Royal Caribbean and Carnival continue to place orders for giant ships.
In recent years, there has been an arms race to build larger ships with more advanced capabilities. Both cruise lines are focused on building destination ships. On these ships, visiting the port is less important than having time to explore the water park, theme park-style rides, and dozens of dining options on board.
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Larger ships cannot visit many popular cruise ports. That’s why Royal Caribbean and Carnival have been investing in private islands and destinations. They can send their largest ships there and give their passengers the experience they love.
However, many passengers prefer smaller ships and the ability to sail more interesting itineraries. Royal Caribbean has committed to building a new smaller ship, tentatively called the Discovery Class, but has not yet set an order date.
“Certainly when you think about ship categories, I think the other thing that’s important is whether they can be smaller or they can be larger, that’s also a consideration, and we also have ships with 30-year, 35-year lifespans, Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
“So it’s not just that we want to build the same size ships, smaller ships. It’s also replacing ships that will eventually reach the end of their useful life.”
Carnival Cruise Line has not revealed plans to replace its smaller ships, but the cruise line’s brand ambassador John Heald recently responded to questions about the issue.
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Carnival won’t follow Royal Caribbean’s lead
Carnival has made it quite clear that it has no plans to build smaller ships. But that didn’t stop passengers from asking.
Susie wrote: “Good morning John! Happy New Year. Yesterday we saw another large ship with a capacity of 8,000 passengers being built. I know we are probably not popular, but we prefer the likes of the Pride and Smaller ships like the Legend so my question is…as these smaller ships age and one day go out of service, have you seen them build smaller ships to replace them it looks like they are building more and more ships? Come to bigger buildings.
Heard sent a clear message to Que and other passengers hoping to travel on smaller boats.
“Thank you very much. We know how much people like smaller ships and while we will not be building any new ships, we will continue to invest in our existing ships,” he replied.
Heard has said in the past that new smaller ships would not be profitable for the cruise line.
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Carnival passengers unhappy
If Royal Caribbean builds the Discovery class, which is expected to be as early as 2029, it will gain an advantage over Carnival.
Many of Heard’s followers expressed dismay at the cruise line’s rejection of the idea of building new, smaller ships.
Julia L. Martin posted: “I agree, sailing in small boats is for our family. Won’t sail in larger boats. Please keep our boats sailing.”
Other passengers tried the larger boats but preferred the smaller ones.
“We’ve sailed on every new boat and still prefer smaller boats. There’s a sense of community on smaller boats. It’s not like living in a big city, it’s like living in a small town,” Janice Lehr Harris added.
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Some passengers noted that the new, larger ships would not fit in some of Carnival Cruise Line’s ports.
“Sorry John, but this is completely unfair to those of us including Tampa and other ports that will never be able to accommodate giant ships,” John Mewesin wrote.
“Carnival could build three smaller ships for the price of one of your monsters. I’m sure the smaller ships will more than pay for themselves and make a lot of people happy. Please pass it on to the Beard. Bigger isn’t always is better, so please design us a smaller, more modern, brand new boat, thank you.
(“The Beard Team” is Heard’s term for the carnival leadership team.)
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