Boxing? Bowling? On a cruise ship?

In this Olympic season, you have to wonder whether the cruise industry, given ten years, will be adding snowboarding half pipes, slalom runs and ski jumps to their ships, since it seems anything's possible onboard nowadays. For the time being, though, we'll have to made do with the most recently announced gee-whiz features, a boxing ring and a bowling alley.

Norwegian Cruise Line announced that its Norwegian Pearl, to be launched in 2007, will offer a full-size, four-lane bowling alley. The alley will be the focal point of the sports-bar-by-day, ultralounge-by-night, complex named Bliss. Norwegian has been doing a great job creating surprising, stylish nightspots on their ships, and this promises to be another. Although championship bowling won't be in the offing due to the motion of the ship, the four lanes will undoubtedly provide a lot of amusement.

Meantime, Royal Caribbean has unveiled another feature on the soon-to-sail, world's largest Freedom of the Seas... a regulation-size, 20' by 20', Everlast boxing ring. The facility named Fight Klub will give Rockys-in-training the chance to step into the ring to spar with an instructor, work with speed bags, jump ropes, punching mitts and heavy bags. Royal Caribbean continues to impress us by embracing and building on their brand identity of "active cruising," and the boxing facility fits perfectly alongside the previously announced onboard surfing, and now-iconic onboard rock-climbing walls and ice skating rinks.