cruises take you through scenic rivers and canals, offering a unique perspective on the land. Expedition cruises, on the other hand, focus on adventurous itineraries, taking you to remote areas such as the Arctic, Antarctica, Galapagos Islands, or the Amazon Rainforest.

Small cruise ships are a popular choice for travelers who value service, intimate ambiance, and unique itineraries. They offer a more personalized experience and the opportunity to explore lesser-known destinations. If you prefer a laid-back atmosphere and appreciate attention to detail, a small cruise ship might be the perfect choice for your next vacation.

Midsize Cruise Ships

Midsize cruise ships strike the perfect balance between intimacy and onboard amenities. These ships typically accommodate between 500 and 2,000 passengers, offering a wider range of facilities and entertainment options while still maintaining a more intimate atmosphere compared to larger vessels.

One of the advantages of midsize cruise ships is their versatility in terms of destinations. They can navigate both popular and lesser-known ports, allowing passengers to explore a variety of destinations. Whether you’re dreaming of exploring the pristine beaches of the Caribbean or discovering the cultural delights of Europe, midsize ships offer a wide range of itineraries to satisfy your wanderlust.

Onboard, you’ll find a plethora of amenities and activities to keep you entertained. From multiple dining options serving gourmet cuisine to Broadway-style performances and live music, there’s always something to suit your taste. You can relax by the pool, indulge in spa treatments, workout in state-of-the-art fitness centers, or participate in enrichment programs like cooking classes or language lessons.

Midsize ships often feature spacious cabins with balconies, allowing guests to enjoy stunning ocean views and fresh sea breezes. The elegant decor and attention to detail create a luxurious and comfortable ambiance throughout the ship.

In terms of entertainment, midsize cruise ships often have options for both adults and families. You’ll find dedicated areas for children and teenagers, offering engaging activities and supervised programs to keep younger guests entertained. Adults can enjoy casinos, bars, and lounges, as well as a variety of themed parties and events.

Midsize cruise ships are a fantastic choice for those seeking a balance between a vibrant onboard atmosphere and the opportunity to explore diverse destinations. With a wide range of amenities, entertainment options, and itineraries, these ships offer something for everyone.

Large Cruise Ships

Large cruise ships are known for their grandeur and extensive array of amenities and activities. These floating cities can accommodate thousands of passengers and offer a wide range of entertainment options that cater to diverse interests and preferences.

One of the main advantages of large cruise ships is the sheer variety of onboard facilities. From multiple dining venues serving international cuisine to lavish theaters hosting Broadway-style shows, you’ll never be short of options for indulgence and entertainment. These ships often feature shopping arcades, casinos, water parks, fitness centers, spas, sports courts, and even ice skating rinks or rock climbing walls.

Onboard, you can immerse yourself in a world of fun and excitement. Enjoy live music performances, comedy shows, art auctions, or film screenings. Take part in fitness classes, dance lessons, or cooking demonstrations. With so much happening on board, there’s never a dull moment.

Large cruise ships also offer a wide range of cabin choices, from cozy interior rooms to spacious suites with private balconies. These cabins are designed to provide maximum comfort and convenience, with modern amenities and luxurious furnishings.

When it comes to destinations, large cruise ships usually follow popular routes and visit well-known port cities. They offer access to iconic destinations such as the Caribbean, Mediterranean, or Alaska, giving passengers the chance to explore famous landmarks and immerse themselves in different cultures.

It’s important to note that large cruise ships can sometimes feel crowded, especially during peak travel seasons or when sailing at maximum capacity. However, with many onboard activities and venues to choose from, you can always find your own space to relax and unwind.

Large cruise ships are a great choice for travelers seeking a wide range of amenities, entertainment options, and a bustling onboard atmosphere. If you thrive in dynamic environments and enjoy being surrounded by a diverse and lively crowd, a large cruise ship will provide the ultimate experience.

Mega Cruise Ships

Mega cruise ships are the epitome of luxury and extravagance on the high seas. These massive vessels can accommodate thousands of passengers and offer an unparalleled range of amenities and onboard experiences.

One of the main highlights of mega cruise ships is their sheer size. These floating resorts are like small cities, with multiple decks and a vast array of facilities and attractions. You’ll find grand atriums, multiple swimming pools, water parks with thrilling slides, and luxurious spa complexes offering a wide range of treatments.

When it comes to dining, mega cruise ships are a food lover’s paradise. These ships typically feature a multitude of specialty restaurants, each offering a unique culinary experience. From gourmet steakhouses to international cuisine, there’s something to suit every palate. You can also enjoy casual dining options, buffet-style eateries, and 24-hour room service.

Entertainment options on mega cruise ships are nothing short of extraordinary. You can attend mesmerizing Broadway-style productions, watch live music performances, and enjoy world-class comedians and magicians. There are also nightclubs, casinos, and bars where you can dance the night away or sip a refreshing cocktail.

Cabins on mega cruise ships range from comfortable interior rooms to extravagant suites with private balconies, jacuzzis, and personal butler service. These spacious and elegantly furnished accommodations provide a luxurious retreat after a day of exploring the onboard activities and shore excursions.

Due to their size, mega cruise ships are equipped with advanced technologies to ensure a smooth and comfortable voyage. These ships offer stability, minimizing the effects of rough seas, and provide a plethora of amenities to entertain and pamper passengers during their journey.

