By ALISON GOEBEL
The world’s largest cruise ship is set to sail out of the cruise capitol of the world, PortMiami in November 2018.
This cruise ship, Symphony of the Seas, will be the fourth Oasis class ship from Royal Caribbean.
Symphony of the Seas comes in at 230,000 gross tons, is 215.5 feet wide, 1,188 feet long, and has a cruising speed of 22 knots (25 miles per hour). The ship will also hold 6,780 guests in 2,775 rooms and have 15 dining options.
Before she heads to Miami, she’s set to explore several destinations in the Mediterranean including Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Provence, France; Florence/Pisa Rome and Naples, Italy.
She then arrives at Miami, where she begins seven-night eastern and western Caribbean itineraries.
This is a major breakthrough and milestone, the biggest, largest, most vast cruise ship ever to exist.
Although that this sounds great, and the media certainly portrays it to be so, this doesn’t mean all good things.
About a week prior to this announcement that was made on every local news company and cruise or vacation website, there was breaking news of how a cruise ship ended up scrapping the bottom of the sea beds in Fort Lauderdale and how terrible those ships are for the environment.
But, with that being said, it was quickly forgotten about and trumped by this story “The World’s Largest Cruise Ship Ever Built to Set Sail.”
I think that, in this situation, the news media are definitely skewed, possibly because readers are more interested in these vast Titanic-like ships if you will. Or, it could possibly just be purely for revenue.
Either way, it doesn’t dismiss the fact that cruise ships are very harmful for our environment.
Little do people know that the ships release all of their waste into the sea mid-voyage away from beaches or land.
Not only that but incidents like the one that happened in Fort Lauderdale where it scrapped the bottom of the seabed are far too common.
Stories that are about the environmental impact cruise ships have put those specific companies in check.
The ones that are revolved around the negative factors of cruise ships don’t really get as much attention or popularity compared to ones that focus on the largest cruise ship in the world being launched.
Why? That I still wonder.