History was made on 1st September when 7,146 passengers departed Port Everglades for a 12-day transatlantic voyage aboard the 225,282gt/2009 built Oasis of the Seas bound for Barcelona. This was the ship’s first revenue earning Atlantic crossing since being delivered from Finland with only crew and workmen aboard in 2009. After arrival at the Spanish port the Oasis of the Seas offered two round-trip five-day Mediterranean cruises from Barcelona and a seven-night sailing from Barcelona to Rotterdam, where she arrived on 29th September to commence a two week dry-docking at the Keppel Verolme Shipyard. The seven-day cruise to Rotterdam called at Malaga and Vigo en-route.

A 13-day westbound transatlantic cruise returned the ship to Florida from Rotterdam on 14th October with a call at Southampton the next day where passengers were also able to embark. On this occasion the world’s largest passenger ship became the largest such vessel to call at Southampton as seen above. Her previous visit to the Solent in 2009 was only to disembark workmen to Blue Funnel’s passenger vessel Ashleigh-R in Charlie Anchorage off Lee-on-Solent prior to completing her delivery voyage.