It’s important to note that mega cruise ships can be bustling and lively, making them ideal for travelers who thrive in vibrant atmospheres. If you enjoy the excitement of a large-scale floating resort and the opportunity to indulge in a wide range of amenities and entertainment options, a mega cruise ship will fulfill your desires for a truly unforgettable vacation.

Expedition Cruise Ships

Expedition cruise ships offer a unique and adventurous way to explore remote and rugged destinations. These specialized vessels are designed to navigate through challenging waters and take passengers to some of the most pristine and untouched corners of the world.

One of the main features of expedition cruise ships is their focus on providing immersive and educational experiences. Expert naturalists, scientists, and historians often accompany these cruises to provide informative lectures and lead guided excursions, allowing passengers to gain a deeper understanding of the destinations they visit.

Expedition cruises often venture to remote areas such as the Arctic, Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, or the Amazon Rainforest. These regions are rich in wildlife and offer breathtaking natural beauty. Passengers can witness the majesty of polar bears roaming the Arctic ice, observe penguins in their natural habitat, encounter unique species in the Galapagos, or navigate through dense rainforest in search of rare wildlife.

Onboard, expedition ships tend to focus on functionality and comfort. While they may not have the extensive range of amenities found on larger vessels, they provide essential facilities, comfortable cabins, and cozy common areas. The emphasis is on providing a base for exploration and creating a sense of camaraderie among passengers, who often share a passion for adventure and discovery.

These smaller ships allow for more intimate and immersive experiences. Zodiac boats are often used for excursions, allowing passengers to get up close to wildlife, explore remote coves, and land on secluded islands. The flexibility of these ships enables them to reach places inaccessible to larger vessels, making each expedition cruise a unique and unforgettable journey.

Expedition cruises are ideal for travelers who have a thirst for adventure and a keen interest in the natural world. If you dream of exploring the Earth’s most remote and untouched regions, encountering unique wildlife, and gaining a deeper understanding of our planet’s ecosystems, an expedition cruise is the perfect choice for you.

River Cruise Ships

River cruise ships offer a unique and leisurely way to explore the world’s most enchanting rivers and waterways. These specialized vessels are designed to navigate narrow water bodies and provide a more intimate and immersive experience for passengers.

One of the main advantages of river cruises is the opportunity to visit picturesque towns and cities that are inaccessible to larger ocean liners. From the iconic Danube River in Europe to the exotic Mekong River in Southeast Asia, river cruise ships take you through stunning landscapes, past historic landmarks, and into the heart of charming destinations.

Onboard a river cruise ship, you’ll find a cozy and intimate atmosphere. These ships are smaller in size and typically accommodate around 100 to 200 passengers, creating a more relaxed and personal vibe. The cabins are often designed with large windows or balconies, allowing you to admire the picturesque scenery as you sail along.

While the amenities and activities on river cruise ships may not be as extensive as those on larger ocean liners, you can still expect a comfortable and enjoyable experience. Gourmet dining options, cozy lounges, fitness centers, and panoramic observation decks are common features. Onboard enrichment activities may include cultural presentations, cooking classes, and wine tastings, giving you a deeper understanding of the regions you’re exploring.

One of the highlights of river cruises is the ability to easily step off the ship and explore the destinations along the way. Guided shore excursions are often included in the cruise package, providing you with the opportunity to visit iconic landmarks, immerse yourself in local culture, and interact with local communities.

River cruises are a popular choice for travelers who appreciate a slower pace of travel and an intimate connection with the destinations they visit. If you enjoy breathtaking scenery, historical charm, and the ease of stepping ashore to explore, a river cruise is an excellent choice for your next vacation.

Choosing the right class of cruise ship can greatly enhance your vacation experience. Whether you prefer a small and intimate setting, a midsize ship with a balance of amenities, a large vessel with a bustling atmosphere, a mega cruise ship offering luxury and extravagance, an expedition ship for adventurous exploration, or a river cruise ship for a leisurely journey along picturesque waterways, there’s a ship out there that suits your preferences.

Small cruise ships offer personalized service and the opportunity to visit off-the-beaten-path destinations, while midsize ships provide a wide range of amenities and versatile itineraries. Large cruise ships offer a vibrant and bustling atmosphere with endless entertainment options, and mega cruise ships take luxury to new heights, offering a multitude of activities and facilities. Expedition cruise ships allow for immersive exploration of remote and exotic locations, and river cruise ships provide a leisurely and intimate experience along scenic rivers.

When choosing a cruise ship class, consider your travel preferences, budget, desired destinations, and the onboard experience you’re seeking. Each class has its unique advantages, and by selecting the right ship, you’ll embark on a memorable journey that aligns perfectly with your interests.

So, whether you want to relax by the pool on a small ship, indulge in world-class entertainment on a mega ship, or explore remote locations on an expedition vessel, there’s a cruise ship waiting to take you on an unforgettable voyage. Bon voyage!

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Photos show why cities around the world are limiting cruise ships — from Barcelona to Key West

  • The Port of Barcelona shut down cruise operations at one of the city's major terminals in October. 
  • Several major European cities and US ports have placed limits on cruise tourism in recent years. 
  • From air pollution to overcrowding, these photos shed light on why local residents are concerned.

