With the pandemic a distant memory and cruise bookings off the charts, cruise lines have gone on a shopping spree this year.
One after another, contemporary and family-oriented cruise lines have collectively ordered 14 ships since January, many of them bigger than their predecessors.
"The arms race is back on," said Monty Mathisen, managing editor of Cruise Industry News, which publishes a book of confirmed ship orders. "You have a shiny new object. I need a shiny new object," he said, characterizing the pace of competition.
The burst of ship orders has come as the cruise industry returned to a sense of normalcy following the pandemic, when orders for new ships slowed and older ships were sold or scrapped as cruise lines struggled to survive. Now, with a regular drumbeat of full sailings and strong demand, the Big Three cruise lines are repeatedly breaking records for quarterly revenue or bookings and are looking to build capacity or replace aging tonnage.
A trend with this year's ship orders is to go big. For instance, Carnival Corp. ordered three massive, 230,000-gross-ton ships for a new class of vessels for Carnival Cruise Line, which are expected to enter service from 2029 to 2033. The company also ordered two 180,000-gross-ton ships for the brand's Excel class, which currently has the line's largest vessels.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings is also taking a bigger-is-better approach. Norwegian Cruise Line has four Prima-class ships rolling out in the next three years. To follow the Prima ships, the first of which was 143,000 gross tons, the company has ordered four vessels of 200,000 gross tons each. Those ships are expected to debut in the early to mid-2030s.
Despite the commercial success of the largest cruise ship in the world, the Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean International's latest ship order wasn't for more Icon ships. With a second Icon-class ship already on order, Royal announced it would build a seventh Oasis-class ship due out in 2028, underscoring the strength of that large-scale class.
The ship as the experience
With several cruise ports around the world pushing back against cruise tourism, cruise lines are increasingly looking to make their ships the destination, said Walter Nadolny, professor emeritus of marine transportation and global business at the State University of New York Maritime College and a former environmental officer for both Norwegian and Carnival.
"They're looking at making the ship itself the experience, as opposed to going to three or four ports," he said. "Looking at the amenities, go-karts and ice skating rinks and rock climbing, you name it, they're turning the ship into the experience and not so much, 'Let's take a cruise down to Cozumel.'"
Orders are stretching further into the future, too, said Mathisen. Whereas the cruise ship order book in 2014 extended as far as 2019, ship orders on record today stretch to the mid-2030s. Placing orders far in advance blocks out space in shipyards, making it challenging for competing lines to find facilities to build their ships, Mathisen said.
Not only do new ships create attention for the lines, but they replace 30-year-old ships that need regular updating with vessels that have more capacity, he said.
Disney is diving in
Disney Cruise Line is the latest to make a bulk ship order. The line announced it would build four more ships, although it was light on details about how big the vessels would be or if they would constitute a new ship class.
Still, the order is significant for what could still be characterized as a small cruise line. With this order, Disney will nearly triple its fleet by 2031. The line currently sails five ships and has four under construction. Among them are two Wish-class ships: the Disney Treasure, due out in December, and the Disney Destiny, expected in November 2025.
Disney also acquired an unfinished 208,000-gross-ton ship from liquidators in late 2022 following Genting Hong Kong's bankruptcy. Named the Disney Adventure, the ship is due out next year and will homeport in Singapore.
Meanwhile, the Oriental Land Co., which owns and operates Disney parks in Tokyo, is building a sister to the Disney Wish that will sail year-round out of Japan.
Disney should have ordered these ships years ago, said Anthony Hamawy, president of Cruise.com.
"I'm shocked it took them this long," he said. "They have a lot of room for growth, and they have a lot of markets that could have ships year-round."
Also, old ships are also more expensive to operate, he said. As environmental regulations change, especially in Europe, it compels cruise lines to prepare with vessels that can burn cleaner fuel than the ships that were built 20 to 30 years ago, he said.
"They're planning how they're going to target and grow new markets, and they're planning on how they're going to continue to modernize their fleet -- and, by the way, provide features that they believe consumers are looking for," Hamawy said.