Oasis of the Seas Central Park Planting

The dock-front of Port Everglades has been looking surprisingly green for the past few days, as truckloads of plants, shrubs and even trees have arrived for the installation of Central Park on board the mega-liner Oasis of the Seas.

A sneak peek at the installation process shows that those trees are pretty big! They are being hoisted onto the ship in their planters, to try and keep them as ‘unstressed’ as possible, and the planters are being sunk beneath the deck level of the Central Park area. In addition to the trees, waving grasses, flowering plants and a towering wall of cascading ivies and other plants are being taken on board.

Bronze lamps and many specially commissioned statues are also being bedded down to make the area an genuine open air park with lighting at night and calm spaces in which to stroll and spot the outdoor artworks. In addition to this green paradise, Oasis of the Seas will delight her first passengers with a hand-built roundabout, 28 multilevel urban-style loft suites with floor-to-ceiling windows for the very best views and what Royal Caribbean is calling ‘epicurean innovations that allow for new culinary experiences each day of a guest's cruise vacation’. On her crossing from Finland, the huge cruise ship achieved 24 knots, or around 30 miles an hour, which is not that fast, but perhaps it doesn’t matter when everything you could wish for is on board?