A ship weighs how many tons?
by Tim Larison
In selling cruises I often come across figures for how many tons a particular ship weighs. Both Disney ships, for example, each weigh 83,000 tons. If you are like me, it is difficult to visualize how big 83,000 tons is! But the weight of a vessel is useful when comparing one ship to another.
I have sold many Disney cruises, and when these clients are considering cruises on other cruise lines the tonnage figures can come in handy. “How big is the Caribbean Princess compared to the Disney Magic that we sailed on last year?” I was asked. Well, the Caribbean Princess (pictured above) is 116,000 tons, so you can get an idea compared to the Disney Magic’s 83,000 tons just how much bigger the Caribbean Princess is.
I had another client come back from sailing on the Caribbean Princess. “We’d like to sail on one of the big Royal Caribbean ships next,” he said. I told him the Royal Caribbean Voyager class ships are each 138,000 tons, and the new Freedom Of The Seas is 158,000 tons. He couldn’t believe that there was a bigger ship than the Caribbean Princess! The tonnage figures gave him an idea that these Royal Caribbean ships are huge!
On the other side, another client wanted to cruise in Alaska on one of the main cruise lines, but didn’t want “a big ship”. The Holland America Statendam, at 55,400 tons, was the perfect choice for her.
At first glance the weight of a ship may not have much meaning for you. As you can see above these tonnage figures can be very useful when picking just the right ship for your next cruise vacation.
The tonnage figures you refer to do not represent weight, but rather displacement. Registered Tonnage denotes the internal volume of a vessel where one ton is equal to 100 cubic feet. The total weight of the vessels you’ve mentioned would likely far exceed their tonnage numerically.
Thanks for the clarification on the tonnage. I have seen variations in tonnage figures for ships from different websites – it is interesting that the tonnage isn’t the actual weight.
However the point of this blog entry was that the tonnage figures are useful to give a relative measure of the size of ships when comparing one to another, and it was not intended to be a precise statement of the weight of the ships mentioned.