Is Royal Caribbean building any small ships?

[Volk9048]

This thread has gotten long and we have beaten it up pretty good. We know for sure a new smaller class is coming  the question is how small. RCCl has a lot of smaller ships to replace so they need to get moving.  
I believe the new class will be built to fit under the key bridges in Tampa 180 ft, Vancouver, and to get to Baltimore. Tampa is the lowest so that might be the target.  In addition getting through the Panama Canal is required so the ships can do Alaska in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter easily. 
 

The Bliss size might be a great starting point.one way to make up the space you lose in height is to make the ship a bit longer. In addition you can save height by not putting tall stuff on top.  You don’t need the sky lift type thing.  Royal can still include big money items in the build. I also thing while Royal targets families with the monster ships the smaller ships just like now have a older demographic of Royal Cruisers that want to see new ports in Alaska, Europe, New England and even a world cruise.  

[Volk9048]

1 minute ago, Volk9048 said:

This thread has gotten long and we have beaten it up pretty good. We know for sure a new smaller class is coming  the question is how small. RCCl has a lot of smaller ships to replace so they need to get moving.  
I believe the new class will be built to fit under the key bridges in Tampa 180 ft, Vancouver, and to get to Baltimore. Tampa is the lowest so that might be the target.  In addition getting through the Panama Canal is required so the ships can do Alaska in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter easily. 
 

The Bliss size might be a great starting point.one way to make up the space you lose in height is to make the ship a bit longer. In addition you can save height by not putting tall stuff on top.  You don’t need the sky lift type thing.  Royal can still include big money items in the build. I also thing while Royal targets families with the monster ships the smaller ships just like now have a older demographic of Royal Cruisers that want to see new ports in Alaska, Europe, New England and even a world cruise.  

My guess is still 3000 passengers range.  

Edited July 20 by Volk9048

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, Volk9048 said:

 You don’t need the sky lift type thing.

The Northstar is not highest point on Q class and very unlikely RCI would consider that one any other ship.

[BillB48]

6 hours ago, RobInMN said:

Radiance is a Panamax ship, which is a designation for the original locks.

Specifications:

950' long, 106' beam (width), 190' air draft (above water line), 39.5' draft (below water line).

The new locks are referred to as "NeoPanamax". That is:

1200' 9" long, 160' 9" beam, 190' air draft, 50' draft.

 

NCL's Bliss is the largest cruise ship to traverse the Panama Canal (new locks).

 

For reference:

Bliss is 168K tons, 1094' long with a 136' beam and carries ~4000 passengers. Air draft might be about 190'?

The actual size of the neoPanamax chambers are 1400x180 and the permitted vessel size has been relaxed some to allow 1215' in length and 167' in beam.  The 190' air draft restriction on the Bridge of Americas is for unrestricted passage.  On a case by case basis up to 205' may pass under the BoA depending on the ship and height of the tide.  I don't have anything to back it up, but in my notes somewhere I have the Bliss at 197' air draft.

 

Current Canal regs allow passenger ships and container ships to be 965' LOA instead of the 950' for all other ships.

 

Aside from the air draft problem some of the newer larger cruise ships have run afoul with protrusions in transiting the new neoPanamax Locks.  This usually is related to the life boats overhang beyond the hull.  According to current Canal regulations any protrusion beyond the hull must be slightly higher than 55' above the waterline.  HAL's Koningsdam fell into this category, however a waiver was granted and it has made one transit of the Canal.  Voyager/Freedom class may have a similar problem with the dinning room walk around on deck 4 which may be less than 55' above the water assuming they could overcome the 208' air draft.

[RobInMN]

Interesting. I had not run across any references to relaxing the ship size. Good to know.

 

1 hour ago, BillB48 said:

Aside from the air draft problem some of the newer larger cruise ships have run afoul with protrusions in transiting the new neoPanamax Locks.  This usually is related to the life boats overhang beyond the hull.  According to current Canal regulations any protrusion beyond the hull must be slightly higher than 55' above the waterline.  HAL's Koningsdam fell into this category, however a waiver was granted and it has made one transit of the Canal.  Voyager/Freedom class may have a similar problem with the dinning room walk around on deck 4 which may be less than 55' above the water assuming they could overcome the 208' air draft.

 

Yes, this has been brought up before also. Even if you ignore the height issue, Voyager, Freedom, and Quantum classes still wouldn't be able to go through due to how the life boats (and in some cases the actual davits themselves) stick out beyond the hull line. I wasn't sure the actual height. On Radiance and NCL's Bliss, the lifeboats are fully contained within the hull lines. So I think any new class will also have lifeboats that are fully within the hull lines like Radiance is.

 

Moving on to another design feature, I also believe that there is a good chance it will have self-contained tendering abilities like the Radiance class does. I do think it's pretty cool how that works. Would need to increase capacity though. Maybe operate 2 platforms with 4 tenders? 

 

[TeeRick]

18 hours ago, Volk9048 said:

I believe the new class will be built to fit under the key bridges in Tampa 180 ft, Vancouver, and to get to Baltimore. Tampa is the lowest so that might be the target.  In addition getting through the Panama Canal is required so the ships can do Alaska in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter easily. 

