As the new year is nearly upon us, the time is ripe for a list filled with interesting and fun facts. The cruise industry certainly had a great year in 2014 and we would like to share our 25 interesting facts list. Did you know?
1. Cruise holidays continue their popularity and presently there are more than 300 cruise ships available for your pleasure. Over 20 million passengers took a cruise holiday last year.
2. The largest ships can hold more than 5000 people and can be as tall as a sixteen story building.
3. Cruise ship construction can sometimes cost more than £800 million.
4. Over 150 thousand meals are prepared each week onboard some cruise ships.
5. There are 32 new cruise vessels being launched from 2015 to 2020
6. The top three destinations are the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Northern Europe.
7. The most popular ports for cruises in the Caribbean depart from Miami, Port Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale.
8. Miami is also the world’s busiest cruise port with 4.8 million multiday cruise passengers, according to preliminary data for this year.
9. The biggest cruise companies are Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line, controlling two thirds of all passenger world capacity.
10. The largest of the group is Carnival Cruise Lines and besides its own brand, the corporation owns Costa, Holland America, P&O, Princess Cruises, Cunard, AIDA, P&O Cruises Australia, Ibero Cruceros and Seabourn.
11. Presently the largest cruise ships in the world Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas are the same bar 50mm! and 15 metres longer than the next largest one, Quantum of the Seas. The Norwegian Epic is presently in 3rd place with a 33 metre difference
Image courtesy of Royal Caribbean Cruises
12. A study claims that living on a cruise ship costs the same amount as a high-end land based retirement and offers a higher quality of life.
13. The first cruise ship built exclusively for cruising was the Prinzessin Victoria Luise from the American Hamburg Company in 1901.
14. The first ever steam ship to make its way from the US to England was the S.S. Savannah in 1819. It took 21 days to reach Liverpool and was also one of the first ever steam ships.
15. The Titanic’s surviving passengers were rescued by Cunard’s Carpathia. Amazingly, the modest ship was able to dart icebergs but was unable to survive German torpedoes during WWI, when she was commissioned as a troop ship.
16. An Australian billionaire has decided to build an exact replica of the Titanic, due to launch in 2018.
17. The X on Celebrity Cruises is actually the Greek letter “Chi”. This is short for Chandris, the organisation that founded the cruise line in 1988.
18. There is one cruise ship that allows its passengers to reside on it. Named “The World”, it is a floating condo, with occasionally short-term rentals, and travels around the globe.
19. A designated cruise ship from the Tallink & Silja Line departs Stockholm to Helsinki for the aim of purchasing alcohol, which is much cheaper in Finland than Sweden.
20. The Oasis of The Seas uses more than 9000 litres of fuel each and every hour.
21. P&O’s Britannia has over £1 million worth of art on-board.
Image courtesy of P&O Cruises
22. The most expensive cruise to date is one that was put together by UK agency Six Star Cruises in 2012 on the Silver Whisper and cost £1million per couple. However, this holiday lasted for four months.
23. Cunards Queen Mary 2 offers old-world style transatlantic sailings with luxury and modern conveniences from Southampton to New York.
24. The first seven notes of the “When You Wish Upon a Star” from the Disney classic film, Pinocchio, serves as the Disney Cruise Line ship’s horn signals.
25. Over 1.5 million British citizens will take a holiday on a cruise ship in 2015.
Written by Veronica Shine
