Christine Kellett sizes up the Allure of the Seas, which will make its maiden voyage in the Caribbean in December.
The spec sheet for Royal Caribbean's newest floating behemoth, the $1.48 billion Allure of the Seas, is a virtual smorgasbord of statistics.
It is 360 metres long, weighs 225,000 gross tonnes and can carry 8565 passengers and crew on 16 decks totalling 25 hectares. It includes 21 swimming pools, 24 restaurants, a floating park with 12,000 plants and a 1300-seat theatre.
But it is the smallest statistic that is the most significant: Allure of the Seas is officially the world's largest cruise ship by a margin of five millimetres.
"That's enough for me," said the Argentinian captain of Allure, Hernan Zini, during a tour at shipbuilder STX Europe's shipyard in Turku, Finland, earlier this month. "I'm happy to claim it. It gives us a point of difference."
Allure is the sister ship to Oasis of the Seas, launched last year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For the cruise industry, the scale of Oasis - larger than the Sydney Harbour-dwarfing Queen Mary 2 by nearly 80,000 gross tonnes - was a revelation.
While some on-board entertainment has been tweaked for Allure, the two ships were designed to be identical. Experts say a weld in the hull is likely to have handed the younger sibling bragging rights.
Royal Caribbean is optimistic about finding the 300,000 passengers a year needed to fill Allure's 2700 staterooms. The ship's most expensive accommodation, the Royal Loft Suite, costs $11,296 a person for a seven-night cruise and is already booked out until 2012. An inside room costs from $907 a person for the cruise.
The chief executive and president of Royal Caribbean International, Adam Goldstein, says cruising has been surprisingly successful during the economic downturn in the US, where Allure and Oasis will sail weekly between Florida and the Caribbean.
He attributes near-capacity bookings since Oasis's maiden voyage last December to its all-inclusive pricing.
"It has been a phenomenal performer for our brand," Goldstein says of Oasis. "These two ships really are the complete package in terms of vacation entertainment. There isn't much you can't do on board."
Like Oasis, Allure's deck space has been divided into seven entertainment zones, known as "neighbourhoods". Passengers can surf on two wave-riding machines 65 metres above sea level in the water park, ride the carousel and eat hot dogs along the Coney Island-themed boardwalk, or escape to the adults-only deck to do, well, absolutely nothing. The nightclub, jazz and comedy clubs have all been replicated on Allure, as has the ice rink, shopping promenade and theatre, which has the multimillion-dollar Broadway production of Chicago.
While Royal Caribbean prepares its party for Allure's inauguration next month (singer Rihanna performed for Oasis's launch), there will be little to celebrate in Turku, Finland. The shipyard has no more work after Allure and with half of its 3300 employees already laid off, the future of the 300-year-old dock is bleak.
Christine Kellett travelled courtesy of Royal Caribbean.
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