Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas was officially launched today, by godmother and Emmy-award winning actress Kristin Chenoweth.
The ceremony took place onboard the ship, which is currently docked at Cape Liberty, New Jersey.
It included various forms of entertainment, including an “earth harp” which involved vast strings spread across the length of the theatre, a performance of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” by Chenoweth and blessings by both a reverend and a rabbi.
Speaking during the ceremony, Fain told onboard guests that Quantum of the Seas was the culmination of a “journey which began in 2009”.
“That was when we decided to start working on a new type of cruise ship for a new type of cruising,” he said. “We thought, ‘how could we top Allure and Oasis of the Seas’.
“But Royal Caribbean has never aspired to doing what was expected, and we decided to chart new paths.”
“We wanted people to say ‘do you remember cruising before Quantum?’”
He added that the line had kept to its mantra of “keeping one third of the ship traditional, one third evolutionary, and one third revolutionary”, although Fain conceded: “We may have made Quantum two thirds revolutionary”.
“We wanted people to say, ‘Do you remember cruising before Quantum?’, the same way that they say, ‘Do you remember payphones, or using fold-up maps before Google came along?’” he said.
“We want people to say, ‘Do you remember when check-in took an hour, do you remember when there were room keys, do you remember when there was one dining room?’”
Fain also revealed that although the usual method of choosing a name was typically a “controversial process”, there had been universal agreement on the title of “Quantum of the Seas”.
“As soon as someone said the name Quantum, the room went quiet – everyone knew that this was the name. You can’t say the word ‘quantum’ without thinking ‘leap’, and that’s what this ship is,” he added.
Tweets from Quantum of the Seas
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