Ever wonder how cruise ships are built? Well, Royal Caribbean just released a new video that sheds a little bit of light onto the process, specifically how the cabins are manufactured. It’s surprisingly similar to how your Ford got built.
The short video takes you inside the factory of Meyer Werft, a German shipyard founded in 1795 that now builds luxury cruise ships. Indeed, it does look quite a bit like a car factory — or any other manufacturing facility with an assembly line. But what’s especially impressive about the process is the fact that the cabins are completely prefabricated before they go on the ship. Everything from the faucets to the carpet to the sofas are installed in the factory and then the rooms are just stacked inside the cruise ship hull like pieces of a Jenga game. (That is a mixed metaphor, I realise.)
Of course, this sort of prefab approach is nothing new. The technique is becoming increasingly popular and more versatile. Heck even prefab skyscrapers are a thing, now, and they’re built in a surprisingly similar way as cruise ship cabins. In a sense, a cruise ship is just a skyscraper lying on its side that travels to exotic destination. At least when things aren’t going horribly wrong, anyway. [Royal Caribbean]