After five years of design, building and a subsequent trial voyage, China’s first domestically-built large cruise ship, the “Adora Magic City,” was delivered in Shanghai on Saturday, with its maiden voyage scheduled for Jan. 1, 2024.
To date, China has been able to build an aircraft carrier, a large liquified natural gas carrier and a large cruise ship the most challenging shipbuilding projects, according to the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC).
This photo taken on Nov. 4, 2023 shows the cruise ship “Adora Magic City” in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)
The cruise ship, measuring 323.6 meters in length, with a gross tonnage of 135,500 tonnes, can accommodate up to 5,246 passengers and has a total of 2,125 guest rooms, said the CSSC Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (SWS), the shipbuilder.
Designed with 16 floors, the ship has a total of 40,000 square meters of public living and recreational area. A large cruise ship is considered an integrator in the industrial field, and the completion of the large cruise shipbuilding marks further improvement of the overall strength of China’s shipbuilding industry, said Chen Gang, general manager of the SWS.
The design and shipbuilding contract was signed at the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai in November 2018.
Over the past five years, the SWS has cooperated with 361 tier-one suppliers and 1,105 tier-two supporting enterprises, with over 5,000 engineering technicians from 30 countries joining in the shipbuilding. A series of core technologies related to the power system, cabin environment, vibration noise and other sectors have been tackled.
