Is Royal Caribbean building any small ships?

[latebuyer]

To summarize it seems what some people think is royal caribbean doesn’t care about the customers on the small ships. Those people should go to celebrity even though its not clear celebrity is building small ships either. Even though what i think is that people will get sick of the large ships repetitive itineraries, people apparently think what the large ships offer is enough to keep people interested. Time will tell.

[alfaeric]

2 hours ago, latebuyer said:

To summarize it seems what some people think is royal caribbean doesn’t care about the customers on the small ships. Those people should go to celebrity even though its not clear celebrity is building small ships either. Even though what i think is that people will get sick of the large ships repetitive itineraries, people apparently think what the large ships offer is enough to keep people interested. Time will tell.

Couple of things, first, Celebrity IS building smaller ships, compared to Royal- they are the general size of Vision and Radiance class ships.  Perhaps you don't think they are small enough, but they are building them- one just entered service a month ago.

 

Second, it's been over 14 years an Oasis ship has been sailing.  Which seems like a pretty long time.  And they keep selling out- with the addition of new ones.  How much longer do you need before time tells?   The economy of these ships is pretty easy- they use less fuel than the Freedom class ships for 50% more passengers.  Let alone far more expensive stuff and things to pay for.  Icon class is an amplified version of that.

 

The "small" ships are pretty large in the Quantum class ships- but they are sailing to Alaska, so can get into small-ish areas.  And can at least tender passengers.  But I would not think of them small at all.

 

So how many more years do you need?

[Another_Critic]

19 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

Couple of things, first, Celebrity IS building smaller ships, compared to Royal- they are the general size of Vision and Radiance class ships.  Perhaps you don't think they are small enough, but they are building them- one just entered service a month ago.

Celebrity Edge class is Voyager size.  Project Discovery is rumored to be Voyager size. 

[chengkp75]

22 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

The economy of these ships is pretty easy- they use less fuel than the Freedom class ships for 50% more passengers.

I've never seen that statistic before, and I have my doubts about it.  Oasis class has 20% more installed generating power, and the azipods are one frame size larger than Freedom class azipods, so again about 20% larger.  I don't think you can push that much more weight through the water for less fuel.  They may use less fuel per ton than Freedom, but not less fuel overall.

[Saab4444]

26 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

Couple of things, first, Celebrity IS building smaller ships, compared to Royal- they are the general size of Vision and Radiance class ships.  Perhaps you don't think they are small enough, but they are building them- one just entered service a month ago.

 

Second, it's been over 14 years an Oasis ship has been sailing.  Which seems like a pretty long time.  And they keep selling out- with the addition of new ones.  How much longer do you need before time tells?   The economy of these ships is pretty easy- they use less fuel than the Freedom class ships for 50% more passengers.  Let alone far more expensive stuff and things to pay for.  Icon class is an amplified version of that.

 

The "small" ships are pretty large in the Quantum class ships- but they are sailing to Alaska, so can get into small-ish areas.  And can at least tender passengers.  But I would not think of them small at all.

 

So how many more years do you need?

Try to think outside America. All those Oasis and Quantum class ships are e.g. too big for many European ports and areas.

 

And Celebrity Edge class ships are much bigger than Vison or Radiance.

 

If Royal continous with big ships only they shoot themselves out of many destination markets but maybe this is ok for them and the way they want to go. For sure they will lose many customers who prefer interesting and diversified destinations but yes, they can fill the ships with others... For sure we will not book anymore standard 7 night Caribbean, Alaska or Med cruises just because of another new monster ship that has a bigger waterslide or some more pay restaurants. 

Edited January 1 by Saab4444

[latebuyer]

I'm not sure. Only royal caribbean knows who are the most loyal customers, those who sail on small or large ships. Thanks for clarifying about celebrity. Someone who is more familiar with where royal caribbean sails can speak to what ports are lost if there is a shift to large ships only. Clearly some people don't care.

[latebuyer]

Fo norwegian, for 7 day caribbean cruises there are 3 ships sailing the exact same itinerary just sailing from different departure ports. My concern is royal caribbean does something similar and reduces the number of ports. There must be something cheaper about sailing to less ports. It would be sad to see that happen in the caribbean for royal caribbean. Perhaps a bit off topic.

[ace1zoe2]

Saw this comments from Michael Bayley on the unnamed site this morning 

 

[LXA350]

RCL will need to continue to offer cruises such as the Vancouver-Seward and vise versa itinararies. Same will apply for cruises that are port focused and not where the ship is the destination. Many people can't afford Silversea or any other upscale cruiseline to go on such itinararies. Also, not everyone wants to go on those cruiselines and prefers to go for RCL which is known for it's entertainment and and revolutionary ship features. Hence RCL likely is working on a solution to build the biggest ship possible to meet these missions. It will not feature a central park but on the maximum size such ship can be built they will surely come up with the most revolutonary features possible.