Insider Today

On October 2, the Port of Barcelona hosted a "farewell ceremony" to bid ado to the last cruise ship to dock at a major downtown terminal, marking the first phase of the city's multi-year plan to move cruise operations away from residential areas.

Similar scenes have played out around the world in recent years, as major European cities and US ports place limits on cruise ships to combat overcrowding and pollution .

When the cruise industry shut down during the pandemic, coastal communities had a taste of life without mega ships looming over their shores. In the years since, ports in Amsterdam, Venice, Maine, Florida, California, and Alaska have all moved to restrict cruise tourism.

But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Take a look at these striking photos and see for yourself why more cities are saying no to cruise ships.

The Cruise Lines International Association, a trade group representing the cruise industry, did not respond to a request for comment.

Modern cruise ships are so big that they're known as "floating cities."

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Insider

The Wonder of the Seas, the largest cruise ship currently in service, can hold about 7,000 passengers.

floating cities cruise ships

But it won't hold that title for much longer — Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas, launching in 2024, will be even more massive.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Insider , The New York Times

Now imagine all those passengers arriving in a city all at once.

floating cities cruise ships

The increasingly large ships can take a toll on infrastructure that isn't built to withstand their sheer size, let alone that many people.

floating cities cruise ships

In 2019, the MSC Opera cruise ship crashed into a dock in Venice's Giudecca canal, prompting local protests. Two years later, Italy banned large ships from entering the lagoon.

floating cities cruise ships

The largest cruise ships can carry up to 7,000 passengers who then disembark all at once. This can overwhelm smaller ports like Key West, an island in Florida with 26,000 residents.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Insider , Insider , US Census

Officials say this influx of short-term visitors can exacerbate issues of over-tourism, especially as Europe faces a record number of travelers this summer.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Insider, Bloomberg

Politicians in Barcelona and Amsterdam have compared cruise tourists with a "plague of locusts" who descend in hordes and overwhelm public spaces.

floating cities cruise ships

Sources: BBC , The Guardian

"Cruise ships in the center of the city don't fit in with Amsterdam's task of cutting the number of tourists," Ilana Rooderkerk, the leader of the liberal D66 party, said in July.

floating cities cruise ships

Cruise visitors often leave as quickly as they arrive. Studies have found conflicting results when calculating how much cruise tourists contribute to local economies.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Stand.earth , CLIA

After a year without cruise ships, the Florida Keys still had "the strongest economy in the state of Florida," research by Key West's Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships found.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Safer, Cleaner Ships

But some store owners rely on cruise tourism. Bar Harbor, Maine, was sued by local businesses after the Maine town capped cruise visitors to 1,000 per day.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: The Portland Press Herald

Cruise lines have also been accused of insensitivity toward native cultures, with some experts arguing that cruises don't give travelers enough time to interact with and experience local culture.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: The Washington Post , The Islands of Tahiti , Ocean Panel

And then there are the environmental costs to consider.

floating cities cruise ships

As cruise lines figure out how to transition to sustainable energy, their fuel consumption leaves behind a hefty carbon footprint.

floating cities cruise ships

Carbon-dioxide emissions from cruise ships visiting European ports in 2022 were the equivalent of 50,000 flights from Paris and New York, according to the European Federation for Transport and Environment.

floating cities cruise ships

Ports are also concerned about air pollution: The same study found that the 63 cruise ships owned by Carnival released more toxic sulfur gasses than the cars in Europe.

floating cities cruise ships

The massive vessels also threaten fragile marine ecosystems, including Key West's barrier reef, an area of "critical concern," according to Safer, Cleaner Ships.

floating cities cruise ships

And ship strikes, which aren't limited to cruise vessels, kill more than 20,000 whales every year, according to the non-profit Friend of the Sea.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Friend of the Sea

Earlier in October, members of the anti-cruise collective dressed as polar bears and walruses confronted guests disembarking the World Traveller cruise ship in Douarnenez, a small town in Brittany, France.

floating cities cruise ships

But as communities and local governments rethink their relationships with cruise lines, cruise ships remain a popular, affordable way to travel — with some companies seeing record success.

floating cities cruise ships

Source: Insider , Reuters

floating cities cruise ships

  • Main content

YaleGlobal Online

Climate action: sustainable floating cities.

floating cities cruise ships

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS: Unconventional and seemingly extreme responses to climate change, related sea-level rise, and floods are gaining considerable attention, with the goals of creating adaptable homes and reducing mass migration.  

In April, the United Nations hosted a high-level roundtable on “sustainable floating cities” in New York City, and Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed requested advanced proposals for September’s UN Climate Action Summit. Ocean engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with architectural firms and organizations with ties to Denmark, French Polynesia and the United States, are drafting designs for such a “sustainable floating city” with a low ecological footprint. Of particular interest is a large floating structure’s resilience to floods and sea-level rise for many coastal cities, settlements near river deltas, and islands in Oceania and elsewhere in the world.

The plan is less eccentric than it might initially sound. Several thousand offshore oil platforms with living quarters and cruise ships have operated in the world’s oceans for decades. The yet undefined term “floating city” can refer to a variety of large floating structures that could be combined. Inspired by oil platforms, a free-market libertarian US-Thai couple built a small, offshore floating homestead off Phuket in Thailand earlier this year. Weeks later, the Thai navy ended that attempt to escape state control. In 2018, Russia launched a floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov . China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation constructed the first, semi-submersible fish farm, Ocean Farm 1 , for a Norwegian company, SalMar, raising 1.5 million salmon several miles off the Norwegian coast.

