Floating pleasure palace beckons those with deep pockets

The world's largest cruise liner Allure of the Seas is a floating hotel on the outside and an entertainment and amusement venue indoors

print this

By Kimmo Sarje
     
      On October 28th the world’s largest cruise liner, the MS Allure of the Seas, will slip away from the dock at the STX Europe Turku shipyard.
      Did “world’s largest” used to mean something rather grander than what it means today, I ask myself in astonishment at the rather low-key media attention towards the vessel.
      In public there have been more discussions about the employment problems brought on by the shipyard’s fading stock of orders than about the yard’s rather spectacular achievement.
      According to engineer Marja Myllymaa, the low level of interest is purely a Finnish phenomenon.
      In the wider world the luxury cruise liner is definitely causing a stir.
     
In the early decades of the 20th century, the race to cross the Atlantic Ocean faster and faster was an international spectacle that the media followed incessantly.
      In 1908 the Finnish architect Sigurd Frosterus published an essay entitled The Greyhounds of the Atlantic, in which he reviewed the development of steam engines, propellers, and hull designs from the point of view of smashing speed records.
      Gradually the frenzied competition for speed among the mail steamers of various sorts, all hankering after the coveted “Blue Riband”, gave way to a competition between vessels that were slower - but from the passengers’ point of view a sight more more comfortable - for the title of the “biggest in the world”.
      “These floating palaces, the interiors of which were reminiscent of those of luxury hotels with their lifts, halls, gardens, and swimming pools, started competing successfully for the favours of the public”, Frosterus wrote in 1908.
     
A hundred years later, the Allure of the Seas continues this competition for superlatives in size and grandeur.
      Lengthwise the 361-metre vessel is the same size as its sister ship, the MS Oasis of the Seas, which was completed in the same Turku shipyard a year earlier.
      Compared with the days before passenger aircraft, today speed is a secondary issue.
      Indeed, the vessels ordered from Turku by the Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd are not meant for regular liner service.
      Instead, they are cruise ships, floating cities of amusement and entertainment where the customers will hopefully enjoy themselves for as long as possible while spending money generously.
     
Even in the air travel business, size now apparently matters more than speed.
      The double-decker Airbus A380 that paid a visit to Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport in September perhaps interested the Finns even more than the Allure of the Seas.
      The airport got congested with the sheer numbers of people who wanted to witness the landing of the giant of the skies.
     
As far as its exterior is concerned, the Allure of the Seas resembles a large beach hotel.
      Lowest on its long white flanks are a row of round porthole windows perforating the hull.
      Above that there is a row of yellow lifeboats - each one of which is capable of accommodating 370 passengers.
      The side view is defined by eight even rows of balconies on top of each other, above which there are the spaces for the suites and the more freely-shaped roof terraces.
     
An unassumingly undulating relief-like shape along the upper superstructure livens up the ship’s long side.
      The steelwork of the ribbons of balconies is delicate and precise. The steel wall of the cabin floors is but a half-a-centimetre skin covering the supporting steel structures.
      The ship’s design is a group effort contributed to by engineers from both the shipyard and the client as well as by several outside architects.
      If there is Finnish design to be detected, it is in the ship’s exterior rather than the interior, which in its entirety is by the client’s own designers.
     
From the outside, the cruise vessel represents restrained elegance, but when it comes to the interior it is an enticing events bazaar.
      The inside of the ship includes shopping streets with bars, cafes, and restaurants, a park, a theatre, an ice theatre, an aquatic theatre, an amusement park for children with carousels and all, hobby and meeting places for teenagers, a basketball court, a rock-climbing wall, and naturally a casino.
      And much more.
      The interiors of the luxury suites, on the other hand, stick to the clear lines of Nordic design.
     
No cash is used on the ship. Instead, a client’s account will automatically be billed for all the shopping and other spending.
      In the hypnotic glitter and the timeless buzz of the gaming machines of the casino, a traveller may produce a few surprises to himself and those close to him.
      This is a floating Las Vegas.
      The paradox that even Frosterus in his time paid attention to is characteristic also of the interior of the Allure of the Seas.
      Where the design of functionalist buildings pursued the streamlined appearance of ships, the interior designs of luxury ships reached for the heavy and sturdy impression of construction on dry land.
      Naturally the motive was to create a feeling of unshakeable safety in the passengers.
     
The ship’s main walkways have often been paved with stone slabs or ceramic tiles.
      There are tree-lined walkways and even a parked classic car.
      The look of a onboard stand-up comedy club emulates the steel structures and other visual motifs of a London Underground station, including the tube map.
      In a basement-like night club, one can get wasted surrounded by a calming wall made out of artificial stones.
      The French social theorist and renowned postmodernism fanatic, the late Jean Baudrillard, would definitely have got his kicks from all this.
     
From the elevator landings, however, one can catch a glimpse of the staggering dimensions of the 17-floor structure. Or wait a minute, is it a 16-floor structure, as the 13th floor simply does not exist?
      The three-storey main dining room on the Allure of the Seas houses a central atrium that penetrates through all three floors and is decorated with a five-metre-high fresco and a chandelier that weighs a tonne.
      The flower- and plant-inspired fresco’s ornaments have an Asian mien.
     
In fact, most of the works that I saw decorating the ship's public spaces were by artists from China, Japan, India, and the Middle East.
      Is this a hint towards the areas from which the bulk of the future clients is expected to come?
      It is good to remember that, though physically in Finland, the Turku shipyard currently belongs to a Korean owner.
      In general, the art acquisitions were a considerable part of the cruise ship’s interior design. From what I saw, many of the more than 7,000 works aboard are artistically provoking.
     
As far as the colour palette goes, the vessel’s interior focuses on shades of orange and burgundy accompanied by gold.
      In other words, the aim has been to create a warm and opulent atmosphere.
      When approaching the boardwalk in the stern the colours cool down towards shades of blue and turquoise.
      At the sun terrace in the bow, the colours used are light and airy, just as in the chapel, the dark-brown panelled altar wall of which is void of religious symbols.
      So, the ship even has a place for some quiet reflection amidst all the revels.
     
     
A few numbers:
      The floating leviathan is 361 metres long, 66 metres wide, rises 72 metres above the waterline, and has a draught of 9.3 metres. Her gross tonnage is 225,282, and she is powered by six Wärtsilä diesel engines producing 97,000 kW..
      She has 2,704 cabins for a maximum of 6,360 passengers.
      The number of crew cabins is 1,181.
      The cruising speed is 20.2 knots.
      The vessel’s owner is Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, and it was built by STX Europe at its shipyard in Turku, Finland.
      If her sister-ship Oasis of the Seas is anything to go by, she will be registered in Nassau in The Bahamas.
     
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.10.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mega cruise liner Oasis of the Seas completed on schedule (29.10.2009)
  Crisis in shipbuilding industry threatens to engulf Turku region (14.10.2010)

See also:
  State takes on heavy responsibility for new giant cruise liner (20.4.2009)
  Viking Line to order new ship from Turku shipyard (26.10.2010)
  Thousands turn out to see maiden visit to Helsinki-Vantaa of world´s largest passenger aircraft (16.9.2010)

Links:
  M/S Allure of the Seas (Wikipedia)
  Allure of the Seas

Helsingin Sanomat