Jaunted

It is for this reason that I'm tempted by the brand new, spectacularly ostentatious, Oasis of the Seas cruise ship, which will make its official debut this December. It's been described numerous times as Las Vegas on the High Seas, but it seems to me like so much more. It's the biggest cruise ship ever built, at 1,184 feet long, and it boasts 18 decks and room for 6,296 paying passengers. It has seven "neighborhoods" (but presumably no ghettos) and crazy amenities galore, from an outdoor park with live plants and trees to a high-diving pool at the ship's stern where 600 guests can watch water acrobatics shows. And of course there are swimming pools and exercise areas galore, including two of those wave surfing pools that are probably a lot harder than they look. Sounds like a whole bunch of tacky fun to me.

A nifty Washington Post story gives an enticing preview of the ship, which is so big that it overshadows the Caribbean ports of call it's scheduled to visit. The money quote comes on the second page of the story, where Captain Tor Olsen summarizes the company's goal: "Our hope, of course, is that people don't get off, because this ship itself is the destination," Olsen said. "This is better than a lot of the islands."

I guess that's always been the case, but I can't imagine taking a cruise to St. Thomas, St. Maarten, or the Bahamas and not actually setting foot on the islands. I wonder what the ratio of passengers who disembark to passengers who stay on board will be. If enough people stay on board, maybe Oasis of the Seas will eventually take only "cruises to nowhere." If you've got everything anybody could want on board, why bother stopping at some rinky-dink island?

I've only taken one real cruise in my life, a journey with my family in the mid-1970's on a ship called The Monarch Sun. I remember it being a lot of fun (it stopped in Freeport, I think), but I'm sure the attractions paled in comparison to those of the Oasis of the Seas. So maybe it's time to give cruising another chance and explore this modern marvel of engineering and conspicuous consumption. It might be worth it just to experience the world's first oceanic zip line.

Related Stories:
· Vegas on the Water [The Washington Post]
· Royal Caribbean [Jaunted]