Entering the holidays, a popular choice of many families is to take a cruise through the Caribbean or up along the Northeast Coast. While the economy has caused a slight dip in resort cruise numbers, the main corporations have responded by launching a new fleet of top-of-the-line ships to attract new customers. Each ship costs hundreds of millions, sometimes billions, of dollars and is staffed by several thousand pilots, engineers, cooks, waiters, cleaners, casino employees, security personnel, and other crew members. These cruise ships are marketing aggressively to gain customers, and are not shy about the size and proportions of their new ships.
One such ship is the Splendida, a thirty-three hundred passenger ship from MSC Cruises. The Splendida, a sister ship to the MSC’s Fantasia flagship, hit the waves in 2009. Requiring about half as many crew members as passengers, the ship is too large to fit through the Panama Canal! MSC has designed their ship to travel exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea.
Although MSC is a large ship by any stretch of the imagination, it is dwarfed by two new top-of-the-line cruise ships being launched recently by the two largest cruise companies in the world, Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Carnival announced the launch of their brand-new Carnival Dream ship, with capacity for three and a half thousand customers, along with half as many crew persons. The largest ship ever built by Carnival, the Dream offers a seven-day cruise from as low as eight hundred dollars. Features include a half-dozen different in-ship bars and clubs, a kids zone, massage parlors, swimming pools, and a twenty-two foot outdoor movie screen.
Not to be outdone, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines launched their own behemoth, ostentatiously the largest cruise ship ever to sail on the waves, called the Oasis of the Seas. The Oasis carries a mind-boggling six and a half thousand passengers on what resembles an eight-story floating hotel. Including the crew, over eight thousand people are aboard the Oasis during transit, and the ship enjoys its own distinct neighborhoods, a half-mile promenade, a central park, a seaside-pier boardwalk, a movie theater, and a zip line to quickly get from one side to the other!
If your family decides a cruise could be a great way to see the open ocean and spend some quality time together, consider the options based on budget needs and either contact the cruise lines or a travel agent to find the best value and itinerary available.