What is it about new ships? They emerge from a shipyard like some 200,000-ton baby from a womb, and out come the cameras. A baby is born after being carried in the safety of water and a cruise ship is born to carry thousands of people safely on water, yet they have the same attraction for shutterbugs.
The picture you see is Celebrity’s Silhouette, as it backed out of the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany this week. It is said residents of Papenburg lined up to see cruising’s newest baby, the fourth ship in Celebrity’s five-ship Solstice Class.
While we never use our own actions to explain or justify the actions of others, we’ve been the “baby photographers.” When the Allure of the Seas came to North America from Europe last November, we were standing on the top deck of another ship, Navigator of the Seas, watching the newest mega ship’s arrival in Fort Lauderdale.
In hand we had not one camera but two. Part of it is taking pictures of cruise ships is just something we do. And part of it is that’s just what cruise ships do to people.
Who knows why?