World's largest cruise ship debuts in Miami

Jason · May 13, 2007

By: USA Today

ABOARD THE LIBERTY OF THE SEAS -- The latest "world's largest ship" is now at sea after setting sail from Miami for the first time.

Royal Caribbean's 160,000-ton Liberty of the Seas glided out of the city's busy downtown port just before 6 p.m. this evening on the first leg of a three-night "preview cruise" to The Bahamas.

We have to admit, it's hard not to be impressed with the sheer size of the vessel, which officially launches next Saturday, May 19, and will be based in Miami year-round. Liberty is a sister ship to Royal Caribbean's much-ballyhooed, one-year-old Freedom of the Seas, and like that ship can hold an eye-popping 4,375 passengers at full capacity. The two ships will share the "world's biggest" title.

Like Freedom, Liberty is chock full of gee-whiz features such as a boxing ring and a wave pool for surfing.

Chucksta63 · May 13, 2007

Wow it is un-beleiveable how big thay are getting now!

boba · May 13, 2007

And only getting bigger. I guess I,m to blame, I,ll be on Freedom of the Seas in Aug. :blush:

JoeyandDavid · May 13, 2007

that is exciting.. but as we have stated before...larger does not equate better in our opinion...

SMB · May 13, 2007

I'm not sure what to think. It is sort of like comparing a mega-resort to a B&B. Both have up and down sides. I know that Liberty is scheduled for a stop in St. Maartin later this year. I'm glad I will not be there to witness almost 5,000 people flooding Philipsburg. :wacko: I seems as if mega-ships should be limited to long distance cruises. That would give people time to enjoy all the amenities (I'm still not getting in the boxing ring!)

frostyboy64 · May 14, 2007

the biger the better :biggrin:

Joanandjoe · May 14, 2007

Don't blame us: we probably wouldn't cruise on a ship that big on a freebie. We're biased: nearly half of our cruises of more than one night (four out of ten) have been on ships with under 500 PAX, none has been on a ship as large as 2,000 PAX, and we truly enjoy the small ships. That's why we were considering Empress of the North for this spring (see our post on that thread). Thank heaven we didn't book the Empress!

We saw Freedom of the Seas last May when we sailed on Zenith (Frredom was on its inaugural visit to the NYC area), and have passed within 100 yards of the Queen Mary when she was docked on the west side, before she moved to Brooklyn. We were impressed, but negatively, by the large size of both ships. Not our cup of tea!