It is early morning as the huge cruise ship Ecstasy, carrying 2,263 passengers (with room for several hundred more) and a crew of 863, carefully edges sideways toward its berth without the help of even a single expensive tug after of a seven-day cruise to Nassau, San Juan and St. Thomas.
Carnival Cruise Lines, which put the $275 million Ecstasy into service last year, joining its sister ship Fantasy, is betting that bigger is better and more profitable, with two more jumbo sister ships under construction in Finland.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary in March, Carnival so far has won most of its bold financial gambles, operating nine large ships that carry nearly 18,000 passengers a week.
While concentrating mostly on the middle-class cruise market, Carnival also operates four ships of the upper-scale Holland America Line and three computer-directed sail ships of Windstar Cruises. Carnival believes passengers won`t be dismayed by the bulk of the newer ships.
To comprehend the size of the new ships, imagine that the 70,367-ton Ecstasy could be set down on Michigan Avenue. It would stretch south two blocks from Madison Street to Adams, spilling over both curbs nearly to the building facades and reach the 15th stories of those skyscrapers with its trademark winged funnel.
Carnival markets the Ecstasy as much as a destination as the ports that the ship visits. A bemused Chicago passenger, old enough to recall the 1930s, sees a parallel with the now-defunct Balaban & Katz theater chain. Its rococo movie palaces awed patrons, who came not only to see a movie or a vaudeville act, but also to admire the thick Oriental rugs, tapestry-adorned walls, grand pianos and statuary.
Starry nights
One theater, the Paradise (on what is now Pulaski Road north of Madison Street), even had a whole firmament of twinkling stars on its ceiling. So does the Ecstasy.
The effect is astonishing at the ship`s core, a seven-story glass-domed atrium served by glass-enclosed elevators festooned with neon tubing. Besides twinkling lights, 13 miles of neon tubing change colors, from blue to green to hot reds, according to a mood dictated by a bank of computers.
At the atrium`s center, a 10-ton sculpture, ”Double Helix,” molded from polycarbonate plastic and stainless steel, rises 24 feet and slowly rotates clockwise and counterclockwise.
”The idea was to create a `fun city` theme, bubbling with energy and rich in texture (and) to introduce a fourth dimension,” says Joe Farcus, a Miami architect. Strolling down his blocklong City Lights Boulevard, the passengers pass surreal skyscrapers that change colors and see curious sights: outside the Rolls Royce Cafe is a 1934 Rolls Saloon car; inside the Neon Bar
(which is the piano bar), an array of neon tubing advertising ”Joe`s Bar,” ”Stork Club,” etc., and the neon outline of a piano whose keys move as though being played.
The Stripes disco continues the theme that more is better: Its walls are bright yellow and jet black in a chevron design, and six colors of flashing automated neon pulsate as the music throbs.
The stainless-steel City Diner, reminiscent of a small-town eatery, serves a late night mini-buffet. (Not counting 24-hour free room service, it is possible to eat as many as nine times daily-breakfast and lunch on deck, breakfast, lunch and dinner in the two dining rooms, mid-morning and afternoon snacks and tea, midnight buffet and the 1:30 a.m. mini-buffet.)
Big as all outdoors
Outdoor spaces are as oversized as the interior. Taking one of 14 elevators to the Lido Deck, passengers congregate around a large stage filled with loud-playing musicians.
Instead of the hanky-sized swimming pool usually found on ships, there is one approaching Olympic dimensions, served by a two-story water slide and hot tubs, some crowded with as many as eight noisy, beer-guzzling young passengers.
Unlike the geriatric ghettos found on more sedate ocean liners, the passengers here include children (some under 1), teenagers, young and middle- aged adults and the older folks who don`t seem to mind all the noise. Four young crew members are assigned to look after children and teenagers, who are entertained with video games, pool parties and treasure hunts.
At night, for $4 an hour, baby-sitters are available for younger children who are assigned cribs while their parents go to dinner and dancing.
On this particular cruise, more than one-fourth of the passengers are non-U.S. citizens. Canadians, Mexicans, South Americans and Europeans (with 50 coming from Finland, where the Ecstasy was built).
The crew includes members from 40 countries. Officers are Italian, and others come from the Caribbean, Central and South America, Malaysia, India and the Philippines. The variety makes for interesting conversations.
For the grownups
In an odd deviation from the middle-American atmosphere that dominates, passengers are confronted by two signs at the stairs leading to the sun deck: ”no cameras or videos” and ”topless deck-adults only-tops are optional.”
But there is nothing topless about the two nightly shows in the Sapphire Lounge, where 1,300 passengers sit on rosewood-encased banquettes or theater- style balcony seats and watch dancers high-kick on the 69-foot-wide stage.
Carnival calls its fleet ”the fun ships.” In keeping with the slogan one night it passes out free rum swizzles on City Lights Boulevard; in San Juan harbor it throws a midnight deck party attended by more than 1,000 passengers that features music, dancing and a buffet of burritos, tacos and guacamole.
For passengers eager to work off some of the excess calories the Ecstasy provides a 12,000-square-foot gym high up in the ship that offers superb ocean views. The gym has three dozen exercise machines of various sorts, whirlpools under skylights, saunas and steam rooms.
On the deck directly above is an eighth-of-a-mile padded jogging track. With more than 3,000 people crammed onto the ship, it gets crowded in some places, such as the frenetic Lido Deck, at certain hours.
But what`s nice about a ship this big are the many pleasant, quiet outdoor nooks all around where one can lunch alone with a friend, read a book or just watch the sea.
Passenger cabins are neatly functional, and room stewards gladly will lock the twin beds together (a happy event for couples used to sharing a bed, although a deep rift divides the two mattresses). The cabins are well-insulated against noise, a necessity because every room has its own TV set which around-the-clock captures satellite news broadcasts and recent movies.
Safety is a top priority. Every cabin has automatic fire alarms and sprinklers.
The ship`s huge bridge is packed with the latest navigational equipment that automatically steers a precise satellite-directed course. A noisy alarm sounds when another ship intrudes into an electronic five-mile circle guarding the Ecstasy. With such advanced systems it is unlikely that the ship will make use of its 75 large life rafts and flotilla of 10 enclosed, motorized lifeboats, some with radar, that can carry 150 passengers each.
Capt. Vittorio Sartori of Genoa, Italy, who has been at sea for 46 of his 65 years, is disdainful of the tiny joystick that combines all of the complex controls: engines, twin rudders and six steering engines (called bow- and stern-thrusters) that save up to $4,000 each time the ship is docked by dispensing with four tugs.
”That joystick is for the younger officers who grew up playing video games,” Sartori says, laughing. Instead, he contents himself by moving the ship sideways, inches at a time when docking, by flipping an array of tiny levers. It seems to amuse him that a one-ounce lever can maneuver a ship this size. –
