Hot new Royal Caribbean ship is Australia bound
After an inaugural season in China, one of Royal Caribbean's hottest new ships will head to Australia.
Royal Caribbean today announced that its soon-to-debut Ovation of the Seas will move to Sydney for the winter of 2016-17 after a previously announced series of summer sailings out of Tianjin, China.
Arriving in April 2016, the 4,180-passenger vessel will be a sister to Royal Caribbean's much-ballyhooed, five-month-old Quantum of the Seas and its new-this-month Anthem of the Seas.
Ovation will be one of five Royal Caribbean ships sailing in Australia for the winter of 2016-17 -- a record for the line. Also based in Sydney will be Voyager of the Seas, Explorer of the Seas and Radiance of the Seas. Legend of the Seas will sail from Brisbane. Royal Caribbean has 23 vessels in all.
"Royal Caribbean has been breaking the boundaries in Australian cruising since we arrived in 2007, but today we have completely changed the face of the cruise industry, making the single largest investment in Australia by any cruise line," Royal Caribbean's senior vice president for the region, Gavin Smith, says in a statement accompanying the announcement.
Details on Ovation's Australia itineraries will be released later this month, the line says.
Under construction at a shipyard in Germany, Ovation will sail a 52-night voyage from Southampton, England to Tianjin just after it debuts in April 2016. Smaller segments of the voyage also are available for booking.
With 16 public decks and room for nearly 5,000 passengers a piece, the three Quantum class ships are among the largest cruise vessels ever built and boast such groundbreaking features as a deck-top ride into the sky and a bar with robot bartenders.
Paste BN Cruise reported live from Quantum's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Click on the carousel at the top of the story for our "first look" tour of the ship. For a look inside Quantum's swankiest suites, click through the carousel below. For more of our coverage of Quantum's debut, including a dozen videos, follow the links at the bottom of this page.
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