These examples of mass producible floating industrial structures suggest that technology is not the challenge but rather globalization and the future of the ocean commons as well as sustainability, waste, legal issues, funding and business models.

Climate change, or rather its consequences, is not a really new element in the cost-benefit calculations. During the 1960s and 1970s, a small number of plans and prototypes for floating communities were released, and such analyses addressed temporary or permanent relocation of people, promotion of energy alternatives to carbon fuels, increased food production, and a state’s extension of judicial control over such offshore facilities. US and Japanese governmental agencies and designers wrestled with what is actually considered cost or benefit in their calculations related, for example, to cheap prices of air pollution-causing carbon fuels and aesthetic versus structurally efficient designs.

The UN roundtable panelists are in a quest for a sustainable floating city as a tool for climate action and resilient refuge. The goal is for permanent settlements rather than temporary fixes. A modular design is expected to allow growth in capacity and capability over time, similar to the growth of onshore cities over time. Design and flexibility will determine whether floating refuges turn into permanent settlements with reasonable living standards or slums, reminiscent of longstanding refugee camps intended as temporary solutions.

NASA satellite images document rising seas at the rate of 3.3 millimeters per year

Inevitably, a floating city will be a centrally planned megastructure and, similar to an aircraft carrier, difficult to restructure. Aware of the problem, designers since the 1970s have argued for a plug-in system of mobile and rearrangeable trapezoid- or hexagonal-shaped floating modules, as advocated at the UN roundtable, to allow flexibility. For many, this recalls the rapid “urban renewal” development around the world during the mid-20 th century. In neglecting actual human needs, the central planning and cost-benefit calculations easily led to dystopian spaces. Critics of urban-renewal projects during the 1960s, like journalist-activist Jane Jacobs, but also prominent architects, such as Christopher Alexander, pointed out that such planning and calculation failures resulted in residential spaces that were artificially separated from commercial or recreational spaces, isolating communities at night, and exacerbating crime and transportation problems.

As a reaction to urban projects in coastal cities, US designer Buckminster Fuller and his associates proposed Triton City , a floating community for unused harbor space, and released a study in 1968. That design still featured concepts that had been attacked by critics, likely because even a modular megastructure limited its flexibility: commercial and recreational space was prearranged with shops, restaurants and supermarkets in specific locations, again reducing pedestrian traffic in residential parts after daylight hours. To address crime, Triton City was proposed as a gated community, featuring guarded access points like a cruise ship. Designers must consider how choices add to social and economic problems if they aspire to offer more than dystopian, temporary solutions.

Fuller’s idea received noteworthy criticism from Gaylord Nelson, best known as the founder of Earth Day. In October 1969, this Democratic senator from Wisconsin and staunch environmentalist warned that within one decade unchecked human commercial enterprises might kill off most ocean life, and he pointed to the disastrous Santa Barbara offshore oil spill that had taken place that year. He also saw floating cities as another major threat, expressing concern that such structures could be located beyond US territorial waters – meaning that federal laws on conservation would not be applicable. The global proclamation of contiguous and exclusive economic zones ended such concerns of insufficient state control.

Enforcement of a legal framework is essential for sustainability. The Thai Navy ending the free-market libertarian experiment off Phuket illustrates that states capable of enforcing judicial control over their marine regions will do so – although this does not say anything about their offshore conservation standards. Monitoring the activities of fixed floating structures is, technically and legally, easier than monitoring transit vessels like cruise ships. Other free-market libertarian groups like the San Francisco–based Seasteading Institute therefore do not expect to escape state control without negotiations. The group focuses on building a startup floating city through private investments, without funding from the host state. In exchange, they ask for private judicial control over a special economic zone harboring the community, placing it outside the state’s tax and penal systems.

Reaching true sustainability is a related challenge. The international community, first and foremost UN agencies for now, must discuss the legal framework under which a sustainable floating city would operate as well as financing. In countries that cannot afford the funding, the choice would be between development assistance, private investment capital – with or without privately or publicly administered special economic zones – or a combination. The related legal framework must define the sustainability of economic activities, for example related to the use of huge amounts of cooling water. Regulators must consider if offshore server farms, zero-carbon nuclear power plants or waste incinerators comply. The same question is related to other economic activities like tourism.

Many structures struggle for sustainability. At the UN roundtable, participants advocated for a combination of renewable energies; hydroponics, or growing plants in a water solvent; and ocean farming. Yet, many business models of mariculture are unsustainable. For offshore wind turbines and other renewables such as solar, technical challenges like energy storage for times with low winds or night hours, may possibly be overcome via a kind of pumped hydroelectric energy storage using ocean water. In some cases, high costs for connecting to energy grids remain.

For now, floating structures are individual sites tasked with specific industrial or commercial purposes. They do not try to fully emulate cities with their intricate systems of cooperation, culture and justice around a range of vibrant activities. Supporting further research on ocean-related sustainable economic practices and on affordable, flood-resilient housing would be valuable as the United Nations considers sustainable floating cities as climate action in September – even individually, these would reduce the human impact on oceanic ecosystems and assist people living in flood-prone regions.

Stefan Huebner is a Social Science Research Council–funded Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center and a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. He is finishing a global history of ocean industrialization and colonization projects since the early 20 th century.

Nature: Ocean Circulation Is Changing

Health of oceans “declining fast”, effect of climate change on oceans gaining attention, unwanted migration: how governments cope, tough question in climate change: who gets saved.

That's Viral Now

That's Viral Now

Cruise Ship Facts That Are Rarely Talked About

Posted: December 14, 2023 | Last updated: December 14, 2023

For some people, cruises are the ultimate getaway when planning their travels. They are a floating ecosystem and it's almost like being in a whole new world where everything you might need is located all in one place. But they also come with their own set of rules and realities. Whether you're a luxury cruise line expert or a novice thinking about taking your first trip, you'll want to know these cruise secrets before hopping on board. From secret amenities to things crew members know but never tell the guests, these fun facts will shed new light on the whole experience.

A Morgue Lurks Within Every Cruise Ship

Cruises are supposed to be about letting loose and having fun but there is often a dark side to cruises that passengers don't really see. Because a large portion of cruise goers usually tend to be older it's actually not uncommon for people to pass away while on ship.

One former crew estimated that around three people pass away every month on a cruise. Due to this, all cruise ships are required to have a morgue on board and usually has room for around three to six bodies.

<p>The requirement that crew members be as hospitable and nice as possible to passengers, they don't usually get a chance to say everything they'd like to say. For this reason, cruise ships keep a log where they write down everything that happens while on a trip. These logs keep everything from something as big as a fire or injury to something as minimal as a comment a guest made.</p><p>It sounds weird but all of that information helps an incoming crew best prepare and spot potential hazards and how to manage them best. This log can also be used as a venting outlet for crew.</p>

It Might Sound Creepy but Crew Members Keep Record of Everything That Guests Do

The requirement that crew members be as hospitable and nice as possible to passengers, they don't usually get a chance to say everything they'd like to say. For this reason, cruise ships keep a log where they write down everything that happens while on a trip. These logs keep everything from something as big as a fire or injury to something as minimal as a comment a guest made.

It sounds weird but all of that information helps an incoming crew best prepare and spot potential hazards and how to manage them best. This log can also be used as a venting outlet for crew.

<p>If you have ever seen pictures from a cruise you will have noted that the pools are often the most crowded areas on the ship. Even though the ship is floating on water, people just gravitate toward the pools anyway. It turns out that most cruise ships have "secret" pools reserved for their staff only. Because these pools are dedicated to staff they are often much less crowded.</p><p>Guests can however be invited and of course, a guest would have to make quite the impression on the crew in order to be invited to the secret pool. The invite is actually harder to secure than you would think, considering some of the rules on board.</p>

The Eerie Hidden Pools of Cruise Ships

If you have ever seen pictures from a cruise you will have noted that the pools are often the most crowded areas on the ship. Even though the ship is floating on water, people just gravitate toward the pools anyway. It turns out that most cruise ships have "secret" pools reserved for their staff only. Because these pools are dedicated to staff they are often much less crowded.

Guests can however be invited and of course, a guest would have to make quite the impression on the crew in order to be invited to the secret pool. The invite is actually harder to secure than you would think, considering some of the rules on board.

<p>Passenger safety on board is paramount and maintaining that safety is not an easy task. Crew are sometimes forced to speak in code, so they don't incite panic while still being able to act quickly during an emergency. Some of these codes are used for dealing with medical emergencies, reacting to a fire, or responding if someone falls overboard. If you ever wondered about what code word is usually used for someone falling overboard, then it's "oscar."</p><p>This really makes a lot of sense since the last thing you really want is to terrify your passengers or cause a panic making it harder to do your job.</p>

The Crew Speaks in Code to Keep Guests in the Dark

Passenger safety on board is paramount and maintaining that safety is not an easy task. Crew are sometimes forced to speak in code, so they don't incite panic while still being able to act quickly during an emergency. Some of these codes are used for dealing with medical emergencies, reacting to a fire, or responding if someone falls overboard. If you ever wondered about what code word is usually used for someone falling overboard, then it's "oscar."

This really makes a lot of sense since the last thing you really want is to terrify your passengers or cause a panic making it harder to do your job.

<p>Many cruise ships have casinos on board, and since most of the time you are traveling through international waters, it's completely legal. This also means that the cruise ship isn't necessarily subject to a single area's laws concerning gambling. The rules onboard will occasionally change depending on whatever country is closest.</p><p>Cruise ships might switch up the number of decks they use for blackjack, etc. and your odds of winning can change dramatically depending on where you are. Just be aware that the rules governing their games aren't set in stone, and can change.</p>

Gambling Rules on Board Aren't as Legal as You Think

Many cruise ships have casinos on board, and since most of the time you are traveling through international waters, it's completely legal. This also means that the cruise ship isn't necessarily subject to a single area's laws concerning gambling. The rules onboard will occasionally change depending on whatever country is closest.

Cruise ships might switch up the number of decks they use for blackjack, etc. and your odds of winning can change dramatically depending on where you are. Just be aware that the rules governing their games aren't set in stone, and can change.

