Inside the Construction of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas

Northern Europe’s largest gantry crane, nicknamed “Baby” at the Meyer Turku shipyard, lifted a single block of cabins for Royal Caribbean’s new Icon of the Seas, weighing more than 900 tons recently, Royal Caribbean Group officials said Tuesday.

The nine-deck, roughly 60-meter-wide block was moved in one day. It was the largest ever lifted in Europe, as far as shipyard officials knew.

Meyer Turku CEO Tim Meyer said there were no nerves in the move. His team had done a detailed study of how the steel would flex while being lifted and knew exactly how it should be handled while being moved into place.

“It’s very easy,” Meyer deadpanned. “It’s like building a Lego ship.”

While hoisting the cross-section of cruise ship cabins was a feat of engineering, it was also an example of Icon’s aggressive build schedule. Putting the blocks together shoreside is much faster than doing so on the ship, so the larger the block moved, the less schedule burden.

In all, the Icon consisted of 201 blocks, with roughly one installed a day. Each block required about 100 meters of welding once in place.

Building the world’s largest cruise ship meant roughly 2,600 workers a day coming to the Turku, Finland shipyard, representing some 20 nationalities from countless subcontractors. The ship will debut in Miami next January.

The Turku shipyard opened in 1737 — 58 years before the Meyer family started building ships.

Royal Caribbean Group President and CEO Jason Liberty called the yard the “tip of the spear” of innovation.

In their seventh generation of ownership and 228th year in operation, the Meyer family remains both focused and humble.

Patriarch Bernard Meyer, CEO of Meyer Werft, declined to spend much time looking backwards.

“We have no time to be proud; we have work to do,” he said.

Fincantieri Starts Construction of New ‘Sphere’ Class Ship for Princess Cruises

The steel of the first of two LNG cruise ships for Princess Cruises took place in San Giorgio di Nogaro (Udine) at Centro Servizi Navali, a company specialized in logistics and production of sheet metal for the Fincantieri yards located in northeastern Italy.

The ship will be built in the Monfalcone yard.

At 175,000 gross tons, the “Sphere” vessels will be the largest ships built so far in Italy. They will each accommodate approximately 4,300 guests and will be based on a next-generation platform design, being the first Princess Cruises ships to be dual-fuel powered primarily by LNG.

Carnival Horizon Construction Moving Along

Horizon Construction

Carnival Cruise Line has released three new photos of the construction scenes surrounding the Carnival Horizon, which will launch from Fincantieri in spring of 2018.

Horizon Construction

The Carnival Horizon is set to debut April 2, 2018, with a 13-day Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona – the first of four roundtrip departures, the company said.

The Carnival Horizon will then reposition to the U.S. with a 14-day trans-Atlantic crossing from Barcelona to New York May 9-23, 2018, positioning the vessel for a summer schedule of four-day Bermuda and eight-day Caribbean departures from Manhattan.

Horizon Construction

Carnival Horizon will shift to Miami to launch a year-round schedule of six- and eight-day Caribbean cruises beginning Sept. 22, 2018. Carnival Horizon will also offer a special two-day cruise to Nassau from Miami Sept. 20-22, 2018.