The Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas—the world’s largest cruise ship set sail on its maiden voyage this past December with the aim of housing and entertaining 6,300 passengers a week. Larger than many American towns, it carries 8600 people when fully loaded and is the size of almost five Titanics, or four football fields, or... You get the picture.
The ship is so huge, it can only dock in several places in the Caribbean, limiting the travel opportunities, and though the price is steeper than other cruises, business is brisk.
How come?
It’s a resort, a playground, and New York City rolled into one that just happens to be floating on the sea.
There are two rock climbing walls, a zip line that allows passengers to fly through the air, and surf machines that create action so that one can beat back the waves without jumping over the sides.
There are also 24 restaurants, 26 kitchens, and three doctors working around the clock.
No crime to worry about because there’s security everywhere, and if someone’s caught, there’s a jail.
A jail?
One woman, who’d never been on a cruise before was interviewed as she walked off the ship. She loved it and was already planning her next vacation.
Well why not? It was frantic, crazy, and crowded, but set in a security ridden, highly controlled environment.
Just like home, but creepier.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Frommer, founder of the Frommer’s Travel Guides, the Oasis is “a dumbing down of the travel experience.”
Oh Arthur, quit bitching.
There's so much to do.
You can watch employees wash windows, and in the hard to reach places, 18 robots were created to fill the need. Keep an eye on those robots, making sure those smart alecks don’t miss a spot. And if you get bored, check the jail below deck to see if the prisoner they dragged from the two-story loft suite just before the second seating of dinner—you can’t trust those rich for anything—isn’t planning her escape.
(Look and see if she’s saving any pieces of her sheet to lower into the ocean or asks for time out to dash upstairs for that final sale on women’s cashmere snowflake sweaters).
Take a stroll around Central Park through the center of the ship, eat the second and third portions of your six gourmet meals for the day, do a light workout, get a half hour of sun, take a massage, a facial, enjoy happy hour and the evening serenade with Larry Lindsay from England playing his bagpipe. After dinner, hurry to the Broadway production of Hairspray—the third time you’ve seen it—catch the last fifteen minutes of a comedy show, eat another supper before gorging on the midnight buffet.
No one needs to get off the ship to check out ports of call. They’re too commercial and who wants another retail venue? The Mall of America is floating upstairs!
Come on, is this heaven or what?
Hey, have you booked your cruise?
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