[photo courtesy: BBC]

Thousands came to Hamburg to see Royal Caribbean International's Freedom of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship, ahead of its maiden transanslantic voyage.

Freedom of the Seas boasts of having on board a rock-climbing wall, Royal Promenade and an ice-skating rink. For future tech-savvy cruisers, you'd be happy to know that every stateroom will be WiFi enabled and will be equipped with a flat screen TV.

Freedom of the Seas left Hamburg yesterday for a stopover in Oslo before it crosses the Atlantic and start a cruise to the Caribbean in June.

The head of our administration department was one of those invited to "tour" the ship, along with travel agents and other organizations who may have interests in booking an event with them. Her answer when I asked if it was nice?

"It's so American. Everything is so huge and new. What I didn't like, though, are the plastic utensils that they used. I am European, you know. Little details like that matter. No matter how nice everything else is, if there is plastic in the wrong places, it doesn't look as grand anymore. It lacks culture."

Her words. I, a non-European, did find the truth and humor in this very honest observation.