<p>The buck stops with the Captain at all times while on board which is a fantastic system when it works, and it typically does. It makes sense that one person with experience should calling the shots during an emergency. The last thing you would want is two or more people wasting time arguing over a decision in a crisis. That being said, even captains make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes can be disastrous for a ship or its passengers.</p><p>It's not often that it happens which is why when it does it usually makes headlines. A few cruise ships have even been sunk due to a captain's decisions.</p>

Even Cruise Ships Are Vulnerable to Mysterious Accidents

The buck stops with the Captain at all times while on board which is a fantastic system when it works, and it typically does. It makes sense that one person with experience should calling the shots during an emergency. The last thing you would want is two or more people wasting time arguing over a decision in a crisis. That being said, even captains make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes can be disastrous for a ship or its passengers.

It's not often that it happens which is why when it does it usually makes headlines. A few cruise ships have even been sunk due to a captain's decisions.

<p>Strange things happen while at sea, and one of those things is when people go missing. It sounds weird but people really do go missing on ships. Approximately 165 people reportedly went missing while on a cruise from 1995 to 2011.</p><p>There is speculation that the number is possibly higher. This is separate from passengers that fall overboard. We're talking about people who have just disappeared without a trace and were never seen again.</p>

Sometimes Passengers Go Missing at Sea

Strange things happen while at sea, and one of those things is when people go missing. It sounds weird but people really do go missing on ships. Approximately 165 people reportedly went missing while on a cruise from 1995 to 2011.

There is speculation that the number is possibly higher. This is separate from passengers that fall overboard. We're talking about people who have just disappeared without a trace and were never seen again.

<p>On occasion you will hear about pirates taking over cargo ships or something like that but you don't often hear about cruise ships being boarded. Still, it does happen, and because of that the crew is trained for it.</p><p>In 2005 a cruise ship was targeted, and the crew used some kind of acoustic weapon to assault the pirates' eardrums. The attack was thwarted, and everyone on board went about enjoying their vacations.</p>

"I'm the Captain Now" - There's a Risk of Pirates Coming Onboard

On occasion you will hear about pirates taking over cargo ships or something like that but you don't often hear about cruise ships being boarded. Still, it does happen, and because of that the crew is trained for it.

In 2005 a cruise ship was targeted, and the crew used some kind of acoustic weapon to assault the pirates' eardrums. The attack was thwarted, and everyone on board went about enjoying their vacations.

<p>Where there are often hookups between crew members, they are strictly forbidden to fraternize with passengers while on board. This rule is mainly in place to protect the crew from being accused of anything inappropriate but it is also to protect the cruise company from being sued by a passenger.</p><p>The cruise company will have a much easier time cleaning up in-house than it would feilding a public lawsuit with a passenger.</p>

No Fraternization With Guests

Where there are often hookups between crew members, they are strictly forbidden to fraternize with passengers while on board. This rule is mainly in place to protect the crew from being accused of anything inappropriate but it is also to protect the cruise company from being sued by a passenger.

The cruise company will have a much easier time cleaning up in-house than it would feilding a public lawsuit with a passenger.

<p>You have surely heard of the brig before but did you know there is one on a cruise ship and you don't have to be military to be thrown in it. It's a sort of jail cell on a ship, and it's reserved for passengers that break the law' get a bit too rowdy or in any way threaten the safety of other passengers or crew.</p><p>There is no judge or jury on a ship so if you're thrown in the brig, you'll most likely spend the rest of your vacation there or until the ship makes port and can offload you to the authorities. Sometimes this leaves you in a different country than the one you sailed from.</p>

You're Under Arrest

You have surely heard of the brig before but did you know there is one on a cruise ship and you don't have to be military to be thrown in it. It's a sort of jail cell on a ship, and it's reserved for passengers that break the law' get a bit too rowdy or in any way threaten the safety of other passengers or crew.

There is no judge or jury on a ship so if you're thrown in the brig, you'll most likely spend the rest of your vacation there or until the ship makes port and can offload you to the authorities. Sometimes this leaves you in a different country than the one you sailed from.

<p>It's never good when someone goes overboard but on a cruise ship it can be especially complicated to initiate a rescue. If a passenger goes overboard during a cruise, you may see crew members throwing stuff over the side in order to mark where they are in the water.</p><p>There aren't any landmarks in the ocean, meaning your brain doesn't have anything to refer to when trying to locate an overboard passenger from the top of a very high cruise ship.</p>

Rescuing Passengers Who Went Overboard Is Complicated

It's never good when someone goes overboard but on a cruise ship it can be especially complicated to initiate a rescue. If a passenger goes overboard during a cruise, you may see crew members throwing stuff over the side in order to mark where they are in the water.

There aren't any landmarks in the ocean, meaning your brain doesn't have anything to refer to when trying to locate an overboard passenger from the top of a very high cruise ship.

<p>If you have ever noticed your crew is especially happy or chatty it may be because they have had a couple of drinks themselves. Crew members get great discounts on alcohol and although most cruise lines say they randomly test their employees to ensure that they're not drinking while on the job, they still manage to sneak a few drinks here and there.</p><p>According to former crew members, it happens more than from time to time. Some former crew members have also come out and said that drinking among crew members is much more common than some cruise companies would have their passengers believe.</p>

Crew Members Are Drinking All Day on Cruises

If you have ever noticed your crew is especially happy or chatty it may be because they have had a couple of drinks themselves. Crew members get great discounts on alcohol and although most cruise lines say they randomly test their employees to ensure that they're not drinking while on the job, they still manage to sneak a few drinks here and there.

