''Wonder of the Seas'' is the flagship of

Royal Caribbean International Royal Caribbean International (RCI), also formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line brand founded in 1968 in Norway and organised as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997. Based in Miami, Flori ...

. She was completed in 2022 in the

Chantiers de l'Atlantique Chantiers de l'Atlantique is a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France. It is one of the world's largest shipyards, constructing a wide range of commercial, naval, and passenger ships. It is located near Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire river and ...

shipyard in

Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...

, France, the fifth in Royal Caribbean's of cruise ships. At , she is the largest cruise ship in the world by

gross tonnage Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weigh ...

, surpassing her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

, also owned by Royal Caribbean International.

Description and design

''Wonder of the Seas'' measures in length and has a

of 236,857 across 18 decks. This ship accommodates 5,734 passengers at double occupancy or up to a maximum of 6,988 passengers, as well as a 2,300 crew. There are 16 decks for guest use, 20 restaurants, 4 pools and 2,867 cabins. Facilities include a children's water park, a children's playground, a full-size basketball court, an ice-skating rink, a surf simulator, a zip line that is 10 decks high, a 1400-seat theater, an outdoor aquatic theater with high platforms, and two rock-climbing walls. As with all ''Oasis''-class ships, one of the special features on board is the Central Park, with more than 10,000 plants and flowers. ''Wonder of the Seas'' is powered by six marine-diesel sets: two 16-cylinder

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include technol ...

16V46D

common rail Common rail direct fuel injection is a direct fuel injection system built around a high-pressure (over ) fuel rail feeding solenoid valves, as opposed to a low-pressure fuel pump feeding unit injectors (or pump nozzles). High-pressure injection ...

engines and four 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 12V46D engines. For propulsion, ''Wonder of the Seas'' uses three 20,000 kilowatt

azipod Azipod is a trademark azimuth thruster pod design, a marine propulsion unit consisting of a fixed pitch propeller mounted on a steerable gondola ("pod") containing the electric motor driving the propeller, allowing ships to be more maneuverable ...

main engines, which are electric thrusters. These engines are mounted under the stern of the ship and they each drive 20 foot wide rotatable propellers. In addition to the three electric thrusters, there are four bow thrusters used for docking, each with 5,500 kilowatts of power or 7,380 horsepower.

Construction and career

On 25 May 2016,

Royal Caribbean Group Royal Caribbean Group, formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., is a global cruise holding company incorporated in Liberia and based in Miami, Florida, United States. It is the world's second-largest cruise line operator, after Carnival ...

signed a memorandum of understanding with STX France (now

) for a fifth ''Oasis''-class ship for delivery in the spring of 2021. The first steel for the new ship was cut at the

shipyard in April 2019, and the vessel's

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

was laid on 9 May 2019. In August 2020, as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Royal Caribbean announced that delivery of the ship would be delayed until 2022. In April 2021 Royal Caribbean opened bookings aboard ''Wonder of the Seas'' for an inaugural 2022 season sailing in Asia from ports in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. However, in September of that year, Royal Caribbean announced that the ship would instead debut at

Port Everglades Port Everglades is a seaport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, located in Broward County. Port Everglades is one of South Florida's foremost economic engines, as it is the gateway for both international trade and cruise vacations. In 2019, Port Eve ...

, sailing Caribbean cruises, before moving to the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

in the summer, sailing out of

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. In November 2021 the ship's livery was modified to resemble that of ''

Odyssey of the Seas ''Odyssey of the Seas'' is the second Quantum-class cruise ship, ''Quantum'' Ultra-class cruise ship and the last of the class operated by Royal Caribbean International. She is the 3rd newest ship out of the Royal Caribbean fleet, and primarily ...

'', with her name moved rearward and repainted in larger print. The following month, Royal Caribbean announced that the ship would homeport at

Port Canaveral Port Canaveral is a cruise, cargo, and naval port in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world with 4.5 million cruise passengers passing through during 2016. Over 5.4 million tonnes of bulk car ...

in Florida starting in November 2022. On 29 October 2021 Royal Caribbean accepted the ship for "technical delivery", and the following week she sailed under her own power from Saint-Nazaire to a ''Chantier Naval de Marseille'' drydock in

Marseille-Fos Port Marseille-Fos Port () is the main trade seaport of France. In 2011, the port had an overall traffic of 88 million tons. It was also one of the 15 world's largest cruise ports and the fifth-largest in the Mediterranean. It has two main sites: in n ...

for finishing work. On 27 January 2022 the ship was handed over to Royal Caribbean. She arrived in North America in February 2022, and commenced her maiden voyage on 4 March 2022 out of Port Everglades.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wonder Of The Seas 2020 ships Ships built in France Ships of Royal Caribbean International