The www.CRUISE.co.uk team can exclusively reveal that Royal Caribbean have been involved in a secret trial involving a new ship – Resonance of the Rivers – along several of Europe’s largest waterways.
River cruising has been growing in popularity for years now (as we recently reported here) with more and more people making the jump to river cruising. In fact Viking cruises famously announced last year (you can read the full article here) that they’d gotten so popular they’d decided to also offer ocean cruising as well.
Up until now though none of the ‘Big Players’ within the ocean cruising market has offered a ‘river product’.
That is however until a canny member of our online cruise community took these images along the southern Rhine last week!
We asked Royal Caribbean about the images and they revealed they’ve been conducting secret trials as to the viability of using their latest class of ships (Quantum class) being deployed along both the Rhine and Danube.
Apparently there were concerns with the ship navigating some of the rivers more shallow stretches but Resonance of the Rivers innovative Quantum class design means these problems have now been bypassed.
Royal Caribbean have been in negotiations with both the French and German Governments about raising the height of several strategic bridges along the lengths of the rivers enabling Resonance of the Rivers to pass under them. As soon as these issues are addressed (expected by the end of June this year) Royal Caribbean will be happy to launch Resonance of the Rivers along the Rhine and Danube.
Introducing their Quantum class of ships to river cruising means guests that may be used to more ‘typical’ entertainment on much smaller ships will now be able to enjoy such facilities as…
On-board bumper cars in the SeaPlex zone
Royal Caribbean’s iconic flow rider will now be available to river cruisers
Guest’s will be available to enjoy the first ever robotic bar on a river ship
They’ll also be able to enjoy Royal Caribbeans simulated skydiving – Rip Cord by I-fly
What do you think of the news?
Will some of Europe’s most historic cities be able to cope with a mega-ships 5,000 plus passengers disembarking at once? Will the ships modern design and facilities be a welcome addition to the river cruising market?
Have your say in the comments below….