According to former crew members, it happens more than from time to time. Some former crew members have also come out and said that drinking among crew members is much more common than some cruise companies would have their passengers believe.

<p>We all heard about outbreaks onboard cruise ships curing the 2020 pandemic. They got big news coverage as essentially floating petri dishes. Due to thousands of people situated together in a tight space the outbreaks seem to spread faster.</p><p>Even before the pandemic there were plenty of outbreaks. For example in 2014, around eight cruise ships and many of their passengers were hit with the norovirus. As a result there have been strict procedures and rules to limit the spread of sickness during an outbreak but the risk is always going to be there.</p>

Disease Outbreaks Are More Common Than You Think

We all heard about outbreaks onboard cruise ships curing the 2020 pandemic. They got big news coverage as essentially floating petri dishes. Due to thousands of people situated together in a tight space the outbreaks seem to spread faster.

Even before the pandemic there were plenty of outbreaks. For example in 2014, around eight cruise ships and many of their passengers were hit with the norovirus. As a result there have been strict procedures and rules to limit the spread of sickness during an outbreak but the risk is always going to be there.

<p>There are a lot of reasons that cruise lines don't tend to hire American workers and one of the reasons is that Americans wouldn't put up with the long hours required on a cruise ship. The typical work week in America is around 40 hours, compared to the sometimes 100-hour long work week on a cruise ship.</p><p>Together with different and less generous overtime rules as well as lower pay, it's not hard to see why there aren't as many Americans in the cruise industry.</p>

Crew Members Are Mostly From Outside of the USA

There are a lot of reasons that cruise lines don't tend to hire American workers and one of the reasons is that Americans wouldn't put up with the long hours required on a cruise ship. The typical work week in America is around 40 hours, compared to the sometimes 100-hour long work week on a cruise ship.

Together with different and less generous overtime rules as well as lower pay, it's not hard to see why there aren't as many Americans in the cruise industry.

<p>Cruise ships aren't really required to operate to the same standards as other companies located on land in the U.S. and because of that the medical care available to passengers can sometimes be hit or miss.</p><p>It's common for cruise ships to hire doctors from countries with lower medical standards than in the U.S. and also have the facilities on board a cruise ship to be not quite as great as you'd find on land. Together with the fact that doctors on cruise ships basically can't be sued for malpractice, it leaves something lacking in the care like on a lot of cruise ships.</p>

Medical Care Can Be Spotty

Cruise ships aren't really required to operate to the same standards as other companies located on land in the U.S. and because of that the medical care available to passengers can sometimes be hit or miss.

It's common for cruise ships to hire doctors from countries with lower medical standards than in the U.S. and also have the facilities on board a cruise ship to be not quite as great as you'd find on land. Together with the fact that doctors on cruise ships basically can't be sued for malpractice, it leaves something lacking in the care like on a lot of cruise ships.

<p>Where does all the human waste go when you're on a ship and out at the ocean? It goes exactly where you might expect it to go, in the ocean. Cruise ships simply dump waste when they are around 12 miles from shore. They are required to treat it first but it still isn't great for the environment and it's quite gross.</p><p>Not all countries have the same laws either and this means that sometimes cruise ships will discharge waste when they're closer to shore in a country with more lax laws like recently when Canadians complained about U.S. cruise ships dumping near British Columbia.</p>

Where Does All The Waste Go?

Where does all the human waste go when you're on a ship and out at the ocean? It goes exactly where you might expect it to go, in the ocean. Cruise ships simply dump waste when they are around 12 miles from shore. They are required to treat it first but it still isn't great for the environment and it's quite gross.

Not all countries have the same laws either and this means that sometimes cruise ships will discharge waste when they're closer to shore in a country with more lax laws like recently when Canadians complained about U.S. cruise ships dumping near British Columbia.

<p>It goes without saying that rooms for crew members are much different than the rooms for guests on cruise ships. Crew quarters are very cramped in comparison and for the most part rooms are shared by multiple crew members.</p><p>That being said, crew members do have their own break areas and even have crew-only events, classes, and a pool for staff only. On the downside they don't really get to enjoy all of that stuff very often because they work such long hours.</p>

Tight Quarters for the Crew

It goes without saying that rooms for crew members are much different than the rooms for guests on cruise ships. Crew quarters are very cramped in comparison and for the most part rooms are shared by multiple crew members.

That being said, crew members do have their own break areas and even have crew-only events, classes, and a pool for staff only. On the downside they don't really get to enjoy all of that stuff very often because they work such long hours.

<p>You would think there would be some kind of system making sure every guest is accounted for when they cruise pulls away from port but there isn't. The cruise is not going to wait at port for a couple of passengers who failed to get back in time. If you're late getting back to the ship there is a good chance you will be watching from shore as your ship sails away.</p><p>That's why it's important that you always remember to get back to the ship well before it's scheduled departure. It's also a good idea to carry your documents and passport with you just in case you're left behind in a foreign country.</p>

Cruise Ships Wait For No One

You would think there would be some kind of system making sure every guest is accounted for when they cruise pulls away from port but there isn't. The cruise is not going to wait at port for a couple of passengers who failed to get back in time. If you're late getting back to the ship there is a good chance you will be watching from shore as your ship sails away.

