Remember when these were the BIG ships?

[jules815]

Just found this picture on my phone. I took it last month from the MSC Seaside. 

 

Seeing Adventure anchored next to us brought back memories of our Adventure Class cruises on Mariner. Good times. 😊

[ONECRUISER]

I remember when Sovereign(Majesty) was largest Cruise ship at sea. Was on her few months after she started sailing, looking down on tiny Princess and Carnival Love Boat size that held what just 2 of Oasis Class Lifeboats hold. 

Edited February 17, 2019 by ONECRUISER

[suesnake2002]

I sailed on voyager when she was the biggest in the world!!

[RazorbackIslandGirl]

I remember thinking the Monarch was HUGE! LOL

[voyager70]

My first cruise was on the Sitmar Fairwind - a whopping 23,000 tons and I thought it was huge!  I remember when the 70,000+ ton ships first came out and thinking how they'll never be able to build ships bigger than that.  How wrong I was!

 

[luv2sailAgain]

4 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

I remember when Sovereign(Majesty) was largest Cruise ship at sea. Was on her few months after she started sailing, looking down on tiny Princess and Carnival Love Boat size that held what just 2 of Oasis Class Lifeboats hold. 

Seriously!  Wow!

Love Boat was my favorite show!  Just for kicks, I watched an episode on YouTube before our last cruise to help me pass the time.  When the opening sequence showed the Pacific Princess, it seemed so small.

[LBumb]

I did the same. Yes it looked tiny

[ONECRUISER]

59 minutes ago, luv2sailAgain said:

Seriously!  Wow!

Love Boat was my favorite show!  Just for kicks, I watched an episode on YouTube before our last cruise to help me pass the time.  When the opening sequence showed the Pacific Princess, it seemed so small.

Yes, though small was nice looking ship. But can see why they only had one Bar Tender on Love Boat. Will have to dig out my old photo albums and take a look at some actual pictures. Bet been 25 yrs since I looked at them...

Edited February 18, 2019 by ONECRUISER

[nws2002]

Wow! Oasis was my first ever cruise. Second was Majesty and it seemed so much smaller, great ship, crew and experience, just way smaller. Hard to imagine the days when it was considered big.

[LBumb]

My second cruise was monarch. Thought it was enormous.  

[AL3XCruise]

I remember seeing pictures of the Sovereign-class as a kid and being fascinated that something could be so big.  It blew my mind.

 

It is interesting to think that in that in 1901 the largest passenger ship was just over 20,000 gross tons.  By 1935 ocean liners had grown to around 80,000 GT and that would be the size range of the largest liners and cruise ships for the next 60 years.  In 1996 Carnival Destiny became the first cruise ship to be larger than any of the "classic" ocean liners and broke the 100,000 GT mark.  By 2009 it was dwarfed by the Oasis.

Edited February 18, 2019 by AL3XCruise

[sellwingri]

13 hours ago, luv2sailAgain said:

Seriously!  Wow!

Love Boat was my favorite show!  Just for kicks, I watched an episode on YouTube before our last cruise to help me pass the time.  When the opening sequence showed the Pacific Princess, it seemed so small.

They still show episodes of Love Boat on Princess Cruises.  I can’t imagine cruising on such a small ship! 

[LuCruise]

16 hours ago, suesnake2002 said:

I sailed on voyager when she was the biggest in the world!!

Same here...in 2001 for our honeymoon.  Thought how cool it is the largest in the world. Now today, it's a small to medium size.  Imagine the future when Oasis ships are "small".

[LuCruise]

14 hours ago, luv2sailAgain said:

Seriously!  Wow!

Love Boat was my favorite show!  Just for kicks, I watched an episode on YouTube before our last cruise to help me pass the time.  When the opening sequence showed the Pacific Princess, it seemed so small.

I know...same here!  I have one of the DVDs and watched one the other week (while impatient for our cruise).

Everyone knew the captain, cruise director, ship purser (such thing today?) and the one and only bartender. Pools were nice but small and only one, and big activity of the day was shuffle board.  The intro is funny...although maybe that is due to technology back then and was realistic....where people would come on board and tell the cruise director their name, the cruise director would look on the paper list and tell them their room.  Note that that guests were never handed a key...lack of detail I guess.

 

Funny thing though...ship is small but standard staterooms are quite large!

 

 

Edited February 18, 2019 by LuCruise

[er345]

After sailing on the Freedom, then Independence, then Oasis as a couple, we took our kids on the Enchantment for their first cruise.  I had low expectations and kept telling them we were going on a “small” cruise ship. They were blown away when they boarded! They thought I was crazy for thinking it was small.  I admit I thought the Enchantment was lovely. 

 

I cant wait to see what my kids will think of Ovation.

[er345]

5 minutes ago, LuCruise said:

I know...same here!  I have one of the DVDs and watched one the other week (while impatient for our cruise).

Everyone knew the captain, cruise director, ship purser (such thing today?) and the one and only bartender. Pools were nice but small and only one, and big activity of the day was shuffle board.  The intro is funny...although maybe that is due to technology back then and was realistic....where people would come on board and tell the cruise director their name, the cruise director would look on the paper list and tell them their room.  Note that that guests were never handed a key...lack of detail I guess.

 

Funny thing though...ship is small but standard staterooms are quite large!

 

 

That is funny to think about! I totally remember that show. I would love to see an episode now.  I would probably cringe through the entire thing.

[orville99]

16 hours ago, voyager70 said:

My first cruise was on the Sitmar Fairwind - a whopping 23,000 tons and I thought it was huge!  I remember when the 70,000+ ton ships first came out and thinking how they'll never be able to build ships bigger than that.  How wrong I was!

 

We sailed on her sister ship. the Fairsky on a 10 night Alaska cruise out of San Francisco and thought the same thing.

[FionaMG]

16 hours ago, voyager70 said:

My first cruise was on the Sitmar Fairwind - a whopping 23,000 tons and I thought it was huge!  I remember when the 70,000+ ton ships first came out and thinking how they'll never be able to build ships bigger than that.  How wrong I was!

 

DH was a crew member on Sitmar late 70s to mid 80s. He still talks very fondly of those days.

[vacationlover_mn]

My advice- do not google “love boat ship now photos”, unless you want to be sad 😞. I find the ship graveyard photos intriguing, but they always depress me a little 😞

[vickiw0318]

19 hours ago, RazorbackIslandGirl said:

I remember thinking the Monarch was HUGE! LOL

It was huge!  She was my first ship and I had some sort of internal worry that I was going to sea in a row boat.   You can imagine my great relief when I got my first glimpse of that massive cruise ship.