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Celebrity Cruises maiden ship in its new Solstice Class departed Meyer Werft shipyard yesterday in Papenburg, Germany.  The Celebrity Solstice, at length of just over 1,000 ft., is the largest cruise ship by Celebrity Cruises and from the looks of it, just getting it out of port was no easy task.

The Celebrity Solstice is the first of five ships in Celebrity Cruises’ Solstice Class: a class of ships that will offer “floating worlds of aesthetic and experiential perfection, where every detail is attended to and every guest is pampered,” according to Celebrity Cruises.

Celebrity Solstice will offer a range of amenities, never before seen on any other cruise ships.  MarketWatch.com provides us with this list: [Continue Reading →]

The BBC Tells us:

One of the world’s largest cruise ships has been officially named by a member of the public who won a national competition for the honour.

Elizabeth Hill, from Baslow in Derbyshire, won the chance to name and christen the 160,000-tonne Independence of the Seas.

Built in Finland, the £400m vessel will sail to and from Southampton.

Five times Olympic gold medallist Sir Steven Redgrave attended the naming ceremony. Continue Reading…

The Independence is the third of the Freedom class which, until the launch of Royal Caribbean’s Project Genesis, are the largest cruise ships in the world.

Links:
Virtual Tour

Via, The London Daily Mail.

The world’s biggest cruise liner is to have a New York-style “Central Park” on the ship, its owners have revealed.

Royal Caribbean is building the 220,000-tonne liner with the working name Project Genesis and the announcement is the latest salvo in the intensely competitive global cruise market.

The company said the park would be “a revolutionary design in which the center of the ship opens to the sky and features lush, tropical grounds spanning the length of a football field”.

New York style: The liner will have an outdoor area on-board supposedly modeled on Central Park.

The 1,180ft long luxury liner is under construction in Finland at a cost of £700 million and dwarfs the current biggest ships - also owned by Royal Caribbean - which are 160,000 tonnes.

The builders said the space will be like a town square for al fresco dining and entertainment. The park will be located on Deck 8 of the 16 deck ship and open to the sky, with dimensions of 62ft (19m) wide and 328ft (100m) long. Trees in the park will tower more than two-and-a-half decks tall and the area is to have micro-climate control techniques to make sure the plants thrive.

World’s biggest: The 220,000-tonne cruise liner is being built by Royal Caribbean in Finland.

[Continue Reading →]

Cunard Cruiser tells us of the recent keel laying ceremony for what will be the world’s largest cruise ship. They write;

Project Genesis, the largest cruise ship to ever make it from drawing board to production made a significant step in its journey towards the sea today (11th December) at Aker Yards ship yard in Turku, Finland.

At the milestone keel-laying ceremony, the first blocks constructing the 220,000 GRT Project Genesis were laid into the bottom of the dry dock. From here the ship will begin to take its form for the first time.
At 40% larger than any other cruise ship in the world, Project Genesis – the working title applied by cruise line Royal Caribbean International, the company behind its development – is scheduled to enter service in Autumn 2009. Project Genesis will be homeported year-round from Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Project Genesis is 1,180 feet long, 154 feet wide, and 240 feet high and will accommodate over 5,400 guests. The ship will take 5,800 man-years to complete and is expected to float on water for the first time in Winter 2008 as it nears the finishing stages. At a cost of US$230,000 per berth, Project Genesis is the most expensive cruise ship ever to be ordered. Continue Reading…

We’ll be sure to keep an eye on the official Genesis Project page for you but in the meantime… initial shipyard photos can be found HERE.