In what seems like an endless race to be just a little bit bigger and a good deal flashier, Royal Caribbean’s newest ship, coming next year, will beat its sibling Harmony of the Seas to be the biggest ever built.
Symphony of the Seas, already under construction in France, will measure about 230,000 tons, beating its twin by about 3,000 tons. It will enter service in April 2018 in the Mediterranean, and move to Miami for Caribbean cruises starting in November 2018.
According to RC CEO Michael Bayley, “It’s slightly longer, and it’s a tad wider” than earlier Oasis Class ships.
“It will boast all of the innovations that are so well known with (the) Oasis Class, and then of course, because we have to have a whole new set of features … there are additions that we are not going to talk about today.”
Royal Caribbean recently broke ground Wednesday on a new terminal at the port of Miami that will be able to accommodate ships as big as Symphony. Royal Caribbean will move a second of the Oasis-class ships to Miami from Fort Lauderdale in late 2018.
For a comparison of today’s cruise ships with what we think were huge: The Oasis class ships are a third longer than Titanic, have twice as many decks, and four times as many passengers.
