MIAMI BEACH -- Big news tends to break just before the annual Seatrade Cruise Global conference. In 2022, it was Arnold Donald's announcement that he would retire as CEO of Carnival Corp. In 2023, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO Frank Del Rio said he, too, would be stepping down.
This year, NCLH stole the limelight again, this time with a whopping order for eight cruise ships across its three brands, the largest order in company history.
The reason behind the voluminous ship order? CEO Harry Sommer pointed to a variety of metrics.
"Demand is incredibly robust, the onboard product is fantastic, guests are coming back, the repeat rates are at historical high levels, and this gives us an incredible optimism for the future of the company," Sommer said during the State of the Industry panel discussion at Seatrade.
To meet that demand, the eight vessels, representing three new ship classes, will be delivered by Italian shipyard Fincantieri between 2026 and 2036. The four Norwegian Cruise Line vessels will each carry about 5,000 passengers.
Sommer said during a conference call with investors that he would not describe the ships as being "jumbo size" and that they will only be about 20% larger than the Norwegian Encore, a ship in the Breakaway Plus class that debuted in late 2019. "But we are super focused on leveraging our operating scale, which we believe slightly larger ships will allow us to do," he said.
Carnival and Royal Caribbean grow fleets
The NCLH order is the largest of any in recent memory, but the company is not alone in ramping up ship orders this year after a period of relative quiet.
Since February, Carnival Corp. announced orders for its fourth and fifth Excel-class ships for Carnival Cruise Line. They are expected to be delivered in 2027 and 2028. And Royal Caribbean Group has opted for a seventh Oasis-class vessel to be delivered in 2028.
Executives at Seatrade who don't have new ship orders to discuss applauded the orders.
Gus Antorcha, president of Holland America Line, said the orders are a vote of confidence in the cruise industry.
"It talks to the continued popularity of cruising, and it's exciting," he said. "I think it will continue to grow, and we have a great future ahead of us."
The burst of ship orders is also what prompted NCLH to go so big all at once.
"The slots at the shipyard are available, and obviously we want to secure them before the competition does," Sommer told investors during the conference call. "We certainly believe that the competitive set will be ordering ships, as well. You've already seen some of that over the last couple of months."
Carnival Corp. CEO Josh Weinstein echoed Sommer's comments about the orders reflecting demand, which he called "unprecedented."
Speaking as a State of the Industry panelist, Weinstein said the company set records in the most recent quarter for demand, yield and number of passengers carried. Meanwhile, bookings for 2025 already look stronger than they did for 2024 a year ago.
"It is remarkable how boisterous this environment is, and I don't think it's fleeting," he said. "The net is going to keep getting cast wider and wider to be able to fill whatever it is that we choose, although I am glad there's only a few shipyards because there is a natural constraint on growth, which is always a good thing."
Small cruise lines are expanding, too
The cruise industry had experienced a drought of new ship orders that started during the pandemic. Although several vessels were already in the pipeline, large cruise lines focused on healing their balance sheets coming out of the pandemic pause in operations.
But it is not only the largest cruise companies that announced during Seatrade plans to expand their fleets.
Scenic Group said it plans to build another luxury vessel for Emerald Cruises. The 128-guest Emerald Kaia, set to debut in April 2026, will feature larger suites and other design enhancements building on the line's Emerald Sakara and Emerald Azzurra.
Windstar Cruises said it will acquire two 224-guest motor yachts from Mystic Invest. The Star Seeker, under construction at the WestSea shipyard in Portugal, will join the fleet in 2025, while the Star Explorer, currently under charter for Quark Expeditions, will join a year later.
The expansion will enable Windstar to move a second vessel, one of its Wind-class sailing ships, to Tahiti, where the brand wants to increase its capacity, said Windstar president Chris Prelog.
And just days before the conference, French cruise company Ponant announced it would launch the six-stateroom Spirit of Ponant, which will sail in Corsica in July before deploying to the Seychelles for the winter.
Johanna Jainchill contributed to this report.