Arkitektbyran, a Swedish firm that had originally worked on land-based designs, has been doing pool-deck areas on RCCL ships for eight years. Harri Kulovaara invited the firm to be one of three outside companies to come up with a complete, general plan for Voyager. Given a blank sheet of paper and some basic dimensions and capacities, what would Arkitektbyran's designers come up with? One of the ideas that they offered: Design pool decks so that people could listen to music outside -- and dance -- at night.
In the end, Kulovaara chose Arkitektbyran to design all of the outdoor decks and kids' areas on Voyager. The all-day diner, which is convenient to the extensive kids' facilities, became Johnny Rockets. Designers also proposed the in-line skating track on Deck 13, the unusual tiered sunning areas that are between Decks 11 and 12, and the poolside bandstand on Deck 11. In addition, they submitted five full pool-deck designs for Voyager before one design was chosen.
A rock-climbing wall was in Arkitektbyran's first proposal for the outdoor decks. Lars Iwdal, 51, chief architect and owner of Arkitektbyran, suggested a wall 6 meters high -- less than 20 feet tall. "Richard Fain said, 'If there is anyone on this ship who has done any climbing, a 6-meter wall will be a joke. I want a climbing wall. It has to be at least 10 meters high.' " Iwdal did some rock climbing and discovered that Fain was right. The wall that runs up the back of Voyager's main funnel, arcing over itself, is 10 meters -- almost 33 feet -- high.
As Voyager's features multiplied -- conference center, wedding chapel, basketball court, and all the rest -- so did its dimensions. The early discussions envisioned a ship of 100,000 tons. "We never said, 'Let's see how big we can build this ship,' " says Adam Goldstein, 40, RCCL's senior VP of total guest satisfaction. "We said, 'Here are the diverse things people will do on a vacation if they have the opportunity.' It was not within our plans to build a ship that was roughly 140,000 tons -- but that's how big it needed to be to capture all of the opportunities."
There's no one at Royal Caribbean who is under the impression that anyone will take a cruise on Voyager just because it has an ice-skating rink. Not even the most devoted rock climbers will decide to vacation on Voyager just to scale its climbing wall. No one will choose the ship because of the engineering marvel that is the Royal Promenade, or because it boasts a gym and health spa that's the size of a small Wal-Mart.
Indeed, any one of those features, taken alone, seems absurd. Oddly, it is the cumulative impact of all of those features that gives each one its credibility. You are free to be bored on Voyager, to lounge away the afternoon drinking daiquiris by the pool. But you've got no reason to be bored if you don't want to be.
The quay in Turku, where the Eagle ships are being built, looks like an oversize playroom. All sorts of mechanical stuff -- like life-size pieces of Erector sets and Tinkertoys -- are scattered everywhere. Twelve shiny propeller blades, each 18 feet long, await installation. Yellow lifeboats are ready for hoisting onto their davits; each is a miniature ship -- two stories high, 30 feet long.
On the pier sits a complete version of RCCL's signature smokestack and wraparound Viking Crown lounge, a 14-story-high room that will hold 300 people. You can walk under the lounge and surrounding deck areas -- a steel chunk of ship six decks tall -- and see the internal stairways, doorways, decks, and ducts. It's a complete piece of an Eagle ship, ready to be picked up and snapped into place. Nearby is the entire rear starboard fantail of the same ship. The outside deck rails are already fastened and painted.
Modern ships are made like Lego creations; sections are built, hoisted aboard, and welded into place. Passenger cabins are manufactured and finished off-site -- down to the bathroom fixtures and carpeting -- and are brought to the shipyard and slid into place.
In Turku, two ships are lined up, one a schematic of the other. Eagle 1 -- formally named Voyager of the Seas -- is afloat, tied to the dock, its sides painted a gleaming white, a curlicue of smoke drifting from its stack. Twenty steps in front of Eagle 1 stands a stripped-down, peeled-open version of the same vessel. Eagle 2 sits in a rock-sided dry dock, the vast ship propped up on large jack stands. Eagle 2 is mostly raw, red steel. Its hull is finished; its topside, gap-toothed.
Although the basic steel structure for all three Eagle ships is almost identical, the interior designs and themes will be different -- as most likely will be the designers of those spaces.
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