

Senior executives at Royal Caribbean had a dilemma. The short term demand for cruises was growing rapidly, and with cruise ships running at full capacity, the cruise line couldn't take as many customers as it wanted, essentially leaving easy profits on a table. One option was to order new ships, but new ships generally take few years to build and cost a fortune. The other option, which was never tried before, was to take one of their ships, cut it in half at the middle, and enlarge it by adding a new block of rooms.



At the end, the management decided to take the second option and chose Enchantment of the Seas - a huge 12-story, 916 ft ship - for overhaul and for adding extra passenger capacity.



The enlargement process was done in 3 stages. During the first stage, circular saws and torches were used to cut the ship. The construction crew cut through pretty much everything, including the outer hull (which was made from steel), the inner hull (which was constructed to be absolutely watertight), the ventilation system as well as thousands of cables and pipes. That whole process took two days, and when it was done, one could see a narrow line of light that traveled from the top of the ship all the way to the bottom.



During the second stage, the engineers moved the two sections of the ship away from each other and positioned a large 2,500 ton, 73-foot section with 151 furnished rooms between them. In the third and final stage of the process, the construction crew reattached all the pipes, cables and everything else that was cut, thereby uniting the 3 pieces of the enlarged ship.



At the end of this process, the cruise ship grew from 916 feet to 990 feet. It cost Royal Caribbean about $60 million to complete the enlargement and currently the Enchantment of the Seas is able to enchant 300 additional vacationers on each of its journeys.













Cruise ship on shipyard before being cut







Cruise ship has been cut and moved apart







Re-attachment of the ship is about to begin





