After sitting idle for more than 500 days, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas cast off on her first revenue cruise on Sunday.
The 5,400-passenger vessel — the largest cruise ship in the world at the time of her 2009 launch — sailed the first of a series of seven-night Bahamas cruises, from Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey.
The New York-area deployment, which was originally scheduled to begin in May 2020, is a first for the ship. These sailings visit Nassau, Perfect Day at CocoCay — Royal Caribbean’s private island destination, and Port Canaveral, Florida.
In November, Oasis will relocate to Miami for the winter 2021-2022 season, offering seven night Eastern and Western Caribbean voyages that visit St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Cozumel, Roatan, and Perfect Day at CocoCay.
Oasis of the Seas, the first of a soon-to-be six-vessel Oasis-class fleet, was a game-changer when she debuted 12 years ago, offering multiple neighborhoods, including reproductions of New York’s Central Park and a seaside Boardwalk. At the rear of the Boardwalk, the AquaTheater offered dancing fountains and water-based acrobatic shows, the first for a cruise ship.
In 2019, Oasis underwent a $165-million dry dock refurbishment, known as a Royal Amplification, that added popular features such as the robot-controlled Bionic Bar, Spotlight Karaoke, and Ultimate Abyss — the tallest slide at sea.
Oasis of the Seas is the 14th of Royal Caribbean’s 25 vessel fleet to begin sailing worldwide, and the tenth U.S.-based ship to return to service for the line since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the global cruise industry in March 2020.
Royal Caribbean sails the world’s largest cruise ship fleet, including four of the largest cruise vessels in the world.
