Inside the Construction of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas

Inside the Construction of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas

Northern Europe’s largest gantry crane, nicknamed “Baby” at the Meyer Turku shipyard, lifted a single block of cabins for Royal Caribbean’s new Icon of the Seas, weighing more than 900 tons recently, Royal Caribbean Group officials said Tuesday.

The nine-deck, roughly 60-meter-wide block was moved in one day. It was the largest ever lifted in Europe, as far as shipyard officials knew.

Meyer Turku CEO Tim Meyer said there were no nerves in the move. His team had done a detailed study of how the steel would flex while being lifted and knew exactly how it should be handled while being moved into place.

“It’s very easy,” Meyer deadpanned. “It’s like building a Lego ship.”

While hoisting the cross-section of cruise ship cabins was a feat of engineering, it was also an example of Icon’s aggressive build schedule. Putting the blocks together shoreside is much faster than doing so on the ship, so the larger the block moved, the less schedule burden.

In all, the Icon consisted of 201 blocks, with roughly one installed a day. Each block required about 100 meters of welding once in place.

Building the world’s largest cruise ship meant roughly 2,600 workers a day coming to the Turku, Finland shipyard, representing some 20 nationalities from countless subcontractors. The ship will debut in Miami next January.

The Turku shipyard opened in 1737 — 58 years before the Meyer family started building ships.

Royal Caribbean Group President and CEO Jason Liberty called the yard the “tip of the spear” of innovation.

In their seventh generation of ownership and 228th year in operation, the Meyer family remains both focused and humble.

Patriarch Bernard Meyer, CEO of Meyer Werft, declined to spend much time looking backwards.

“We have no time to be proud; we have work to do,” he said.

Fincantieri Starts Construction of New 'Sphere' Class Ship for Princess Cruises

The steel of the first of two LNG cruise ships for Princess Cruises took place in San Giorgio di Nogaro (Udine) at Centro Servizi Navali, a company specialized in logistics and production of sheet metal for the Fincantieri yards located in northeastern Italy.

The ship will be built in the Monfalcone yard.

At 175,000 gross tons, the “Sphere” vessels will be the largest ships built so far in Italy. They will each accommodate approximately 4,300 guests and will be based on a next-generation platform design, being the first Princess Cruises ships to be dual-fuel powered primarily by LNG.

Carnival Horizon Construction Moving Along

Carnival Horizon Construction Moving Along

Carnival Cruise Line has released three new photos of the construction scenes surrounding the Carnival Horizon, which will launch from Fincantieri in spring of 2018.

The Carnival Horizon is set to debut April 2, 2018, with a 13-day Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona – the first of four roundtrip departures, the company said.

The Carnival Horizon will then reposition to the U.S. with a 14-day trans-Atlantic crossing from Barcelona to New York May 9-23, 2018, positioning the vessel for a summer schedule of four-day Bermuda and eight-day Caribbean departures from Manhattan. 

Carnival Horizon will shift to Miami to launch a year-round schedule of six- and eight-day Caribbean cruises beginning Sept. 22, 2018. Carnival Horizon will also offer a special two-day cruise to Nassau from Miami Sept. 20-22, 2018.

Royal Caribbean's Ovation of the Seas construction almost half complete

Royal Caribbean's next Quantum class cruise ship, Ovation of the Seas, has reached a construction milestone that brings it one step closer to entering service.

Royal Caribbean Australia & New Zealand shared this photo of Ovation of the Seas to show that she is almost half way to being completed.

It has been thirteen months since the steel cutting ceremony took place and if all goes well, she will be ready for conveyance down the River Ems for sea trials in the middle of March 2016.

Ovation of the Seas is under construction at the Meyer Werft ship yard in Papenburg, Germany.  Ovation of the Seas will be debuting in April 2016 and will be offering cruises in Asia and Australia.

Russia Eyes Construction of Cruise Terminal in Pionersky

Within the framework of the international economic forum Sochi-2014, Russia’s FSUE Rosmorport and cruise company MSC Cruises  signed an Agreement of Intent in Sochi on September 19, 2014 to build an international sea terminal for servicing cruise and freight/passenger ships in Pionersky (Kaliningrad Region), FSUE Rosmorport said in a release.

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The document was signed by Rosmorport Director General Andrei Tarasenko, Kaliningrad Region Governor Nikolai Tsukanov and President of MSC Cruises and Grandi Navi Veloci Roberto Martinoli.

The Agreement lays ground for cooperation in designing, construction and operation of the terminal the construction of which should start in 2015.

The terminal, which is expected to cost USD 240 million to build,  is expected to aid to the improvement of tourist offer in the region.

The terminal would benefit from a unique geographical position in the Baltic Sea and, is thus, believed to attract many tourists.

Carnival to build new Barcelona cruise terminal

By Tom Stieghorst

Carnival Corp. and the port of Barcelona reached an agreement on the construction of a new $27 million cruise terminal that will handle post-Panamax sized ships.

The terminal will be about 107,000 square feet, large enough to accommodate 4,500 people. It is expected to open in 2016.

Carnival already operates a terminal at the port, which will be expanded by about 14,000 square feet. Both terminals are on the Adossat Wharf.

Carnival will invest the $27 million and run the terminal as a concession. The port will invest about $2.7 million on roads and other infrastructure and about $2 million on signage.

Barcelona is the fourth-busiest cruise port in the world, with an estimated passenger volume of 2.6 million passengers this year.

Post-Panamax or over-Panamax denote ships larger than Panamax that do not fit in the canal, such as supertankers and the largest modern container ships. The "largest oil tanker in the world"—whichever ship held the title at the time—has not been able to transit the Panama Canal at least since the Idemitsu Maru was launched in the 1960s; it carried about 150,000 deadweight tons. All US Navy aircraft carriers since USS Midway have been in the post-Panamax class

Post-Panamax ships