Symphony of the Seas, the Largest Cruise Ship Ever to Set Sail

Symphony of the Seas is currently under construction in France.  (Royal Caribbean International )

Cruising this way on cruise ships is not my personal fancy but the sheer opulence of these vessels is extraordinary.


If you combined a massive theme park with a cruise liner bigger than Titanic, this would be it.

Earlier this week, Royal Caribbean International announced further details for their grandest vessel yet, dubbed Symphony of the Seas. Set to break records as the world’s largest cruise ship by gross tonnage, the luxury liner will weigh in at 230,000 tons, measure feature 16 guest decks.

Fox News:  World's largest cruise ship to feature seven different 'neighborhoods'

There's a video in the source article and it gives kind of a garish fly-through of the ship but turn off the awful music since that has no redeeming features.


I've never been a family man and that may explain at least part of my lack of interest in cruise ships since the Symphony of the Seas strongly presents its kid friendliness.  The ships are often presented as Love Boats too and they are for a special kind of romance with the ocean as a backdrop and a Moon looking as romantic as it ever could.

Zen Yogi:  but you have one tiny question?

I do, mate. since what do Mother and Father do with their teens and tweens while they look for some Love Boat time for themselves.  They can park the kids in the many kid-friendly places and there are plenty of reasons kids will enjoy that but how late could they stay in such places.

Zen Yogi:  appears to me, Mother and Father will need to retrieve the kids to ensure they're bunked down in their cabins and then they can go off to do some Love Boating for a while

That sounds like it could work, Yogi, but there's still a concern with the older ones may sneak back out to play about in the casinos.

Zen Yogi:  that's not a sleepin' problem but a discipline problem and Mother and Father will need to come up with the clever parental solution for that.

OK, Yogi, that doesn't sound like too much of a problem.


The part I don't well understand is most of the focus seems to be on the things one can do onboard but there seems to be little attention to where they go.  The Symphony of the Sea will tour the Mediterranean but will ultimately be serving ports of call in the Caribbean.  I only have experience with one Caribbean destination in Aruba and spending less than a day there misses so much ... but maybe not if they're not aware of whatever they missed.

I saw in Katakolo the way cruise ships visited there constantly with sometimes many in port at once.  It was a beautiful frenzy to watch since Katakolo bloomed in every color in those times and then returned to being an apparent ghost town in-between calls.  The ships port in a Mediterranean destination and then go to another one overnight so the cruisers awaken in a different port each morning.

For me that's just about the strangest kind of travel when it presents a smorgasbord of cultural delight but my taste is much more toward getting absorbed in the local culture from a much longer stay.

Hendrix:  different strokes

Sure that's true, mate, and we do we do whatever works best.  It's all good.