On March 20, the second domestically built large cruise ship, the “Adora Flora City,” was successfully launched at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, and has now entered the dock commissioning phase. The ship is expected to be delivered by the end of 2026.
Given the high technical complexity of large cruise ships and the rigorous standards governing their design and construction, the project implementation process faces numerous challenges. Consequently, conducting rigorous technical verification of all critical systems while the vessel is afloat constitutes an essential and core step in solidifying the overall safety of the entire ship.
On March 14, the “Adora Flora City” began a seven-day series of operations involving water filling, floating, and launching. During this period, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding conducted a single inclining test to determine the vessel’s total weight and center of gravity. The test results met expectations, and the vessel’s weight and center of gravity data were found to be within acceptable limits.
The “Adora Flora City” is equipped with a total of 18 lifeboats and 2 rescue boats, ensuring the safety of all passengers and crew. By conducting individual release tests and in-dock maneuvering tests on all lifeboats on both the port and starboard sides, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding performed comprehensive functional verification of the lifeboats and rescue boats under all operating conditions, providing a solid foundation for subsequent safe operations.
Following a series of tests, the “Adora Flora City” has met all technical requirements for launching and is ready to proceed to the next phase of mooring trials at the pier. As of now, the overall engineering progress of the vessel exceeds 94%, interior outfitting is 81.9% complete, and commissioning is 68.3% complete. Pre-inspections of public areas and cabins, as well as external inspections of key systems, have all been completed ahead of schedule.
The “Adora Flora City” has a gross tonnage of 141,900 tons, a length of 341 meters, and a beam of 37.2 meters. As an extremely complex engineering project, the vessel features over 4,700 kilometers of cabling, nearly 40,000 square meters of public spaces, and incorporates over a thousand systems, more than 20,000 sets of critical equipment, and over 25 million components.
Since keel laying on April 20, 2024, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding—drawing on the experience gained from building the first-of-its-kind cruise ship “Adora Magic City” and under the overall guidance of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC)—has overcome multiple challenges posed by the significantly compressed construction schedule. By leveraging digital and intelligent technologies to deeply empower cruise ship construction, the company has comprehensively advanced the iterative upgrading of the entire process, including design, production, warehousing, quality control, and project management. Compared to the first vessel, the overall construction efficiency of the “Adora Flora City” has increased by 20%.
Leveraging the development and construction of two domestically built large cruise ships, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding is achieving a steady upward trajectory of capability enhancement. It has not only overcome the three core technologies and ten key system integration technologies for large cruise ship design and construction, but also initially established a core capability matrix integrating digital final assembly and construction with large-scale system engineering management. The shipbuilder has cultivated a high-caliber, professional team of Chinese cruise ship engineering talents covering scientific research, project management, and engineering practice, and preliminarily formed a Chinese cruise ship manufacturing system encompassing the entire process of global collaborative R&D, construction, procurement, and supporting services.