The Highly Successful Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line came into being in 1968 by Anders Wilhelmsen, I.M. Skaugen, and Gotaas Larsen, all of them are based in Norway.

After the first four years of growth, the Song of Norway was the first commercial ship to be extended to the line. In its corporate restructuring on 1988, the cruise line commissioned Sovereign of the Seas which was the largest commercial ship afloat during its time.

The Monarch of the Seas was the second Sovereign class ship to be entered in to service the following year. There were two more vessels that entered service namely; the Grandeur and the Splendour of the Seas. But with that, the liners’ ageing ship, the Song of Norway was released from service. And at that time, there were another two Vision class liners entering its cruising duties namely the Enchantment and the Rhapsody of the Seas.

With having launched a couple of ships, the company then merged with a Greek cruise line and changed its name to Royal Caribbean International.

1998 saw vision of the seas arrive for service. It was the last of the Vision class liners. A year later, Voyager of the Seas, which happened to be the newest and biggest cruise ship also entered to service with a lot of interest from the media.

Mariner of the Seas and Serenade of the Seas were also introduced a year later. The most notable feature was the rock-climbing walls that were made a standard feature of every Royal Caribbean ship.

There are also plans to launch bigger and better ships. The genesis class is yet to be the biggest class of the Royal Caribbean Cruises’ ships and will be launched in 2009; this guarantees the liners’ lead in size for years to come.

2006 saw the Royal Caribbean cruise line finalize the procurement of a company called Pullmantur Cruises based in Spain. Later the next year, they announced plans to create a new cruise line intended for French-language clients. The brand will be named TUI Cruises.