Welcome aboard Mike, and I do say, you know how to ingratiate yourself with me - the liners are a soft spot of mine (even if I do prefer the designs of the 50s and 60s to the 30s). I look forward to seeing more.
I'm not that familiar with modern commercial liner propulsion systems, but ... why azipods? Why not standard props and rudder? From my uninformed laymans viewpoint that would seem just as efficient and much less costly, and commercial vessels do need to be concerned with cost I would imagine.
I'm still tossing up different propulsion methods, and that's why I only included the waterline image above. Azipods have become renown for their unreliability (even on ships like QM2), however since Imperia is quite long (365 meters) , I believed a more dynamic form of control offering 360 degrees of movement to be necessary, and Azipods seem to give that degree of 360 control.
Regards,
Mike.
What he said. Azipods and bow thrusters also mean that a ship doesn't need tugs to manuver into port, which reduces costs. This is more important with cruise ships that more often than liners visit smaller, unimproved ports, but it still helps. If you do decide to not use them, then the twin screw with bow and stern thrusters is probably the next best thing (I know you know this Mike, just saying it for others).
The Disney ships don't have them.
Really? I got seen a plan of them last week with Azi Pods
Well but still 9/10 Liners have Azi pods now
Well, if I wanted to be pedantic it's 1/1, as there has only been one new
ocean liner in the past four decades.