Future Cruise Ships? Coming Soon?

From the Shipmate Archives. Originally Published September 3, 2015.

“City of Meriens” – Future Cruise Ship Design

This future cruise ship design makes today’s largest cruising vessels look like rowboats. You won’t believe how it measures up.

Below is a rendering of the future ship dubbed, “The City of Meriens.”

The concept was developed by French architect, Jacques Rougerie. But, he didn’t have buffets, belly-flop-contests, and bingo in mind when drawing up this magnificent future cruise ship. He envisions it as a “floating scientific city.” It’s intended use to be watching and analyzing marine life. With it’s enormous capacity, it could house an entire college focused on marine science. This manta-ray shaped future cruise ship will dwarf today’s largest cruise ships. Holding the record for the largest vessel today is Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. It measures 1,187 feet long and a maximum 213 feet wide.

The City of Meriens is estimated to be 2,950 feet long and 1,650 feet wide. To put that into perspective, we’ve mocked up the size comparison below.

Biggest Cruise Ship in the World vs The City of Meriens

The image shows the City of Meriens future cruise ship’s size compared to the largest and smallest ship covered by Ship Mate Cruise App. Those figures are below.

Ship Length

• City of Meriens:  2,950ft
• Allure of the Seas:  1,187ft
• Costa Voyager:  590ft

Ship Beam (width)

• City of Meriens:  1,650ft
• Allure of the Seas:  213ft
• Costa Voyager:  85ft

Rougerie plans for this to not only be the largest cruise ship in the world, but also the cleanest. It’s designed to produce no trash and to be entirely autonomous. The future cruise ship would achieve this through various green efforts and taking advantage of renewable marine energy. The “wings” of the vessel are planned to be used as gardens and it’s deep well to be a lagoon for cultivating aquatic goodies. Here’s another look at the futuristic cruise ship.

Story found here.

What do you think? Would you grab some test tubes and beakers and live on this thing for a year while studying what’s swimming below? Click below to share this incredible future cruise ship with friends!