blt23

Why not both? Seems logical for Discovery to replace both Radiance class in Alaska and Voyager Class in Europe.

Vancouver-Alaska and Eastern Med are both high yield markets that can't accommodate mega ships yet are core itineraries for attracting and retaining guests who want to cruise in multiple different regions. With Vision, Voyager, Radiance classes all getting old, Royal will need to build some new "smaller" ships if they want to stay in those markets long term. Vancouver/Alaska is the more restricted one and even that could easily fit a ship of at least 3k guests/130k tons, which feels like it could still work financially for Royal on those itineraries. By comparison, Tampa and Baltimore are lower yielding, have tighter height limits, and have alternative ports relatively nearby which all makes it much less likely that Royal tries to build new ships for them. It makes sense for Royal to build some new medium sized ships for their key non-Caribbean markets, but I can also envision a future where basically every ship sailing Caribbean cruises in the summer is Icon/Oasis sized.

Carnival Corp has clearly stated that they are only getting the one ship in 2027 (see that order's press release), and noted that they have not yet secured financing for the 2028 order (see that order's press release and the quarterly report).

Carnival's latest quarterly report says they have secured 1.4 billion in export credit financing for 2027, which at the industry standard 80% would suggest an all in price around 1.7 billion. It's possible there's something weird going on there and the total price is actually closer to the 1.4, but it definitely appears to be in that range. If you scroll to the bottom of that Cruise Industry News page, it says "Costs may be estimated", so that's not exactly the most reliable source.

Some of the numbers being posted here are wildly inaccurate. Carnival’s 2027 Excel class will cost around $1.7 billion, and Royal’s 2028 Oasis should clear $2.0 billion. The 86k ton ships just ordered by Oceania are costing $950 million, so I’m very skeptical that a new Spirit class equivalent could be had for less than $900 million. Thus, Carnival’s mega ships are about 20% cheaper per berth than small ships would be. Similar applies for operating costs, as larger ships offer efficiencies of scale in both staffing and systems/energy usage. To estimate a comparison, at equal cruise prices a new small ship at 100% capacity would have the same profitability as a mega ship at 80% capacity, or at equal capacities, a new small ship would need prices 25% higher than a mega ship. Not fully pursuing that extra 25% possible profit from mega ships will make it even harder for Carnival to rebuild its finances, and if cruising demand suddenly dropped by 30+% the whole industry would be screwed regardless. The notion of paying somewhat high prices for somewhat smaller ships sounds exactly like Princess’ market segment, and I strongly suspect that the “people who want to pay more to cruise on ships with less to do but don’t want a more luxurious experience” demographic is significantly overrepresented on Cruise Critic forums relative to the general cruise population. As for the other argument happening here, Royal is in a significantly stronger financial position than Carnival because they have less excess debt from the pandemic and are making more profit (on much fewer berths, impressively). They are on track to get their debt down to a comfortable level faster than Carnival, even accounting for their larger orderbook. Obviously a lot of their current success is built on potentially fragile crazy prices for cruises on the newest and biggest ships, but they are also starting from a better overall spot if there does prove to be some future weakness in cruise demand. None of that is investment advice or stock analysis, just my reading of the companies’ core finances.