Project Genesis

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line is launching a new ship next year in their new Genesis class. This ship will be, at 220,000 tons, almost 50% larger than the current largest cruise ships in the world (also Royal Caribbean's). This is also larger than virtually every ship ever made with the exception of a small handful of supertankers.

I don't believe I would ever pay to travel on such a ship, although I certainly wouldn't turn it down if it were free. Even though I'm turned off by such a large ship, I am totally amazed by the fact that a ship of that size is even possible, and even more amazed that the cruise line can make a business proposition for building such a thing. In reading about the new Genesis ships I stumbled across a naming contest that invited people to submit their proposed names for the two ships that make up "Project Genesis".

I submitted Behemoth of the Seas and Leviathan of the Seas, both keeping with Royal Caribbean's "____ of the Seas" naming tradition. I had great visions of the two great ships locked in battle at the end of the world. I was pretty proud of myself, but I had the distinct feeling that I wasn't the first to come up with this. I searched through the wide wide world of web and found a few posts on cruise forums that showed that others had in fact had the same idea. I'm so disappointed when I find out I'm not as clever as I think I am.

Ignoring my disappointment for a moment, I was very pleased at some of the other naming ideas that I saw represented on the cruise forums.

There were a few attempts to try to tie in to the "Project Genesis" codename:
Paradise of the Seas
Eden of the Seas
Peter Gabriel of the Seas
Phil Collins of the Seas

I was hoping to see some more prog-rock references, like a King Crimson of the Seas. I was also hoping that Project Genesis could expand to a three ship program so that we could see ships that collectively could be named the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer of the Seas. Alas, those ideas seem to be exclusively mine.

There were a couple of attempts to tie the ship names in to the "Project Genesis" from Star Trek II, but those are way too nerdy to show here.

There were a few attempts to dig on the problems associated with a ship of such a large size:
Disorientation of the Seas
Confusion of the Seas
Bewilderment of the Seas
How the Hell do I Get to the Dining Room of the Seas?

Then of course, there were the inevitable jabs at the sheer size of the ship:

Enormity of the Seas
Immenisty of the Seas
Gargantuan of the Seas
Giganticness of the Seas
Monstrosity of the Seas
Colossus of the Seas
Mammoth of the Seas
Titan of the Seas
Brobdingnag of the Seas (look it up)
Ginormous of the Seas
Oprah of the Seas
and my favorite, That's No Moon, That's a Space Station of the Seas

Discussion of the ships also veered towards speculation as to what onboard features the new ships may have. While all cruise ships have swimming pools, this one is rumored to have a full olympic sized one. The largest cruise ships will have a basketball court on the upper deck. This one has a football field. The Voyager and Freedom class ships have a sort of mini-mall on board. This one has a full-size replica of the Mall of America. Some previous Royal Caribbean ships have had 9 hole miniature golf courses on the upper deck; this one is regular size. One of the Costa ships has an auto racing simulator; this one will have a full race track. Royal Caribbean ships all have a rock climbing wall; this one had an actual mountain installed. Repeat ad infinitum.