Legendary design: Royal Caribbean's style

However, all that changes when the lift deposits you in the Grand Centrum, a huge, light and airy multi-deck atrium space that exudes all the glamour and glitz, albeit with a contemporary twist, that you would associate with luxury cruising on the high seas.

Craning your neck, you immediately notice the sparkles of sunlight bouncing off the plethora of gleaming steel, chrome and glass that abounds in this area. A vast suspended freeform steel sculpture takes pride of place in the atrium and, with its wicked-looking spikes, it is hard to miss.

Throughout this ship, the first of Royal Caribbean’s ‘Vision’ series, the decor is light and airy with an underlying and unifying theme of blues, greens, turquoises, creams and whites, all coolly set off with pale woods, sculptures, detailed art deco touches, and contemporary glass and chrome. Used together all this imparts a definite design nod to the many oceans she has travelled over the past 15 years.

Legend, as she is affectionately dubbed by many of her regular guests, sailed on her maiden voyage in May 1995 and is soon due for an overhaul. The ship’s charming and hospitable facilities manager, Enzo Pellitteri, explains more.

“The average life of a vessel like this is about 15 to 20 years. Legend is nearly 15 now, so she will go for a major face lift in Singapore in January 2010. She will get completely new furniture and carpets, things like that. Obviously we update the little things as we go along, and it’s part of my job to go ashore and buy what we need.

For example, I was recently in Malaysia and the ship needed some new plants, so off I went in a taxi to the plant market to spend my $2,000!”

Enzo offers us a ship’s tour and we start off in the Viking Crown Bar, a nautical-themed lounge and club. The lounge area carries through the ship’s overall design colours of blues and turquoises with cosy alcoves, groups of curved sofas and vast cantilevered windows which that night would offer a panoramic view of Dubai’s twinkling skyline.

The dance floor in the Viking Crown perfectly reflects the bar’s name, with a modern rendition of a Viking longboat prow guarding the entrance, inlaid brass forming a ship on the wooden floor, and various Viking artefacts adorning the walls.

Moving on towards the bow of the ship, we discover Anchor’s Away, a popular hangout for guests. The lounge has a spectacular ceiling, moulded into various levels with sinewy curves concealing neon lighting in complementary shades of blue, green and turquoise, imparting a distinctly undersea feel.

This is further enhanced at the entrance to the lounge by an eye-catching strip of mirrored glass, which runs the entire length of the bar with raised etchings of fish, coral and underwater scenes. The entire area, right down to the furnishings and carpet has a hazy, leisurely ambience, being decorated in hues of sage, aqua and green with highlights of orange to spice things up a little.

It will be interesting to see this ship after her refit. When we visited, she exuded all the glamour and luxury you would expect of a ship of this type, with a definite design thumbprint that was all her own. Long may she continue.