Anthem of the Seas

Overview

Anthem of the Seas is the second ship of Royal Caribbean International's Quantum class, built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg, Germany, and delivered in April 2015. The Quantum class — developed under the code name Project Sunshine — was Royal Caribbean's answer to a question the Oasis class had left open: how to build a very large ship for worldwide, all-weather deployment, rather than for warm-water cruising alone. The result was a design of about 168,000 GT in published figures, with its signature attractions enclosed or elevated rather than spread across open decks. Anthem is best known to the public for one event — the severe storm she rode out off the US East Coast in February 2016 — but her lasting significance is as half of the pair that launched a five-ship class now central to Royal Caribbean's fleet in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Key specifications

The dataset records 158,350 GT, a length of 348.0 m, a beam of 41.4 m, a maximum capacity of 4,905, a speed of 22.0 knots, builder Meyer Werft and hull number S. 698. The tonnage needs a flag: the 158,350 GT figure corresponds to the class's originally announced size, while the ship as completed is published at 168,666 GT. The dataset's beam of 41.4 m is the waterline breadth; published maximum beam is about 49.4 m across the widest point. Published sources give double-occupancy capacity of 4,180 within the 4,905 maximum and a crew of about 1,300. Her machinery is diesel-electric, with Wärtsilä main engines and two ABB Azipod XO units. Tonnage is GT, a measure of enclosed volume.

Design and construction

Royal Caribbean ordered the first Project Sunshine ship from Meyer Werft on 11 February 2011 and announced the second ship — this hull — on 29 February 2012. On 31 January 2013 the company revealed the Quantum class name and the names Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas for the first two ships. Anthem's keel was laid on 19 November 2013 at Papenburg, and she was launched on 21 February 2015. The design's engineering signatures are the North Star, a glass observation capsule on a mechanical arm that lifts passengers more than 90 metres above the sea, and a stern structure housing Two70, a lounge whose aft windows double as projection surfaces. Like all Meyer Werft ships built at inland Papenburg, she was delivered down the River Ems to the North Sea before entering service. She was completed and delivered to Royal Caribbean on 10 April 2015, at a published cost of about US$940 million.

Naming, launch and maiden voyage

The ship was christened at Southampton on 20 April 2015 by Emma Wilby, a British travel agent who won a line-run competition to act as godmother — a deliberate break from the celebrity-godmother convention, and widely reported at the time. The dataset records her maiden voyage as 2015-04-20; published sources date the maiden voyage itself to 22 April 2015, with 20 April being the christening. Her inaugural season was spent sailing from Southampton, the deployment for which the christening venue had been chosen, before she crossed the Atlantic to take up US East Coast service from Cape Liberty, New Jersey.

Career by operator

Anthem of the Seas has carried one name for one operator throughout her career.

The dataset's operator history is a single entry. Her career pattern has been that of the Quantum class's designated all-weather ship for the northeastern United States: based for long periods at Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey, with seasonal deployment elsewhere, including the Southampton season with which she began and later Alaska and Asia-Pacific seasons reported in trade coverage. She was withdrawn from service with the rest of the fleet during the 2020–21 pandemic suspension and returned as cruising resumed. No sale, transfer or renaming has been reported for this hull, and none is likely to be imminent for a ship of her size and specialisation, which can only be absorbed by the largest operators.

Onboard character

The Quantum class's era-defining idea was to move the headline attractions indoors or into the air. The North Star capsule is the class's visual signature. RipCord by iFLY placed a skydiving simulator at sea for the first time. SeaPlex, the largest indoor sports and entertainment complex at sea when the class debuted, housed bumper cars, roller skating and circus activities under one roof — a direct response to the cold-weather cruising the ships were designed for. Two70 combined a panoramic lounge by day with a robotic-screen performance venue by night, and the Bionic Bar introduced robot bartenders. Inside cabins were fitted with "virtual balconies," floor-to-ceiling screens showing a live exterior view. Taken together, these features mark the point at which the large cruise ship's character stopped being defined by its decks and started being defined by its machinery of experiences; this guide lists no current venues, which change with refits.

Major refits and incidents

One incident dominates her record. On 7 February 2016, sailing from Cape Liberty toward Florida, Anthem of the Seas encountered a severe storm off the Carolinas with hurricane-equivalent winds — the Bahamas Maritime Authority's investigation recorded a maximum wind speed of 146 knots on the ship's anemometer, far above forecast. The ship listed heavily at times; four passengers sustained minor injuries, and there was widespread breakage of glassware, furniture and fittings. All four clutches of the port Azipod were damaged, leaving that unit inoperable, with one clutch failure on the starboard unit; the captain confined passengers to cabins, the voyage was cancelled, and the ship returned to Cape Liberty on 10 February on her remaining propulsion. The clutches were replaced, the ship passed inspection and resumed service on 13 February, and Royal Caribbean publicly apologised and strengthened its storm-avoidance procedures. A second, precautionary curtailment followed later that month to avoid another storm. No fire, grounding or structural casualty is recorded for the ship; routine drydock maintenance, including a 2025 refurbishment reported in trade sources, completes the picture.

Sister ships and class

The Quantum class comprises five ships: Quantum of the Seas (2014), Anthem of the Seas (2015), Ovation of the Seas (2016), and the two enlarged Quantum Ultra ships, Spectrum of the Seas (2019) and Odyssey of the Seas (2021). The first three are close sisters of about the same dimensions; the Ultra pair are slightly larger and were configured for the Chinese and North American markets respectively. All were built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg. The class sits between the Oasis and Icon classes in Royal Caribbean's size hierarchy and is distinguished from both by its enclosed, climate-proofed attraction set — the North Star, SeaPlex and Two70 appear on every ship of the class and on no other.

Fate and where she is now

The dataset records her as active and operating for Royal Caribbean International, and that remains her position: a ten-year-old, first-generation Quantum ship in her original operator's hands, with no sale or withdrawal reported. Her place in the record is twofold — as one of the two ships that launched a major class, and as the ship at the centre of the best-documented heavy-weather investigation of the modern cruise era, an event that changed her own line's weather-routing practice and is still cited in discussions of cruise-ship storm avoidance.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_of_the_Seas, https://www.bahamasmaritime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/BMA-Investigation-Report-Heavy-weather-damage-to-the-Anthem-of-the-Seas.pdf?swcfpc=1