It might be time for the phrase: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat' to enter retirement.

For this mighty passenger ship dwarfs all that stands next to it, making the thousands of spectators which came to see it's launch look little more than ants as they waved the graceful ship out of the port.

The 315m-long ship is so wide it barely squeezed out of the Papenberg watergates, but ably helped by two tug-boats it escaped on it's to the North sea, where it will head to Denmark.

People watch the cruiser 'Celebrity Solstice' dragged through the watergate of the Meyer Dockyard in Papenburg

She is one of five Solstice ships launching between now and 2012, and can carry nearly 3,000 passengers.

And, after thousands of years, landlubbers might be able to escape their phobia of the sea... This cruiser is the first one to boast an authentic grass lawn on its top deck.

Celebrity Solstice is the most widely heralded ship to enter the cruise industry this year

The ship is 'virtually complete' - 98 per cent, to be exact - and is on track for it's November debut, when it will begin life as a U.S. cruise ship.

Giant: The ship dwarfs the dock as it is tugged out to sea



