Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas has cast off. The world’s new largest cruise ship left the port of Miami, Florida, on its maiden voyage to the Caribbean on Saturday, despite accusations of anti-ecological monstrosity.
With its 365 meters long, 20 decks, 2,805 cabins and 40 restaurants, this immense liner is a hymn to excess, the latest addition to a cruise sector in full recovery after the Covid-19 years.
Royal Caribbean, promises to reduce environmental impact
The Icon of the Seas, registered in the Bahamas, is the first ship of the American cruise giant to be powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), a fossil fuel that the industry presents as a cleaner alternative to heavy but jettisoning fuel oil. methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
The ship is also equipped with a system that converts waste into energy and another to recycle water on board, says Royal Caribbean, thus promising to reduce the environmental impact of this type of ship, ‘one of the most common criticisms of the cruise industry.
Lionel Messi guest of honor
The Icon of the Seas can accommodate 5,610 passengers and 2,350 crew members. Divided into eight different districts, it includes seven swimming pools, nine jacuzzis and a 17-meter-high waterfall. With a gross tonnage of 250,800 tonnes, five times the size of the Titanic, it left the Turku shipyard in Finland.
The Miami-based company welcomed Lionel Messi, the star of the city’s soccer club, to press a button that caused a bottle of champagne to crash onto the hull during the ship’s christening on Tuesday.
During its maiden voyage to the Caribbean, it will visit Basseterre, capital of the State of Saint Kitts and Nevis, before heading to Charlotte-Amélie, in the American Virgin Islands, then to the island private of Coco Cay, in the Bahamas, before returning to Miami.