The world’s biggest luxury ships

·11 Jul 2015

The world’s biggest luxury cruise ship by length is Royal Caribbean International’s Allure of the Seas – a cruise liner that is only fraction longer than its sister vessel, the Oasis of the seas, by 5 centimetres.

The liner measures just over 360 metres in length – the equivalent of two and a half full-length ruby fields (144m), or more than twice the length of Joburg’s Ponte tower (174m), and is even longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower (276m) by some margin.

For a greater sense of scale, the ship is as long as 80 cars parked in front of each other -or if you want visualise something more comical, 212 people lying head to toe.

Read: These are the world’s biggest ‘mega’ ships

The ship has 17 decks, and can carry over 6,000 passengers, catered to by a crew of over 2,200 people.

The ship features a two-deck dance hall, a theatre with 1,380 seats, an ice skating rink, 7 distinct “neighborhoods”, and 25 dining options – and cost a whopping $1.2 billion (R15 billion) to construct in 2006.

While the Allure is definitely the biggest cruise ship out there, it isn’t biggest floating vessel, and it’s not alone in the luxury line.

In January 2015, the MSC Oscar, set sail; measuring in at 395.4 metres in length, the vessel comfortably claims the title of the world’s biggest ‘mega ship’, with the capacity to hold 39,000 cars.

MSC Oscar (ship, 2014) by kees torn – MSC OSCAR & SVITZER NARI

But looking specifically at cruise liners, the Allure is closely followed by other Royal Caribbean International liners, such as the Oasis, Anthem, Quantum and the Freedom line of ships.

Here are the world’s 10 biggest luxury cruise liners: