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Inside the vessels, you'll find more lounges, bars, restaurants and shops than you can imagine — plus huge casinos, spas and showrooms with Broadway-style shows. They even have indoor ice skating rinks, just in case you want to get your Michelle Kwan on. As you might expect, the biggest Royal Caribbean ships have the most amenities. With each step down in size, you'll find fewer restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and attractions.
Royal Caribbean
The next aerial photo shows a VOYAGER-class ship (Adventure, Explorer, Mariner, Navigator, Voyager). All RCI ships have an Escape Room (team-building, adventure gaming experiences/$20 pp), Flowriders (surfing simulator/private lessons cost $69-500), Gaming Arcades ($1-3 per game). Optional are the Behind the Scenes (ship tour/costs $ pp), fitness classes ($12 pp), cooking classes ($35-70 pp). RCI's new alcohol policy allows passengers to bring their own wine onboard and consume it in cabins (for free) or for a corkage fee (additional charge) in public areas. A signature feature of RCI ships is the "Viking Crown Lounge", introduced in 1970 with RCI's first ship MS Song of Norway (2013-scrapped as "Formosa Queen"). On the VISION-Class ships (1995) its location was changed - from forward to midship-aft (near the smokestacks) allowing more space to be allocated for new amenities and entertainment.
The cheapest interior stateroom for 2024 currently costs $265 per person per day.
Cruise Exchange comes with the same great benefits of booking with RCI® Cruise. You’ll enjoy up to $1,500 to spend on board along with unbeatable rates backed by the 110% Best Price Guarantee.1 Even better, you still get credit toward loyalty programs and enjoy all the perks the cruise lines have to offer. The USD 100 concierge service enables passengers to book port calls tailored to their interests, travel style and budget. Private Journeys (custom-made tours) allow access to 1 of 9 professional Destination Insiders who help planning every detail of the shore excursion before the cruise starts. Activities can include private yachting, cooking with Michelin-starred chefs, food tasting.
Committed to Having the Biggest Ships in the World
Within 45 days (from the cancellation date), all taxes, port fees and pre-purchased (if any) packages/amenities are automatically refunded to the original form of payment. Along those lines, Royal Caribbean often sends some of its Vision Class ships to Europe in the summer to operate port call-intensive itineraries. The vessels also often sail longer trips in the Caribbean that include less-visited southerly islands. In both cases, the allure of the cruises has more to do with the ports the ships visit than the onboard experience. A new Oasis-class ship called Utopia of the Seas arrives in the spring of 2024.
All have at least two pools and six whirlpools, except for Enchantment of the Seas, which has three pools and six whirlpools. In general, they appeal to cruisers looking for a more intimate experience on a cruise ship as well as those who care more about the destinations they visit than the onboard attractions. Dating to the 1990s, the Vision Class ships are the smallest at Royal Caribbean, and they offer fewer onboard attractions and amenities than is typical for the line's vessels. There are also fewer cabins on the Voyager Class ships, resulting in fewer passengers on board a typical sailing. Most of the ships carry around 3,100 passengers at double occupancy — about 800 fewer than the typical Freedom Class ship. Each Radiance Class ship holds more than 2,100 passengers at double occupancy (plus a few hundred more with every berth filled).
Like the Freedom Class vessels, the Voyager Class ships have many of Royal Caribbean's signature attractions, including rock climbing walls and ice skating rinks. In fact, the ships were the first at Royal Caribbean to have those attractions. If you're sailing with the line for the first time, it's important to understand that not all of Royal Caribbean's signature attractions and venues are present on all its ships. For instance, while every Royal Caribbean vessel now has one of the line's iconic climbing walls (some have two), only the 19 ships of the line's big-ship classes have a FlowRider surfing simulator. Only the 14 ships of the Icon, Oasis, Freedom and Voyager classes have ice skating rinks.
But Royal Caribbean hasn't entirely committed to only having the biggest ships in the world, as the line released several smaller 158,000-ton, 4,100-passenger Quantum-class ships during this time as well. The first was Quantum of the Seas, which launched in fall 2014 for a North American audience but was quickly sent to the burgeoning Asia cruise market. The four Radiance-class ships -- Radiance of the Seas (2001), Brilliance of the Seas (2002), Serenade of the Seas (2003) and Jewel of the Seas (2004) -- were built in the early 2000s as a follow-up to the Vision-class vessels of the 1990s. Having established itself outside the Caribbean, Royal Caribbean turned back to developing its core market. In the mid-1990s, as the Vision-class ships entered service to rave reviews, the company began planning a new ship that would redefine the cruise industry. All Radiance-class ships have a gross tonnage of 90,090 and environmentally friendlier gas turbine engines.
Whakaari / White Island eruption
I sailed on Royal Caribbean's worst rated cruise ship. Here's what it was really like. - Royal Caribbean Blog
I sailed on Royal Caribbean's worst rated cruise ship. Here's what it was really like..
Posted: Fri, 29 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Grandeur of the Seas is the smallest of the four vessels, measuring around 74,000 tons. Enchantment of the Seas is the biggest, measuring around 83,000 tons (it was, notably, lengthened by 73 feet in 2005). Except for rock climbing walls, the Vision Class ships have none of the signature Royal Caribbean deck-top attractions such as surfing and skydiving simulators. For the most part, their top decks are lined with pools, whirlpools and sunning areas, as is typical for ships built in the 1990s.
At around 169,000 tons, though, they're still among the biggest ships at sea, with a significant number of venues. While the line is perhaps best known for giant vessels — it operates six of the 10 biggest cruise ships in the world — it also markets some relatively smaller, more intimate ships. At the same time, between 1995 and 1999, the company disposed of the four original ships and replaced them with the new Vision-class ships. Royal Caribbean acquired Celebrity Cruises in 1997 and changed the name of the Royal Caribbean fleet to Royal Caribbean International, with the parent company taking on the name Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. For select sailings, use 7 Trading Power or 20,000 Points to save up to $1,200 per stateroom.
Royal Caribbean also bought Admiral Cruises in 1988, which was a company specializing in short cruises. The line then turned its nearly new Stardancer into Royal Caribbean's Viking Serenade in 1990 after a massive six-month-long refit. While only mid-sized by today's standards, Sovereign of the Seas was massive in its day and completely dwarfed every competitor of the era.
Promotional packages, group deals, air or land components, shipboard credit, transfers, pre- or post-cruise hotel stays, and shore excursions are not eligible. RCI Cruise reserves the right to refuse the refund should you not be able to provide us with positive proof of a competitor's lower price. RCI Cruise reserves the right to refuse the refund for any errors in prices by the competition. If your refund request is approved, the credit card used to purchase your cruise will be credited 110% of the price difference within 7-10 business days of final approval. RCI Cruise reserves the right to modify or cancel the 110% Best Price Guarantee at any time without prior notice or liability to you. 1 The RCI Cruise Best Price Guarantee is administered by World Travel Holdings under contract with RCI, LLC.
Navigator OTS (from Los Angeles California) offers night voyages to Catalina Island, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Ensenada. Independence OTS (from Miami) offers 5-night Western Caribbean plus CocoCay voyages, as well as 4-night Eastern Caribbean (with Labadee Haiti). Quantum OTS (from Brisbane) offers 3- to 13-night Queensland roundtrips to Airlie Beach and Cairns or discover the South Pacific by visiting Port Vila (Vanuatu) and Noumea (New Caledonia). Starting in December 2024, Spectrum OTS has scheduled 8x roundtrips from Hong Kong (China) to ports in Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. When the announcement was made (in July 2023) prices (per person) varied between US$990 (interior cabin) and US$5620 (Royal Suite) with double occupancy, while single occupancy was US$1240 (interior). The special voyage (February 5-9, 2025, roundtrip from Tampa Florida) is a full-ship charter by Entertainment Cruise Productions (Clayton Missouri-based company) specializing in themed voyages.
If you're strong enough to do so, here's what your seven nights on Icon of the Seas could look like. Right now, there's likely no better example of the mass-market cruise industry's shift toward the budget airline strategy — charge a cheap base fare and offer irresistible up-charged amenities — than Royal Caribbean's new world's largest cruise liner. At around 139,000 tons, the ships are about 11% smaller than the Freedom Class ships. There are plans to add waterslides to Allure of the Seas, but they were put on hold after COVID-19 shut down cruising in 2020. Royal Caribbean has also used some Quantum Class ships for sailings out of China.
Each ship has a theater, a spa, a casino, and multiple bars and lounges. Somewhat smaller in size but still giant by any measure, each of the line's five Quantum Class and three Freedom Class vessels has a total capacity ranging from around 4,500 to 5,600 passengers. With space for around 3,800 passengers at maximum occupancy, the line's five Voyager Class vessels are relatively large, too. These seven groups are made up of ships constructed around the same time with the same basic design.
They're called the North Star rides, and they may be the oddest attractions ever added to the top of a cruise ship. These are vessels that can carry as many as 7,600 passengers when every berth is filled. That means you could be sharing your vacation with nearly 10,000 people. As mentioned above, Icon of the Seas — the only Icon Class ship currently in operation — is bigger than any other cruise vessel afloat at 250,800 tons, and for big-ship lovers, there's really nothing quite like it. The two more Icon Class ships debuting soon will be equally over-the-top in size and venues.
Odyssey OTS and Voyager OTS are both based in Civitavecchia and visit destinations in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the Adriatic. A Balcony stateroom cost USD 75,000 ($136 pp per day), the 4-passenger Royal Suite cost USD 760,000. In October 2021, RCI announced the company's first World Cruise, which is also one of the world's longest.
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