Larger than life on the ocean horizon, the world's biggest cruise ship swaggered into Port Everglades as a crowd of onlookers at a Broward beach park cheered.
``Wow!'' cried one of the early risers, who came with binoculars and blankets to greet the 225,000-ton megaship Friday morning.
The Oasis of the Seas was accompanied by a flotilla of small boats and doused by water cannons as it headed into its new home port. Royal Caribbean executives and local leaders waited to greet the $1.4 billion ship, which has taken six years from conception to completion.
At John U. Lloyd State Park, Marsha Scharf, of Chesterfield, Mo., rubbernecked from the beach and thumbed through a text message on her cellphone.
``TJ says, `Can you tell which ship we are?' '' she said, laughingly to her fiancé, Tom Smyka, who stood next to her clicking pictures.
Scharf said her son, Timothy, had sent the text message from the Oasis, where he has been working since August as IT manager. ``It's his 33rd birthday,'' his mother said.
Dana Steinberg, a retired merchant marine from Hollywood, arrived early to take in the mammoth ship, which has seven neighborhoods, including a boardwalk reminiscent of Coney Island. ``I've never really been on a cruise, but I love ships.''
This ship has not one, but two rock-climbing walls, and two surf simulators, an ice-skating rink, and 24 restaurants. The theater will feature a 90-minute production of the Broadway hit Hairspray, which the cast has been practicing during the crossing from Finland.
The Oasis, carrying crew and construction workers, braved high seas and hurricane-force winds in the North Atlantic. That stretched the journey from a shipyard in Turku, Finland, to Fort Lauderdale to 14 days -- two days longer than planned. But Royal Caribbean officials say the giant ship performed fine in the rough seas.
FINAL DETAILS
Now that the ship is in Port Everglades, workers will attend to the final details. Perhaps the biggest job is the installation of 12,000 shrubs, plants and trees to give Central Park, the first of its kind park-at-sea, a leafy, green ambience.
The U.S. Coast Guard plans to begin inspecting the ship Saturday to check the safety and security systems and to review the crew's readiness. A team of eight Coast Guard inspectors also visited the Turku shipyard in October to check the technologically advanced ship, which was designed to meet international safety requirements that aren't yet in effect.
Miami-based Royal Caribbean International plans a private performance by pop singer Rihanna on Thursday, followed by a national television debut on ABC's Good Morning America from 7 to 9 a.m. Friday.
The ship, which has 16 passenger decks, will sail on several promotional cruises with travel agents, journalists and guests before making its first revenue cruise Dec. 1.
The naming ceremony is slated for Nov. 30 during a one-night fundraiser to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which provides treats to children with life-threatening illnesses. Tickets for the event begin at $750 per person.
The 5,400-passenger ship, which is 40 percent larger than the next largest cruise ship, was designed with seven neighborhoods so that passengers can orient themselves more easily and hang out in areas that appeal to their interests.
``We really buy into the concept of multigenerational travel,'' said Adam M. Goldstein, the cruise line's chief executive. ``We want to be able to please grandparents, parents and children on the same cruise at the same time. That's simply diversity of choice.''

The Boardwalk, for example, with a handcrafted carousel, is expected to appeal primarily to families with kids. The Entertainment Place, encompassing the giant Casino Royale, comedy and jazz clubs, and the Opal Theater, is a hub for adults at night. The ship has a youth zone with play and educational activities and a separate youth area aimed at teenagers, with a teen disco, computer games and dance floor.
Royal Caribbean is hoping to lure first-time cruisers with the new attractions while offering fresh options for repeat customers.
CENTRAL PARK
The most radical part of the ship's design is its width -- 154 feet across the beam. That enabled designers to carve open the center and create the open-air atrium for Central Park, which has guest cabins lining both sides.
According to Richard D. Fain, chairman and chief executive of the parent company, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., much has changed from the original plans for Central Park. ``It wasn't so much a park as a garden, a lawn, with hills going up and down,'' Fain said.
But then spatial design and virtual reality experiments suggested the grass wouldn't endure heavy foot traffic. ``We went through a period of about two months of despondency until we got something we thought was better,'' said Fain, who gets involved in the nitty-gritty details of ship design and accouterments. ``We knew the garden wasn't going to work. We didn't know what we were going to replace it with. So for a month and a half or two months we were very nervous.''
The Central Park is sort of a ``town square'' with entertainment and specialty restaurants, including 150 Central Park, featuring an up-and-coming chef, Keriann Von Raesfeld.
The middle of ship has a spoiler to deflect wind upward. ``Otherwise winds would be sucked down into Central Park and create an unfavorable condition,'' said the ship's hotel director, Raimund H. Gschaider, who led a Miami Herald reporter on a tour of Oasis in the STX Europe shipyard in Finland just before its departure for Fort Lauderdale.
During a sea trial with winds reaching 45 to 50 knots, Gschaider said, ``we were in Central Park and you had a breeze.''

Copyright Miami Herald written by Martha Brannigan