Royal Caribbean creates a Legend in Singapore
SINGAPORE: Royal Caribbean International has made its Asia Pacific debut with the arrival of ‘Rhapsody of the Seas’ in Singapore.
The ship is calling Singapore home for the next two months before calling at Hong Kong, Shanghai, Japan and South Korea.
Rama Rebbapragada, Asia-Pacific managing director for Royal Caribbean Cruises, said, “We chose Singapore for two reasons – to be our homeport for the ‘Rhapsody of the Seas’ for our Asia programme, and also as our corporate headquarters.
“Singapore has a lot to offer. Most nationalities like to come here and visit.”
Last year, 850,000 passengers cruised through Singapore. The number of cruise passengers in Asia Pacific is also expected to grow by more than 40 percent from 1.07 million in 2005 to 1.5 million by 2010 and two million by 2015.
With a capacity of over 2,400 passengers and 78,000 tonnes, the ‘Rhapsody’ is the biggest ship to homeport in Asia. And with 11 decks, it is also among the tallest – so tall that it could not dock at the Singapore Cruise Centre at Harbourfront for fear of running into the cable cars.
Lim Neo Chian, deputy chairman and CEO of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), has promised that work will start soon on a new Singapore cruise terminal.
“In terms of facility, there are basically two issues right now – one is that the bigger ships have some difficulties getting to the cruise centre; second is that because of the increasing demand in cruise business, the present cruise centre is getting a bit congested at times,” said Lim.
“So essentially we’ll have to build new facilities. We’ve been looking at Marina South and we’re working actively with all the different government agencies.”
Royal Caribbean will deploy ‘Legend of the Sea’ to Singapore at the end of next year.
Ian Jarrett
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