That's why it's important that you always remember to get back to the ship well before it's scheduled departure. It's also a good idea to carry your documents and passport with you just in case you're left behind in a foreign country.

<p>To keep things running smoothly while feeding thousands of guests, it's no surprise that most cruise ship kitchens run their operations with military-like precision. With that many mouths to feed they have to ensure that they have enough food on board for everyone and stay within a budget working hard to eliminate waste.</p><p>Some kitchens are so precise that they can predict consumption down to a margin of two meals for a week. Sometimes crews even change up how much they order based on the nationality of their guests. For example, a ship with many Americans might order more ketchup than one with a majority of other nationalities.</p>

Preparing the Kitchen Is Done With Military Precision

To keep things running smoothly while feeding thousands of guests, it's no surprise that most cruise ship kitchens run their operations with military-like precision. With that many mouths to feed they have to ensure that they have enough food on board for everyone and stay within a budget working hard to eliminate waste.

Some kitchens are so precise that they can predict consumption down to a margin of two meals for a week. Sometimes crews even change up how much they order based on the nationality of their guests. For example, a ship with many Americans might order more ketchup than one with a majority of other nationalities.

<p>Alcohol is always the most expensive part of any trip for good reason. There are really good margins for alcohol sales so it makes sense that there would be strict rules regarding their biggest money maker. Cruise lines force you to use the bars on the ship and for this reason, people have figured out how to smuggle their own booze onto cruises.</p><p>For these reasons guests get really inventive with the way they smuggle on alcohol. One way of sneaking alcohol on board a cruise ship involves filling a plastic bladder with booze in an effort to evade x-ray detection. People have also resorted to filling mouthwash bottles with alcohol and adding food coloring to dye them a specific color.</p>

Hiding Drinks Isn't Easy

Alcohol is always the most expensive part of any trip for good reason. There are really good margins for alcohol sales so it makes sense that there would be strict rules regarding their biggest money maker. Cruise lines force you to use the bars on the ship and for this reason, people have figured out how to smuggle their own booze onto cruises.

For these reasons guests get really inventive with the way they smuggle on alcohol. One way of sneaking alcohol on board a cruise ship involves filling a plastic bladder with booze in an effort to evade x-ray detection. People have also resorted to filling mouthwash bottles with alcohol and adding food coloring to dye them a specific color.

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Updated on: March 26, 2024 / 12:44 PM EDT / CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE -- A major traffic impact is anticipated after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed early Tuesday into the Patapsco River, cutting off a major artery into and out of the port city. 

A bridge column was hit by a large container ship around 1:30 a.m., sending an unknown number of vehicles and people into the Patapsco River, authorities said. 

Detours in place after Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

Maryland transit authorities quickly put detours in place for those traveling through Dundalk or the Curtis Bay/Hawkins Point side of the bridge. The estimated 31,000 who travel the bridge every day will need to find a new route for the forseeable future. 

Alternate routes to cross the harbor are through I-95 and I-895 with the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (I-95) and Fort McHenry Tunnel (I-895).  

"I am expecting that folks will have delays of over an hour this morning because the impacts are not only going to be felt here in the local neighborhoods but for all of those people who normally don't even travel that southeast corridor of 695," First Alert Traffic reporter Angela Foster said. "If you travel into the tunnels normally you're used to the typical congestion but today, not only will you see excessive delays, you'll likely see authorities there."

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Tractor-trailer inspections

Tractor-trailers that have clearance to use the tunnels will need to be checked for hazardous materials, which are not permitted in tunnels, and that could further hold up traffic. 

The MDTA says vehicles carrying bottled propane gas over 10 pounds per container (maximum of 10 containers), bulk gasoline, explosives, significant amounts of radioactive materials, and other hazardous materials are prohibited from using the Fort McHenry Tunnel (I-95) or the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (I-895).  

Any vehicles transporting hazardous materials should use the western section of I-695 around the tunnels, officials said. 

About 31,000 travel the bridge every day, officials said, adding up to over 11 million a year.   

Where is the Francis Scott Key Bridge? 

The Key Bridge crosses the Patapsco River, a key waterway that along with the Port of Baltimore serves as a hub for East Coast shipping. 

The bridge is the outermost of three toll crossings of Baltimore's Harbor and the final link in Interstate 695, known in the region as the Baltimore Beltway, which links Baltimore and Washington, D.C. 

The bridge was built after the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel reached capacity and experienced heavy congestion almost daily, according to the MDTA. 

State of emergency declared

Gov. Wes Moore declared a state of emergency, which allows Maryland to coordinate and request emergency resources and federal support. 

Moore said his office is in close communication with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 

"We will remain in close contact with federal, state, and local entities that are carrying out rescue efforts as we continue to assess and respond to this tragedy," the governor said in a statement. 

The Patapsco River, which the bridge crossed, is a key waterway that serves the Port of Baltimore as a hub for East Coast shipping.

Rohan Mattu is a digital producer at CBS News Baltimore. Rohan graduated from Towson University in 2020 with a degree in journalism and previously wrote for WDVM-TV in Hagerstown. He maintains WJZ's website and social media, which includes breaking news in everything from politics to sports.

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