 

As X will need to replace it's Millenium Class eventually as well I wouldn't be suprised if we will see that the basic structure to be developed will be used both for a future RCL and X ship class to serve this purpose, which is also economically more efficient than developing two seperate concepts to meet the same purpose.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

I think this rumored Discovery Class will be about the size of Celebrity's Edge Class. But even with that, it might still be the end of sailing from Baltimore and Tampa. I wonder if Royal thinks they'll just accommodate those cruisers in Cape Liberty and Miami, PE, and PC, respectively. I do hope the new class will be small enough for the Panama Canal and Vancouver, which seems more doable than Baltimore and Tampa. 

 

I just can't imagine them going any smaller than Edge Class. Because the smaller you go, the further you sacrifice the amenities and features that define Royal's brand.

Edited January 6 by OfTheSeasCruiser

[Charles4515]

59 minutes ago, LXA350 said:

It will not feature a central park but on the maximum size such ship can be built they will surely come up with the most revolutonary features possible.

 

As X will need to replace it's Millenium Class eventually as well I wouldn't be suprised if we will see that the basic structure to be developed will be used both for a future RCL and X ship class to serve this purpose, which is also economically more efficient than developing two seperate concepts to meet the same purpose.

Probably the smallest size for revolutionary features is Edge class size. 

 

As far as Celebrity replacing Millennium class they are with Edge class. 

[latebuyer]

Good article on possibility of small ships

 

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/discovery-class-smaller-cruise-ship

[latebuyer]

Just saw this thread about 5000 passenger cruise ships being built by norwegian. Has there been any news on smaller ships being built by royal caribbean?

 

 

[Biker19]

4 hours ago, latebuyer said:

Has there been any news on smaller ships being built by royal caribbean?

Nothing newer than what has already been discussed in this and other similar threads.

[RobInMN]

At the Captain's Q&A on Radiance, I asked what the status of Project Discovery was. Captain Rumen said that Project Discovery is still in design phase, and looking like 2029/2030 (not sure if that's a build start or complete).

[smokeybandit]

1 minute ago, RobInMN said:

At the Captain's Q&A on Radiance, I asked what the status of Project Discovery was. Captain Rumen said that Project Discovery is still in design phase, and looking like 2029/2030 (not sure if that's a build start or complete).

On Adventure, the captain said 2028-2029 entry into service.

[Chiliburn]

3 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

On Adventure, the captain said 2028-2029 entry into service.

They must be getting ready to announce something soon.

[RobInMN]

56 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

On Adventure, the captain said 2028-2029 entry into service.

Just saw your live thread post. Glad to hear other captains giving out info also. 

[Nathan Graveson]

18 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

They must be getting ready to announce something soon.

They will be announcing the ship orders soon with the Meyer Group shortly, from what I've been told...

[gallagher123123]

46 minutes ago, Nathan Graveson said:

They will be announcing the ship orders soon with the Meyer Group shortly, from what I've been told...

I'm excited to see what gets announced.

[latebuyer]

I hope so! I want to be able to cruise in the future on the smaller ships.

[CSHS1979]

According to an oboard entertainer who is dating an engineer, she was told her boyfriend has seen plans for a new Royal ship under 100,000 tons.

 

Defined third hand information 

[BND]

22 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

On Adventure, the captain said 2028-2029 entry into service.

Captain on Vision said the same thing.  It apparently comes up at a lot of the Captain's Corners.

[smokeybandit]

4 minutes ago, BND said:

Captain on Vision said the same thing.  It apparently comes up at a lot of the Captain's Corners.

No surprise. Experienced cruisers are an inquisitive bunch, for better or for worse.

RC is probably hoping they can get Utopia out the door before they have to publicly announce the new class.

[PhillyFan33579]

6 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

No surprise. Experienced cruisers are an inquisitive bunch, for better or for worse.

RC is probably hoping they can get Utopia out the door before they have to publicly announce the new class.

I still find it interesting that last year RCI implied a new smaller ship class was going to be announced soon and that Utopia would be the last Oasis class ship. As of today no new ship class has officially been announced by RCI, but they did announce a 7th Oasis class ship would be built. It wouldn’t surprise me if RCI continues to focus on bigger ships for the near to distant future. RCI leadership always talks about how appealing their bigger ships are for families. Most families are going to be way more interested in bigger ships with all the bells and whistles, not a smaller ship with limited bells and whistles. My guess is RCI will/does generate a lot more money on bigger ships that attract families who are fairly new to cruising with little to no perks than a newer smaller class of ship that will likely attract older/more experienced cruisers who have a lot of perks due to their C&A status.