The world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, set sail from Miami, Florida, on its maiden voyage on Saturday, carrying what amounted to the population of a small city.
The ship, built over 900 days at a shipyard in Turku, Finland, is a monument to enormity, longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, with 20 decks and room for more than 5,600 passengers (7,600 at maximum capacity) and a crew of 2,350.
To ensure no one goes bored or hungry, the monster ship, registered in the Bahamas, has seven swimming pools including a 151m3 “lake,” six water slides, a carousel, what Royal Caribbean says is the largest ice arena at sea, and more than 40 dining venues and bars.
Photo: AFP
Still bored? There are to be 50 musicians and comedians as well as a 16-piece orchestra. The US$2 billion Icon — the first in Royal Caribbean’s new Quantum Class of ships — is stuffed with the latest technology and, despite its mammoth size, claims to be more eco-friendly than some smaller cruise ships.
The Icon is powered by what its owners said is eco-friendly liquefied natural gas (LNG) (though some experts say LNG systems can leak damaging amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere).
It also features a system — microwave-assisted pyrolysis — for converting waste to energy-producing gas, and a reverse osmosis system to provide nearly all the fresh water the ship needs, the company said.
The Icon was christened in style on Tuesday last week, when Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi, now with the Inter Miami side, pushed a button to send a bottle of Champagne crashing against the ship’s bow.
After leaving its Miami home base on Saturday on its sold-out inaugural cruise — the company said ticket demand was “unprecedented” — the Icon is to spend a week in the Caribbean before returning to Miami.
At 365m, the Icon is to take the title of world’s largest from a Royal Caribbean stable-mate, the slightly smaller Wonder of the Seas.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS