Features
Facilities include a children's water park, a full-size basketball court, an ice-skating rink, a zip line that is 10 decks high, a 1,400-seat theater, an outdoor aquatic theater with Olympic-height platforms, and two 43 ft rock-climbing walls.[14][15][16][17][18] There is also a park containing over 20,000 tropical plants.[12]
Symphony of the Seas is powered onboard by six marine-diesel sets composed of three 16-cylinder Wärtsilä 16V46D common rail engines and three 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 12V46D engines.[19]
The energy-efficient design of Symphony of the Seas requires less shipboard power generation, with 85 MW versus the 100 MW normally found on Oasis-class ships.[20] One of the key design features is the use of only LED or fluorescent lights in order to avoid the heat generation from incandescent bulbs, thereby reducing the load on air conditioning systems.[20] Additional energy efficiency is accomplished by using a 2 MW steam turbine to recover waste heat from the engines and converting it into energy to power a portion of the onboard hotel load.[21]
For propulsion, Symphony of the Seas uses three 20 MW azipod main engines, which are electric thrusters. These engines are mounted under the stern of the ship and they each drive 20 ft-wide rotatable propellers. In addition to the three main engines, there are four bow thrusters used for docking, each with 5.5 MW of power or 7,380 horsepower.[19]
Among the Oasis-class ships, Symphony of the Seas uses 25% less fuel due to design changes. One of these is the implementation of a new system that releases tiny air bubbles under the hull to enable the vessel to glide more smoothly through the water.[22] The air layer also reduces excitation from the propellers, which cuts noise and vibration levels in the aft part of the ship.[21]
