It floats! New Royal Caribbean ship takes to the water

Cruise giant Royal Caribbean’s next ship took to the water over the weekend for the first time.

February 26, 2015

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​The 4,180-passenger Anthem of the Seas was "floated out" on Saturday from a dry dock at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany. The vessel is scheduled to debut in April 2015.

The initial stages of a cruise ship's construction take place in a dry dock facility. Once exterior outfitting is completed, the dry dock is flooded and the ship is floated to a wet dock where construction continues (click through the carousel above for photos of Anthem's float out and the ship under construction).

The 168,666-ton Anthem of the Seas is a sister ship to Royal Caribbean's much-ballyhooed Quantum of the Seas, which debuted in October with a number of first-for-the-industry features including a deck-top ride into the sky and a bar with robot bartenders. Both concepts also will appear on Anthem.

The ships are being billed as the most technologically advanced cruise vessels ever. They boast super speedy Internet (a first for the cruise industry) and an all-digital check-in process that is cutting sidewalk-to-ship boarding times to under 10 minutes. Other gee-whiz features include the first skydiving simulators at sea and the first bumper cars at sea.

Anthem and Quantum are the third and fourth largest cruise vessels ever built, smaller in size only to two other Royal Caribbean ships: Four-year-old Allure of the Seas and five-year-old Oasis of the Seas.

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