OK, it's a big boat. Can we get past that?
No. Not until the next Largest Cruise Ship in the History of the World eases its aft into the sea, probably three years from now. So welcome to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines' Freedom of the Seas, new for 2006, all 160,000 gross registered tons of it.
This number is only one of the numbers so beyond our ability to comprehend that they're meaningless to all but authors of almanacs and stout-sponsored record books.
We talk about them anyway.
Its cost -- $800 million through 2005 -- nearly matches the gross domestic ticket sales for the 1997 film "Titanic" (about $812 million).
The ship's 1,815 guest staterooms can comfortably house 3,630 as couples, or 4,375 individuals if all the auxiliary beds are used.
The main dining room -- a tri-level area -- seats 2,101, except on formal nights, when many flee to other options.
The main pool, the cruise line's literature says, can accommodate 534 people, presumably standing side by side, which won't occur in our lifetimes.
Sixteen bars serve alcohol, the earliest opening at 7 a.m., the latest closing "late."
Royal Caribbean has done this before. Voyager of the Seas, capable of hauling 3,114 passengers from island to island, was the biggest in terms of gross tonnage when it was launched in 1999. Four like-size siblings followed.
The Queen Mary 2 snatched the title in 2004. Now Freedom of the Seas has snatched it back.
Why do this?
"We've created a ship here based on guests' needs and wishes and demands," said Martin Rissley, who became Freedom's first hotel director after having worked on Voyager and the Voyager-class Adventure of the Seas.
"They want all this alternative dining. They want all this entertainment. They want these additional activities -- the rock wall and the golf course and the FlowRider.... And the byproduct of all that is the largest ship in the world."
Here's what Freedom of the Seas has that the other colossal Royal Caribbean ships do not: the FlowRider, a surf-wave simulator; a second specialty restaurant, the steakhouse Chops Grille, which joins the fine Italian restaurant Portofino; H2O Zone, a kiddie water park with colorful sculptures; a regulation boxing ring; and a Ben & Jerry's, which dishes up ice cream for a small extra charge.
