Large Cruise Ship Spotted off Wonsan, North Korea... "With a Pool and Even Water Slides"

BBC: "Spotted in satellite images off Wonsan"
A total of four vessels, including an 80-meter leisure vessel, identified

Satellite images have captured a large leisure vessel measuring 80 meters in length in waters near Wonsan, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has a villa. The vessel has been there since July.

On October 18, the BBC reported that an analysis of satellite images showed the vessel had been moored at a ship maintenance facility in Wonsan from October last year through June this year. It left the berth in July and later appeared in waters near Kim's villa in Wonsan.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Yonhap News.

The BBC said three other large vessels had also been repeatedly spotted in waters near Wonsan. The large vessels tracked by the BBC using satellite images in the Wonsan area measure 50, 55, 60 and 80 meters in length. Satellite images showed that the 80-meter vessel had a 50-meter swimming pool with four lanes, as well as several water slides beside it.

The BBC reported that luxury yachts of a similar size sell for tens of millions of dollars to more than $100 million (about 130 billion won). The question is who uses these large leisure vessels. Ri Jong Ho, head of the Korea Prosperity Development Center and a former official at an organization under the Workers' Party's Office 39, which handles foreign currency procurement and management for Kim Jong Un, told the BBC, "In the past, large vessels would be moored at maintenance facilities during the winter and then move to Kim Jong Un's villa or toward the Kalma Peninsula in the summer." He described the vessels as "the kind used by the supreme leader to enjoy summer vacations, not by ordinary residents or institutions."

The BBC said Wonsan is closely connected to the family of North Korea's supreme leader because Kim Jong Un grew up there with his older brother, Kim Jong-chul, his sister, Kim Yo Jong, and his mother, Ko Yong Hui.

The fact that Kim Jong Un owns luxury cruise ships and yachts was also revealed in testimony by Dennis Rodman, a former National Basketball Association (NBA) player who visited North Korea several times. In an interview with the British newspaper The Sun, Rodman said that during his visit in September 2013, he spent most of his seven-day trip on Kim Jong Un's island in Wonsan, drinking and partying, riding jet skis and horseback riding. He said he had been aboard a 60-meter vessel at the time, describing it as "a cross between a ferry and a Disney cruise ship."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.