Royal Caribbean Set to Launch World’s Biggest Cruise Ship (Again) – Cond Nast Traveler

If you subscribe to the "bigger is better" mindset, your future cruise vacation plans just got seriously supersized. Mark your calendars for April 2018, when Royal Caribbean's new Symphony of the Seas (the fourth vessel in the line's Oasis class of ships) joins ranks with its current 25-ship fleet as the biggest cruise ship ever built.

The massive 18-deck, 5,494-passenger vesselmeasuring in at a whopping 230,000 gross tonswill swipe the title of "world's largest ship" from Royal Caribbean's 2016-debuted Harmony of the Seas , trumping that ship's dimensions by about 3,000 tons and 28 added staterooms. In addition to bringing aboard some of the cruise line's more popular innovationsincluding favorites like the robot bartender-helmed Bionic Bar , a seven-neighborhood shipboard concept, surf simulator, ice-skating rink, rock-climbing wall, waterfront AquaTheater, and several waterslides (like the 10-story-high Ultimate Abyss: the tallest slide at sea)the line has hinted at Symphony of the Seas unveiling some "revolutionary new firsts" all its own, though mum's the word on those specifics just yet.

Bookings are now open for Symphony of the Seas's inaugural year, which will kick off on April 21, 2018, with seven-night Mediterranean itineraries from Barcelona, calling on ports in Spain (at Palma de Mallorca), France (in Provence), and Italy (at Florence/Pisa, Rome, and Naples). Come early November, the ship will cross the Atlantic to Miami, where it will shift its offerings to a series of 7-night eastern and western Caribbean itineraries; the Symphony of the Seas will then remain homeported there for the remainder of 2017 and throughout 2018.

Surely, a ship of this magnitude deserves a terminal to match, which is why the line has also broken ground on a brand-new 170,000-square-foot facility to receive it upon its arrival in Miami. The cutting-edge, angular glass-designed PortMiami Terminal A is being touted by the line as "the most innovative cruise facility in the U.S." Set for completion in October 2018, the sparkling new terminal will welcome the Symphony of the Seas , along with its fellow Oasis-class sister ship Allure of the Seas (which is being relocated there from Ft. Lauderdale) in November 2018, where both ships are slated to offer a robust calendar of island-hopping Caribbean itineraries.

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Royal Caribbean Set to Launch World's Biggest Cruise Ship (Again) - Cond Nast Traveler