Well today Royal Caribbean opened bookings for Oasis of the Seas which will be, by far, the biggest cruise ship in the world at 220,000 tons when she makes her maiden customer voyage on December 12, 2009.
Deck plans
I'll admit, for the inaugural voyage, I bought into the hype. Wouldn't it be cool to be one of the first people with a review and pictures I thought to myself. Then I saw the prices ... a 7-day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale with stops at Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten started at $1200/pp for a small INSIDE room. Holy Crap! Then, of course, there are the taxes, fees, and fuel surcharges. On top of that, there are three sea days on a ship expressly designed to be a revenue-maker, with a carousel, zip-line, tons of for-fee dining, and all of the "usual" things you can purchase on the cruise.
Knowing I won't be going on the inaugural, I'm actually left rather cool towards the ship. I don't necessarily want to be on board with 6,000 other passengers, and I can't even imagine what a mess embarkation/debarkation could be. As for all of the "new" features ... I'd imagine that just like with the Voyager-class ships I've been on ... they are neat, but I won't use them (though the ice-show is cool). In other words, if I'm on a big ship and trying to have a small ship experience, shouldn't I just book the cheaper, small ship? OK ... the small ship doesn't have the inside mall or a green Central Park area ... but can't I get that stuff at home?
2 comments:
Chris, It stuns me to realize the massive size of this boat!! I have only been on two of Carnivals conquest sized boats....which I thought were pretty big! 6000 passengers....WOW....that's a little much for me! Why are they charging so much more than normal, is because it is an inaugural voyage or because of all the extra stuff to do on the boat?
Yeah ... this one is about twice the gross tonnage of the Conquest ships.
The prices are high because of the "new" factor ... they actually drop a bit the further you get into 2010 ... but at still over $100/person/day for an inside room.
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