It seems to me that the impact of the global recession will take a few years to dissipate. So there’s every possibility the downturn may adversely affect the next Olympics, in London, and possibly the one after that, in Rio de Janeiro.

If so, now’s the time for the world’s latest and largest cruise ship to come to the rescue.

Olympics of the Seas

A couple of days ago the Oasis of the Seas sailed past the Isle of Wight and is now preparing for its maiden voyage. How about adding Southampton to the cruise ship’s 2012 itinerary and holding several Olympic events on board?

These could include:

Running – around the Oasis of the Sea’s 0.43 miles’ of onboard running track.

Swimming and diving – the depth of the mega cruise ship’s AquaTheatre swimming pool is 17.9 feet, plus there’s a 750-seater arena, two surf machines (not yet an Olympic sport – but one day…) and diving boards.

Time for that hoary swimming pool joke:

Steward (to mother watching her child): “Madam, I must protest. Your son is peeing in the pool.”
Mother: “But all children do that.”
Steward: “Not from the top of the diving board they don’t.”

And now, back to the Olympics of the Sea and:

Climbing – the Oasis has two 43-foot-high rock climbing walls. What a great event this could be, especially if the ship was at sea doing its usual 22.6 knots cruising speed and rolling from side to side.

Winter Olympics

If it all goes well, the Oasis could add the Antarctic to its itinerary for the 2116 Winter Olympics, assuming that part of the world hasn’t melted by then and resembles the Sahara…something the Oasis isn’t contributing as much too as other cruise ships. She is one of the World greenest cruise ships, reusing all its water and dumping no sewage into the sea.

OK, so the ship already produces 50 tonnes of ice on board every day by special ice machines for its 37 bars and over 20 cafes and restaurants. But how about turning the deck into a ski track and Crests Run?

The Oasis’s 350ft-long Central Park seems ideal for shot-putting, discus and javelin events. Perhaps some of the park’s bamboo could be used for high jumping; long jumps would be made over the other plants.

It’s the Olympics, Jim, but not as we know it

Just imagine holding an Olympic marathon run around the ship’s 500 tables in the main dining room which can seat 3,056 guests at any one time. Give the 550 dining room staff the day off and invite Olympic competitors to serve the soup course – while it it still hot.

Then there’s the Olympic counting of the 50,000 pieces of cutlery kept in the ship’s main dining room. Competitors could also check the sleeves of the diners for pocketed knives, forks and spoons that don’t belong to them – the things some people will do for a something with a ship’s logo on it – for which they would get extra points, and the larcenous passengers – a small fine…

As we would be breaking new ground with this new Olympics of the Seas, maybe we could add a new gamblers’ event in which contestants trying to play all of the Oasis’s casino’s 460 slot machines at once…an event that many passengers already have lots of practice on other cruise ships.

Then there’s the new Retailing Olympics of the Seas event in which passengers loaded down with credit cards and huge bundles of cash have to race past the 10,000 square footage of the onboard shops – without actually going inside and buying anything, not even from the Duty Free shop.

And if the Olympics of the Sea committee needs to raise more funds it could always scrape off the 130 square feet of real gold leaf gilding used for the carousel on the Boardwalk. They could then quietly flog it to one of those “We’ll buy all your gold and melt it down before the police find out where it came from” shops that are currently expanding in Britain’s high streets.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going for the Gold.

James Leavey

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Posted in New Ships, Oasis of the Seas