kwokpot

You're stilli missing the point that it costs more to build two 2,500 passenger ship than one 5,000 passenger ship which means the cost per passenger to make money will be more with two smaller ships than one bigger ship. That is the major fallacy to your position and is why no mainstream cruiseline is doing that. Again that's not to say that no one is building smaller ships,but it's the 5* cruiselines that can charge a higher per passenger fare to recoup and make a profit with building smaller ships.

Thank you for additional information. We're on the same page.

Based on all that I have read that's not correct. The reason for this is the Jubilee's cabins can command a higher fare and because there's more amenities onboard the per passenger spend while be higher on the mega ships than on an older smaller ship. All the articles written confirm that. The fuel efficiency on one new mega ship makes up for sailing two, smaller ships, so there less fuel cost. And staffing costs will be less too since you'll only need more lower level employees vs duplicative higher level management when sailing 2 smaller ships vs one mega ship. And cost of scale to build two smaller ships vs one mega is more even before the 1st passengers step onboard. Again just look at NCL. They tried what you're suggesting with the Prima Class and everyone, from passengers to NCL management has admitted that the original Prima class at 143,000 tons is too small to meet what current cruise passengers want on a mainstream cruiseship. So it's not even hypothetical discussions about smaller vs larger new builds; we have current ,real world results via what happened with NCL.

On the Apex jast July on an Iceland and British Isles itinerary the Solarium Family family hours were 4:00-11:00 every night.

Nope. No longer a thing.

It isn't possible because the desk and vanity area, which ISN'T movable, would be in the way of the bed if you were to swap the bed and sofa in an Oceanview Balcony cabin on the Freedom.

I understand that. What I was alluding to is the assumption that when business is not as good a cruiseline should have smaller ships so they can fill those ships up to 100%. My point was filling the Spirit and Miracle to 100% isn't going to be more profitable to Carnival than if the Jubilee sailed with the same amount of passengers at a 60% load factor. That's all I'm saying. No mainstream cruiseline is going to build a new class of sub 100,000 ton ships which many mainstream passengers, at least here on CC, seem to want not just on Carnival but many other lines too. TBH I personally love the 90,000 ton class of ships from any cruiseline . It's the perfect size to offer a bit of everything but not too much of anything.

As a RCL stockholder for 16 years paying $9.99/share and having it recently reached it's all time high of $141.66 (currently down to $127.70) and it's considered a BUY with all analysts with a target of $154 it's obviously doing something right.

Here's a brand new article that puts it in perspective with regard to Carnival. IT can't AFFORD to build alot of new, bigger ships. Carnival's CEO admitted it as so and also conceded that his competitors aren't WRONG for placing such large advanced orders for new builds. https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/people-opinions/buoyant-state-industry-outlook-cruisings-top-leaders

https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Insights/When-it-comes-to-profitability-ship-size-matters

https://skift.com/2015/09/23/why-cruise-lines-are-building-so-many-new-ships/

I guess my issue is with this statement you make. Do you have any facts to support this assertion?

This has been our experience as well. We have stayed in five different IV cabins, on every E-Class ship, most recently in January on the Ascent. While I cannot tell you the frequency and number of times on each sailing I can say that is has definitely occurred. I have seen the windows go up automatically when I had it open, and I've seen it locked when I wanted to open it. But as I previously noted there where instances where we were in port and there were very dark clouds in the distance and the windows didn't close. I don't remember it closing by itself on the Ascent in January, nor do I remember the windows closing last July on the Apex in Iceland (BTW it was a perfect type of cabin for that itinerary).

In 2018 when we did a reverse itinerary on Royal our stop in Fiji was at the port of Suva, on the southeastern coast of the island. In any case rather than try to do a day at a high end resort,which we kinda did during our Maui port stop, we did a tour to visit a local Fijian village. It was a wonderful way to see how real Fijians live. We got to see the types of houses they lived in and were treated to a ceremonial dance and how the drink kava was made ( no,we didn't try the kava). We felt it was a worthwhile tour and would recommend something similar for anyone visiting Fiji. On another note as we were venturing from the port to the village it was noted that Fiji had hired China to build out its transportation infrastructure. They were building for Fiji a whole highway system. It was pretty remarkable.

That's not to say that smaller ships aren't being built. But for economies of scale they are for higher end cruiselines that charge much, much, much more than Carnival does. The only mainstream cruiselinethat's building new, smaller ships is Virgin, and as you can see they are struggling. On the other end you have MSC's new Explora cruiseline with their brand new SMALL ship at 64,000 tons which offers a 7 day Caribbean cruise this November starting at $4,000/pp.

I don't think that is the case AT ALL. Everything written has made the case that larger ships are more profitable since there's more cabin types that can charge higher fees even though there's more cabins to fill than a smaller ship (AND they are VASTLY more fuel efficient vs the older ships). I haven't read anything written by any cruiseline that supports your statement above and actually what's written is exactly the opposite, hence cruiselines building larger ships. NCL's newest Prima Class set out to build smaller ships and everyone is complaining they aren't big enough (Even NCL's CEO felt the same), so the next several Prima Class ships are bigger and then NCL just announced they will build a whole fleet of a new class of ships that will be their largest ever.

Yes, all of you should go to the one of the MDRS on embarkation where you will see a line to make dinner arrangement changes. See my other post for more details.

The Ascent seems to have done MDR dining slightly differently. You should be able to switch to anytime dining once on board but there will be no reservations possible, so you just go when you want to dine and if they can seat you immediately they will, otherwise you'll get a buzzer. Even with a buzzer the longest we waited in January was 20 minutes at the beginning and it slowly declined to 10 and by the last half of the cruise we were seated immediately without a buzzer. This was around 7:00pm every night. The Ascent will allow reservations either early or late, but not prime dining hours. For example the screenshot below is what showed up on the app when we were onboard. I advise when you first board to go see if you can get the dining situation all setup. It will be one of the reception desks of one of the four MDRs. They explained to us we can have either have reservations for the whole cruise for either early at 5:30, 5:45 or late at 8:30 or later. From 6:00 to 8:00 there are no reservations, it's first come first seated.

Unfortunate accident with a shuttlebus at the Honolulu pier. All the injured were from a Carnival Cruiseship that had just docked and passengers were disembarking and going to sightsee. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/04/12/12-people-injured-including-one-critically-after-shuttle-bus-loses-control-near-honolulu-pier/?outputType=amp&fbclid=IwAR3Hv4mPoUmMg1McGZsfIlFIIb1nQVV6op3en91rGnfgKzOotIb1LLICy38_aem_AYo-2LNFwAsqXgIK8vRJOCb2YXKzUAaysU6V6NG67_-BEDqy5DNK17YA6rGuLgYVlTU-TFH4ZoIkHrFtirF37ATj

You're missing the whole forward section where the theater is on Deck 5 to walk since there isn't a pathway.

You can certainly access parts of the outdoor Deck 5 but it doesn't allow passageway all around. Of course Decks 15 & 16 offer pathways which you can take the jogging track part way and then walk beyond towards the Sunset bar and then around to the Portside towards the Rooftop Grill and then past the Rooftop Garden to rejoin the jogging track.

Sorry, I misread what you wrote.

Thanks for all the responses. We'll go with the flow, especially since we already have my time reservations. Whatever CK reservations we can snag will be fine.

I'm not sure why you think the theaters on E-Class ships don't have great sightlines; there's literally no columns anywhere. The theater on the Ascent is one of the most spectacular theaters of any cruiseship.

I wanted to add that we are Diamond Plus and have My Time dining with all 9 nights pre-reserved for 7:30.