عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

World's Largest Cruise Ship Sets Sail

Royal Caribbean's "Icon of the Seas," billed as the world's largest cruise ship, sails from the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida, on its maiden cruise, January 27, 2024. (Photo by Marco BELLO / AFP)
Royal Caribbean's "Icon of the Seas," billed as the world's largest cruise ship, sails from the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida, on its maiden cruise, January 27, 2024. (Photo by Marco BELLO / AFP)
TT
TT

World's Largest Cruise Ship Sets Sail

Royal Caribbean's "Icon of the Seas," billed as the world's largest cruise ship, sails from the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida, on its maiden cruise, January 27, 2024. (Photo by Marco BELLO / AFP)
Royal Caribbean's "Icon of the Seas," billed as the world's largest cruise ship, sails from the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida, on its maiden cruise, January 27, 2024. (Photo by Marco BELLO / AFP)

The world's largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas, set sail from Miami on its maiden voyage Saturday, carrying what amounted to the population of a small city.

The ship, built over 900 days at a shipyard in Turku, Finland, is a monument to enormity, longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, with 20 decks and room for more than 5,600 passengers (7,600 at maximum capacity) and a crew of 2,350.

To ensure no one goes bored or hungry, the monster ship, registered in the Bahamas, has seven swimming pools including a 40,000-gallon "lake," six water slides, a carousel, what Royal Caribbean says is the largest ice arena at sea, and more than 40 dining venues and bars, Agence France Presse reported.

Still bored? There will be 50 musicians and comedians as well as a 16-piece orchestra.

The $2 billion Icon -- the first in Royal Caribbean's new Quantum Class of ships -- is stuffed with the latest technology and, despite its mammoth size, claims to be more eco-friendly than some smaller cruise ships.

The Icon is powered by what its owners say is eco-friendly Liquefied Natural Gas (though some experts say LNG systems can leak damaging amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere).

It also features a system -- microwave-assisted pyrolysis -- for converting waste to energy-producing gas, and a reverse osmosis system to provide nearly all the fresh water the ship needs, the company says.

The Icon was christened in style on Tuesday, when global soccer star Lionel Messi, now with the Inter Miami side, pushed a button to send a bottle of Champagne crashing against the ship's bow.

After leaving its Miami home base Saturday on its sold-out inaugural cruise -- the company says ticket demand was "unprecedented" -- the Icon will spend a week in the Caribbean before returning to Miami.

At 2,000 feet long (365 meters), the Icon will be taking the title of world's largest from a Royal Caribbean stable-mate, the slightly smaller Wonder of the Seas.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Dead Sea an 'Ecological Disaster', but No One Can Agree How to Fix It

The Dead Sea has been dying for years - AFP
The Dead Sea has been dying for years - AFP
TT
TT

Dead Sea an 'Ecological Disaster', but No One Can Agree How to Fix It

The Dead Sea has been dying for years - AFP
The Dead Sea has been dying for years - AFP

An abandoned lifeguard cabin, a rusty pier and mangled umbrellas are all that is left of Ein Gedi, once a spot drawing international tourists to float in the world-famous waters of the Dead Sea.

Now, this lush desert oasis at the lowest point on Earth sits in ruins beside the shrinking sea, whose highly salty waters are rapidly retreating due to industrial use and climate change, which is accelerating their natural evaporation.

The beach has been closed to the public for five years, mainly due to the appearance of dangerous sinkholes, but also because the dramatic recession of the sea's level has made it tricky to reach its therapeutic waters, known for extraordinary buoyancy that lets bathers float effortlessly.
The increasingly exposed shoreline and the sinkholes, caused by a flow of freshwater dissolving layers of salt beneath the Earth's surface, are not new.
In fact, the Dead Sea, nestled where Jordanian and Palestinian territory meet, has famously been dying for years.

Now, with war raging in the Middle East, efforts to tackle this ever-worsening ecological disaster appear to have dissolved too.

"Regional cooperation is the key... to saving the Dead Sea," said Nadav Tal, a hydrologist and water officer for the Israel office of EcoPeace, a regional environmental nonprofit that has long advocated for finding a solution.

"Because we are living in a conflict area, there is an obstacle," he said, describing how the sea has been declining more than one metre (three feet) per year since the 1960s.

- 'Ecological disaster' -

The evaporation of the salty waters in a time of rapid climate change and in a place where summer temperatures can reach upward of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) has been exacerbated by decades of water diversions from the sea's main source -- the Jordan River -- as well as various tributaries that begin in Lebanon and Syria.

The water is also being pumped out by local factories extracting natural minerals -- potash, bromine, sodium chloride, magnesia, magnesium chloride and metal magnesium -- to sell to markets across the world.

"The consequences of this water diversion is what we see around us," Tal told AFP, pointing to a nearby pier that was once submerged in water but now stands firmly on dry land.

"It is an ecological disaster," he emphasized.

Although some efforts have been made to address the Dead Sea disaster, including past agreements signed by Israel and Jordan, the wars raging in Gaza and beyond have brought regional tensions to an all-time high, meaning tackling cross-border environmental issues is no longer a priority for governments in the region.