This new cruise ship waterslide drops you straight into the ocean. Really.
Cruise lines have been adding ever more spectacular waterslides to their ships in recent years. But we've never seen anything quite like what SeaDream Yacht Club just unveiled this week — at least on a cruise vessel.
The small-ship specialist on Tuesday announced the installation of a waterslide on one of its two tiny cruise ships that doesn't just send passengers careening from a high-level deck to a shipboard pool area below.
The new SeaDream slide, on the line's 112-passenger SeaDream II, takes passengers all the way over the side of the ship for a splashdown in the ocean.
Branded with the SeaDream logo, the 23 1/2-foot-long inflatable slide is designed to be deployed over the side of the vessel when it is stopped for watery playtime. It's a type of slide that sometimes can be found on superyachts. In fact, if you're a fan of Bravo's reality series about life on superyachts, "Below Deck," and its spinoffs, you'll be familiar with this sort of slide, as it sometimes makes an appearance in the shows.
Watery playtime is a big thing on sailings of SeaDream vessels, which are designed to resemble superyachts. Along with a handful of other small cruise vessels, SeaDream's two ships are built with retractable watersports marinas that can be extended into the water when the ship is anchored in a secluded harbor or out in the ocean.
Passengers can use the marinas for swimming off the side of the ship and as a base for watery play using watersports equipment that the line keeps on its vessels.
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Until now, the equipment has included small sailboats, Hobie Cat catamarans, kayaks, banana boats, tubes, stand-up paddleboards and Jet Skis. SeaDream vessels also are stocked with waterskis, wakeboards and snorkeling gear for passenger use.
The new waterslide on SeaDream II, which drops nearly 20 feet from the ship's pool deck to the ocean below, is just the latest watery-play feature to be added to the ship.
SeaDream said a similar waterslide would be added to the line's other vessel, SeaDream I, within the next few months, in time for its winter season in the Caribbean.
"SeaDream is always looking for opportunities to enhance our guest experience," SeaDream's Andreas Brynestad said in a statement sent to TPG. "Slides have become popular aboard yachts, and we know that our guests will enjoy this new amenity on their SeaDream yachting vacation."
Designed to offer an upscale, yachtlike experience, SeaDream's two vessels are significantly smaller than typical cruise ships with a yacht-style sleek profile and only 56 cabins.
Measuring just 355 feet in length and 47 feet wide, the two vessels are known for their ability to access small harbors and ports around the world that bigger cruise ships can't visit.
They spend much of the year in lesser-visited parts of the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, often stopping at places such as Sanary-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, Portugal's Porto and the Caribbean islands of Bequia, Saba and Montserrat.
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