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| Richard Fain (right) and Bernard Meyer at the handover of Quantum of the Seas |
The most eagerly awaited new cruise ship of the year has
been handed over by its builders and will soon be arriving in the UK.
Royal Caribbean chairman and CEO Richard Fain took delivery
of Quantum of the Seas from Bernard Meyer, the managing partner of Germany’s
Meyer-Werft shipyard. With Capt Srecko “Felix” Ban at the helm, the ship is
heading for Southampton. After a weekend being shown off to media and trade
partners from around the world, the ship will welcome its first paying guests
on Sunday before setting out to cross the Atlantic to its home port In New
Jersey.
The ship, carrying 4,180 passengers, will sail from New York
harbour to the Bahamas and the Caribbean throughout the winter; next May it
will relocate to Shanghai, China. Sister ship Anthem of the Seas, currently
under construction at Meyer-Werft, will debut in Southampton in April 2015 and
spend the summer cruising to the Mediterranean.
The ships are among the most technically-advanced in the
world, with a micro-bubble air “lubrication” system claimed to make their passage
through the water more efficient. They
also have advanced internet capability with 500 times more bandwidth than any
other cruise ship.
Visibly spectacular are Quantum’s Ripcord by iFLY sky-diving
simulator, the NorthStar observation pod – looking like a capsule from the
London Eye on a giant arm – and the world’s first dodgem cars at sea.
Passengers can expect to be served cocktails by a pair of
robot bartenders, and inside cabins have wall-sized flat screens creating “virtual
balconies” by showing real-time pictures of the view outside the ship.
World of Cruising editor John Honeywell will be among the
guests aboard Quantum this weekend. Check out this blog and our Facebook page
for updates.
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