| IMO | 9838345 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 235,600 GT |
| Length | 362.04 m |
| Beam | 47.4 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 6988 |
| Service speed | 22.0 knots |
| Builder | Chantiers de l'Atlantique |
| Yard | Saint-Nazaire |
| Launched | 2022 |
| Maiden voyage | 2022-03-04 |
| Class | Oasis-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Royal Caribbean International |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Wonder of the Seas is the fifth Oasis-class ship built for Royal Caribbean International and, on delivery in 2022, the largest cruise ship in the world by gross tonnage. She held that title until she was surpassed in 2024 by Royal Caribbean's own Icon of the Seas. Her importance is not only scale. She is the ship on which the Oasis formula — a hull split lengthways by open-air districts, with accommodation rising on both sides of a central void — was carried to its fullest pre-Icon form, including an eighth district that no earlier Oasis ship had.
She was also a pandemic ship. Ordered in better times, built through the shutdown of cruising, first announced for a debut in Asia and finally introduced in the Caribbean, her early story records how the industry's biggest project was re-planned while it was still being finished.
Key specifications
The dataset records her at 235,600 GT, 47.4 m in beam and 22.0 knots, with a maximum capacity of 6,988. The beam figure is the waterline beam in the ship's own published characteristics; the Oasis design is considerably wider across its upper works. One figure needs care: the dataset gives a length of 330.7 m, while the ship's own article gives 362.04 m overall. That discrepancy should be settled against a registry record before the figure is relied on, and it is flagged in the build notes for this guide.
Capacity is quoted here as the dataset's maximum figure. As with all Oasis-class ships, the double-occupancy figure published by the line is substantially lower than the maximum with every berth filled, and the two numbers should never be mixed.
Design and construction
Royal Caribbean signed a memorandum of understanding with STX France — now Chantiers de l'Atlantique — on 25 May 2016 for a fifth Oasis-class ship, with a contract following that September. The yard at Saint-Nazaire had built Harmony of the Seas and Symphony of the Seas, so Wonder continued an established production relationship rather than starting a new one.
Steel was cut in April 2019 and the keel was laid in 2019 — sources differ on whether the keel-laying is dated to May or October of that year. A hull section was built at CRIST in Gdańsk and delivered to Saint-Nazaire in November 2019, a reminder that a ship of this size is an assembly of blocks made across more than one country. She was floated out in September 2020.
Propulsion is diesel-electric, driving three azimuthing pods, with four bow thrusters for manoeuvring. That arrangement, standard across the later Oasis ships, is what allows a hull of this length to be worked into ordinary cruise berths without tugs in many conditions.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
The name Wonder of the Seas follows the class's pattern of abstract, aspirational names — Oasis, Allure, Harmony, Symphony — rather than a place or a person. It was announced in October 2019, after construction was already under way.
Delivery slipped with the pandemic. In August 2020 Royal Caribbean announced that handover would move into 2022. The ship was accepted for technical delivery on 29 October 2021 and sailed to Marseille for finishing work, before formal handover on 27 January 2022. Her maiden voyage began on 4 March 2022 from Port Everglades, Florida — the dataset date — even though the christening came much later: she was named on 9 December 2022 by her godmother, Marie McCrea.
That gap between entering service and being christened is unusual for a flagship and is a direct artefact of the pandemic-era schedule.
Career by operator
Wonder of the Seas has had one name and one operator throughout her life so far.
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2022–present | Wonder of the Seas | Royal Caribbean International |
Her planned career changed before it began. In April 2021 Royal Caribbean opened bookings for an inaugural season in Asia, sailing from Shanghai and Hong Kong. By September 2021 that plan had been abandoned in favour of a Caribbean debut from Port Everglades, followed by a Mediterranean season. The change is the clearest example in the class of deployment being decided by circumstances rather than by the original market plan.
Onboard character
The Oasis idea is architectural, not decorative. Instead of stacking public rooms inside a closed hull, the design opens the centre of the ship to the sky and arranges life in distinct "neighbourhoods" along that opening. Wonder was the first in the class with eight: the seven established districts, including the open-air Central Park planted with living greenery, the Boardwalk at the stern with its AquaTheater, the Royal Promenade, the Pool and Sports Zone, Entertainment Place, the Vitality Spa and Fitness area and the Youth Zone — plus a new Suite Neighborhood.
That eighth district matters beyond its size. It formalised a ship-within-a-ship for suite guests, with its own lounge, restaurant and sun deck, inside what is otherwise a mass-market resort ship. Signature Oasis devices carried over include the Ultimate Abyss dry slide dropping ten decks to the Boardwalk, a zip line across the Boardwalk void, surf simulators and the AquaTheater's high-diving shows. The character, in short, is inward-facing and urban: the ship is designed as a place in itself, with the sea often viewed from above or astern rather than from a traditional promenade.
Major refits and incidents
No major refit is recorded for Wonder of the Seas in the sources used for this guide; she is a recent ship whose first years have been spent in ordinary service, and her early alterations were changes of plan and livery rather than structural work. In November 2021, before delivery, her livery was modified to resemble that of Odyssey of the Seas, with her name moved aft and repainted in larger lettering.
No casualty, fire, grounding or other major incident is recorded in her own article as consulted for this guide. Where a young ship has no such record, that absence is itself the accurate entry, and nothing has been added here to fill the section.
Sister ships and class
The Oasis class began with Oasis of the Seas in 2009 and rewrote the upper limit of cruise-ship size. Wonder's sisters, in order, are Oasis of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Harmony of the Seas and Symphony of the Seas, with Utopia of the Seas following her as the sixth ship of the class. The first two were built in Finland; from Harmony onwards the class moved to Saint-Nazaire.
Within the class, Wonder sits at the end of a line of gradual enlargement: each successive ship is slightly larger than the last, and Wonder was the largest of them. The class was then overtaken in tonnage by the Icon class, which took the "largest in the world" title in 2024.
Fate and where she is now
Wonder of the Seas is in active service with Royal Caribbean International, which is how the dataset records her: status active, fate "Operating". No sale, transfer or withdrawal has been announced in the sources used here. As a ship delivered in 2022, she is at the beginning of the long service life typical of the Oasis class, whose lead ship remains in service well into her second decade.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_of_the_Seas