The $1.2 billion Epic will be a bit smaller than the Oasis—150,000 tons compared with 225,000 and 4,200 passengers compared with 5,400—but will carry an array of exotic features: Blue Man Group, a dinner theater production of Cirque Dreams in a big-top tent, a bar carved out of ice (bring your furs to the Caribbean), and three waterslides, including one with a 200-foot drop.

Epic will have a couple of bowling alleys and the first squash court at sea. Even Sheehan chuckles at the last one, saying, “That’s a little bit of who knows.”

Despite all the amenities, the cruise lines are battling the recession by emphasizing value—transportation, rooms, and endless amounts of food at one price.

A quick search on travel site Orbitz.com for Caribbean Cruises in January yielded a five-night trip in a suite on Norwegian Cruise Lines for $599. If you want something a little less pricey, you could choose an interior room for $249. Prices for suites ranged from $549 to about $849.

Michelle Fee, CEO of Cruise Planners in Coral Springs, says her 700 franchised agents have demanding customers who not only want good rates but onboard spending credits. A lot of the cruise lines are offering half off on deposits to get bookings for European and Alaskan cruises, which are typically more expensive than Caribbean cruises.

Despite the economic ups and downs, the cruise industry has continued to grow since consultant Rod McLeod of McLeod Applebaum & Partners in Weston, Florida, joined the industry in the 1970s, he said. Back then, about 1 million people cruised, and now it’s about 10 million. Asia and Europe are hot markets.

The median age of cruisers has fallen from the 60s to the 40s as the cruise lines went beyond marketing bingo, shuffleboard, and Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers type of dancing, he said.

The Epic and Oasis will give NCL and RCL a chance to stand out against the marketing muscle of industry behemoth Carnival Corp.

Carnival had revenues of $4.14 billion and a profit of $1.07 billion in the latest reported quarter, while Royal Caribbean lost $35 million on revenue of $1.35 billion and NCL made $15 million on revenue of $478 million

McLeod, a former senior executive at all three, says of Carnival chairman and CEO Micky Arison and vice chairman and COO Howard Frank: "They won't dazzle with innovation. They will just dazzle you with their ability to control their costs and manage their costs at every level—starting with what they pay for the ships and how they are financed to what they spend for potatoes.”

While Oasis and Epic are generating industry buzz, Carnival got a lot less fanfare in September when it took delivery of the 130,000-ton, 3,652-passenger Carnival Dream with the largest water park at sea. (Carnival Corp.’s Cunard Line did get a lot of buzz in 2004 when it took delivery of the 148,528-ton Queen Mary 2, which had a two-year reign as the world’s largest ship.)

While the Oasis is 106,000 tons bigger than the Queen Mary II, the 100,000-ton threshold was just breached 13 years ago with the Carnival Destiny.

Ultimately, there has to be some sort of limit, because you can’t have New York City at sea, McLeod said.

One problem is megaship passengers overwhelming ports, especially in historic areas like Europe, he said. “They haven't called Michelangelo back to say, ‘Increase the size of the Sistine Chapel. We need a new ceiling.’”