DutchCruiseFan

Wasn't Oasis 7 widely believed to be the last Oasis class?

There is absolutely no way that Oasis and Allure are gone by 2032. Like actually zero. The vision class ships are making it to 30 and the Voyager class will go well over that. There is no way an Oasis class retires at 22/23 years old.

Likely around South America.

I agree. The cruise industry is having unprecedented growth and it's great to see. But that will stop, and the amount of new ships coming is astonishing. There will be a very interesting time in the future where it won't be as easy to fill these ships and the profits of these big cruise lines will drop dramatically.

Sending an Icon or even Oasis to the West Coast would be quite the statement and surely make Carnival feel uncomfortable. I wonder how many ports in that area could actually handle a ship that size tho?

Yep, and Norwegian is building 4 Oasis sized ships. Fascinating to see and I'm so curious to see how other companies will design these ships. There has also been genuine talk with the cruise industry growing so much (DCL also going from 5 to 13 ships), that Florida ports are soon full. Especially in winter.

First thing I thought when I read this was that Icon V and VI could be placeholders for Discovery class ships to be build.

I'm just curious about the homeports when they have 7 Oasis ships and 6 Icons. It can't all be Florida and Galveston in winter. Perhaps one in Asia, but that still leaves 12 huge ships!

I was surprised to see Jewel and Brilliance sail the same sort of itineraries one day apart from each other for a whole winter season. I thought it was wrong for a long time. Rhapsody must be performing well?

Icon 4 has been ordered with Meyer Turku in Finland together with options for Icon 5 and 6. This in combination with Oasis 8 and the upcoming Discovery class means a very well filled order book soon! Exciting! https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2024/08/27/royal-caribbean-icon-class-ship-order

I like the idea of that. They'd fit there quite well.

Which must then surely be Luminosa?

Rhapsody of the Seas shows up regularly on the Grand Cayman port schedule for winter 2026-2027. She does not in summer 2026. Perhaps winter in Tampa and summer somewhere else?

At NCL's Q2 earning presentation, they revealed the new class of ships to come in at approximately 225.000 tonnes. For reference, this is as big as Oasis and Allure of the Seas.

The acquisition of Chantiers de l'Antique by Fincantieri actually fell through and never happened. The French yard is owned by the French state and Naval Group. Could the bankruptcy of Meyer Werft have consequences for Meyer Turku? I do not expect anything to happen to Meyer Werft, though. Carnival and more recently Disney would surely not have placed big orders there if there was a big risk.

Totally agreed, but I doubt we will see an XL take on that role before the first newbuild arrives.

Do you know what is, I don’t have any reason to believe you are right, but I also don’t have a reason to think you’re wrong. If you’re informed correctly it will be very interesting to see, the German cruise market is surely a market to watch and both Aida and TUI are very interesting companies to watch. Carnivals 230k newbuilds following the Sphere class is a surprise to me. It feels like, in order to achieve 230k, you’d need split superstructures. Time will tell everything but I’m very excited. One question for your inside info ;). Can we expect an official announcement soon?

Which wouldn’t make sense yet. They’ll surely wait for the newbuilds in 2027.

Where can we see that AIDA is the 3rd best performing brand? I thought the Corporation didn't give away info like that.

Despite it indeed being very questionable that Costa would fold, they would surely not integrate into AIDA, those differences are simply too big. I think there is barely any non-Germans that would book AIDA and the market would not be big enough for the entirety of Costa to integrate in their fleet. I am sure they'd love their XL class ships tho.. But I think we can assume Costa is going nowhere. If Carnival fun Italian style is indeed not performing well, I am curious what they'd do with the ships. The Asian market would be an option but surely the biggest chance is that they'd just transform them into full normal Carnival ships?

Have fun!

Really good suggestion aswell tbh. The competition there is getting more and more with Royal Caribbean expanding their LA offering to two ships year-round. I think the problem is that Firenze doesn't take the Panama Canal so it would make it difficult to have a winter deployment in the Caribbean. Perhaps she could have a winter deployment in San Diego!

Yeah makes sense, especially with the added competition from Norwegian now. Jacksonville is probably there to stay. On another note, there is something else I just thought off considering an XL taking over the Sunrise schedule, it feels like that could actually be their main reason for building a pier in Half Moon Cay now. Especially in combination with JH saying they're considering putting an XL on short routes... 1+1=2.

Totally agree. Quite certain that an XL will take over those Sunrise runs, which look appealing btw. I'm not sure about Sunshine now, I cruised on her in 2018 and it made a good impression on us, I can't really see it go yet in 2027 or 2028. Then I guess what holds the key is, how well does Norfolk perform? Could it justify a Dream class again? You'd think that they downsized with a reason. Perhaps Sunshine could actually leave in 2027 and Sunrise will go to Norfolk. I must say I really like the idea of Sunshine or Sunrise giving San Juan a go. PS: A bit off-topic but, could we ever see the Conquest class getting a Sunshine style makeover? That'd be great to see.

I doubt we will ever see the big companies order new ships a lot under 150k again. Even Norwegian is upsizing their medium sized Prima class to 172k from the original 142k, which the CEO said is because of the better economics it gives. I think it is just the economics of the modern day cruise industry. So I think these ships might very well be direct replacements for the smaller ships.