World's largest cruise ship in Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov. 14 (UPI) -- The world's largest cruise ship was a sight to behold as it steamed into its Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home port for the first time, observers said.

Onlookers oohed and aahed as Royal Caribbean's 225,000-ton Oasis of the Seas lumbered past a beach in Broward County where boat watchers had gathered early Friday with blankets and binoculars to see the gigantic ship, The Miami Herald reported.

At John U. Lloyd State Park, Marsha Scharf of Chesterfield, Mo., was among the ship's admirers, watching as it slid past accompanied a flotilla of small boats. She texted her son Timothy, or TJ, who was aboard the Oasis.

"TJ says, 'Can you tell which ship we are?'" she said laughingly to her fiancee, who was busy taking pictures of the $1.4 billion oceanliner, the newspaper said.

The ship -- which sports 24 restaurants, two rock-climbing walls and two surf simulators -- crossed the North Atlantic from a shipyard in Turku, Finland, to its new home port in 14 days, passing through hurricane-force winds along the way, the Herald said.