@Volk9048 Interesting thought, but not sure about this.  I don't see RCI building ships and spending $1B each or so, for the sake of minor ports and their bridge clearance restrictions.  They will continue to use older smaller ships.  Getting to Alaska - many ships serve the Pacific and are moved around there- and serve Alaska.   Celebrity EDGE and RCCL Quantum are servicing Alaska in 2025 after being in Australia.  Anthem is going there from Singapore.

[The Fun Researcher]

Pretty sure passing through the Panama Canal is not really a key need for most, if not all, of royals ships.

[retired dude]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

@Volk9048 Interesting thought, but not sure about this.  I don't see RCI building ships and spending $1B each or so, for the sake of minor ports and their bridge clearance restrictions.  They will continue to use older smaller ships.  Getting to Alaska - many ships serve the Pacific and are moved around there- and serve Alaska.   Celebrity EDGE and RCCL Quantum are servicing Alaska in 2025 after being in Australia.  Anthem is going there from Singapore.

if you want to see what the demand is for the "small" rccl ships that sail out of tampa, just look at the current prices for these 4-7 day cruises and how full all of those sailings are...The rccl captains that i have talked to about the firm continuing to provide nice ships to sail out of our port  seem to think  that rccl still very much values these cruises out of tampa and from a financial standpoint too good to abandon.. The ships that sail out of this port average 20 years of service and as good a care as they get, they cannot go on forever..Hope they build a couple with that in mind.

[smokeybandit]

16 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Pretty sure passing through the Panama Canal is not really a key need for most, if not all, of royals ships.

It would be if these ships are doing alaska/caribbean seasons

[TeeRick]

14 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

It would be if these ships are doing alaska/caribbean seasons

I think that the very large cruise ships go around the horn to reposition between the Atlantic (Caribbean) and Pacific when that happens.  

[latebuyer]

I just looked and total number of cruises listed is 36 for vancouver and 42 for tampa . Not sure what that says.

[TeeRick]

33 minutes ago, retired dude said:

if you want to see what the demand is for the "small" rccl ships that sail out of tampa, just look at the current prices for these 4-7 day cruises and how full all of those sailings are...The rccl captains that i have talked to about the firm continuing to provide nice ships to sail out of our port  seem to think  that rccl still very much values these cruises out of tampa and from a financial standpoint too good to abandon.. The ships that sail out of this port average 20 years of service and as good a care as they get, they cannot go on forever..Hope they build a couple with that in mind.

I'm not knocking Tampa or the cruise market there.  The topic was building new expensive ships to go under the bridges in the smaller cruise ports.

[latebuyer]

Wow! Seattle only has 13. So much for replacing vancouver. Los angeles has 23. What is a big port?

[The Fun Researcher]

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

It would be if these ships are doing alaska/caribbean seasons

It might make it more convenient but absolutely not necessary.  

[latebuyer]

Just curious are their royal caribbean shareholders on this thread very concerned that royal caribbean doesn’t lose money? Also, i think i’ve shown vancouver and tampa aren’t small ports. Just to add a 13 vs 36 ships is a huge difference between seattle and vancouver. There has to be some reason they run so many out of vancouvet. (I’m from vancouver so biased.)

Edited July 21 by latebuyer

[Hoopster95]

1 hour ago, latebuyer said:

I just looked and total number of cruises listed is 36 for vancouver and 42 for tampa . Not sure what that says.

 

1 hour ago, latebuyer said:

Wow! Seattle only has 13. So much for replacing vancouver. Los angeles has 23. What is a big port?

 

What are these numbers? And where did you get them?

[latebuyer]

Royal caribbean website. All i did was filter by departure port. Los angeles only had 23. I didn't check others.

Edited July 21 by latebuyer

[latebuyer]

Royal caribbean website. All i did was filter by departure port. Los angeles only had 23. I didn't check others.

Edited July 21 by latebuyer

[Another_Critic]

9 minutes ago, latebuyer said:

Royal caribbean website. All i did was filter by departure port. Los angeles only had 23. I didn't check others.

That's worthless since many itineraries have multiple dates. 

[Hoopster95]

7 minutes ago, Another_Critic said:

That's worthless since many itineraries have multiple dates. 

 

Agreed. 

[latebuyer]

Just a reminder the ships from vancouver have multiple sailings as well. I'll bet if i itemized it, vancouver still has more sailings then seattle.

[cruiselvr04]

2 hours ago, TeeRick said:

I think that the very large cruise ships go around the horn to reposition between the Atlantic (Caribbean) and Pacific when that happens.  

We haven’t seen that happen in a few years. If I remember right, the last one didn’t sell too well although I’d go now.  

[PhillyFan33579]

At the top tier event on Enchantment today the Captain said he was confirming the rumors that RCI was building a new ship class called Discovery. He said he didn’t know the details of the ship, but that it would be bigger than Radiance class ships and smaller than Voyager class ships. He also said the ship would be able to sail from Tampa. That part makes sense considering how many RCI ships are currently sailing and will be sailing in the near future from Tampa.

[latebuyer]

Exciting news!

[Another_Critic]

8 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

He also said the ship would be able to sail from Tampa. That part makes sense considering how many RCI ships are currently sailing and will be sailing in the near future from Tampa.

Baltimore calls dibs!