Vision Of The Seas

Vision Of The Seas as seen from the southern pierhead at IJmuiden at the 30th of april, 2011.

Mostly, the name-giver of a class of ships is the first ship to be built. In that way, it is an easy reference. Royal Caribbean International is a little more confusing, though. The Vision-class of ships, that is a class of four (or six), started with the Legend Of The Seas and the Splendour Of The Seas, which are of a totally different design then the other four and that is why I don't see them as Vision-class. The later four, Grandeur Of The Seas, Rhapsody Of The Seas, Enchantment Of The Seas and Vision Of The Seas, are almost identical and can be called one class. Of them, the namegiver Vision Of The Seas was built as the last one. The next class of ships, starting with the Radiance Of The Seas, is officially the Vantage-class. There is no 'Vantage Of The Seas'. The two classes that were built after the Vantage class were named the Eagle-class and the Voyager-class, and the Voyager-class was the largest of the two. But when the first ship of the Eagle-class was launched, her name was Voyager Of The Seas. So this class was renamed as Voyager-class, and the original one was named Freedom-class, after the first ship that entered service as Freedom Of The Seas. Enough chitchat, back to Vision. 

As the last ship of the class, Vision Of The Seas measured 78.491 tons, the same as one of her earlier sisters, the Rhapsody Of The Seas. The other two were smaller, measuring just 74.000 tons. She was built at Chantiers de L'atlantique at Saint Nazaire in France as yardnumber F31. The ship has a lenght of 279 meters, she is 32,30 meters wide and her draft measures 7,60 meters. Her maximum passengernumber is 2441, based on lower berths the number given is 1998. They are cared for by some 765 crewmembers on ten passengerdecks. When launched, the ship was registered at Liberia, her homeport being Monrovia. 

The picture below is from the same day as the first one, only now she is seen sailing towards Amsterdam near the village of Velsen-Zuid.

The ship was delivered to the company at the 15th of april 1998 and named at Southampton on the 26th of april. Her godmother is Helen Stephan, the wive of Edward Stephan, one of the founders of the company and its vice-chairman. After the naming ceremony, the ship sailed her first official cruise starting on may 2nd from Southampton, and settling in into a season of European cruises. After her first season in Europe, she was placed in other services before returning to European summerseasons from 2009 onwards. She is then mostly based at Copehagen, Oslo or Stockholm and she sails cruises in the Baltic, around Great Britain or off to Spain. In winter, the ship takes on Caribbean cruises from Fort Lauderdale.