Royal Caribbean are "thinking" about building smaller cruise ships!

[Kiwi_cruiser]

Its good to hear that Royal Caribbean are "thinking" about building smaller cruise ships!

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2023/07/24/royal-caribbean-building-new-smaller-cruise-ship-deeply-our-consideration

[lyndarra]

I have cruised on both Radiance OTS and Ovation OTS.

The smaller Radiance is definitely my fit.

 

[arxcards]

17 minutes ago, lyndarra said:

I have cruised on both Radiance OTS and Ovation OTS.

The smaller Radiance is definitely my fit.

 

Radiance is a good fit for us too, and there is no reason they can't come up with a "WOW" version of a Radiance sized ship. 

 

If they are only planning one or two of these ships, they will be geared to exotics, lengthy or world cruises. I hope that we get to see a Radiance class ship again but doubt we will ever see much of the new "Discovery" class until all of the Radiance class have retired. Our market is geared to sharing ships with Alaska, and the Quantum class ships fit that market.

 

Royal seem to have gone the A380 route. They will not fit into every (air) port but become the volume carrier for the places that do.

[SinbadThePorter]

Are Royal still "thinking"about Lelepa? 🥱

[arxcards]

6 minutes ago, SinbadThePorter said:

Are Royal still "thinking"about Lelepa? 🥱

No doubt, there is still a thought bubble for Lelepa.

 

 

and another for an Oasis class ship being based in Sydney

[gbenjo]

On 7/30/2023 at 10:29 AM, arxcards said:

Radiance is a good fit for us too, and there is no reason they can't come up with a "WOW" version of a Radiance sized ship. 

 

If they are only planning one or two of these ships, they will be geared to exotics, lengthy or world cruises. I hope that we get to see a Radiance class ship again but doubt we will ever see much of the new "Discovery" class until all of the Radiance class have retired. Our market is geared to sharing ships with Alaska, and the Quantum class ships fit that market.

 

Royal seem to have gone the A380 route. They will not fit into every (air) port but become the volume carrier for the places that do.

Brilliance ( Radiance class) is here for this season 

[arxcards]

8 minutes ago, gbenjo said:

Brilliance ( Radiance class) is here for this season 

Sorry, I was typing as if that had already happened.

 

Then no more. Not even a distant port entry.

[gbenjo]

10 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Sorry, I was typing as if that had already happened.

 

Then no more. Not even a distant port entry.

A touch too early to say don't you think?

[arxcards]

37 minutes ago, gbenjo said:

A touch too early to say don't you think?

Maybe. The OP was about stuff years beyond the horizon, much like Lelepa and Oasis class in Oz. My response was made in that context.

[Chiliburn]

On 7/29/2023 at 10:15 PM, Kiwi_cruiser said:

Its good to hear that Royal Caribbean are "thinking" about building smaller cruise ships!

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2023/07/24/royal-caribbean-building-new-smaller-cruise-ship-deeply-our-consideration

Just rumours.

I think the biggest drawback is what kind of fuel would it use?

At the moment the only viable fuel for a new ship is L.N.G and I don’t know if it’s practical for a smaller ship.

[mr walker]

6 hours ago, gbenjo said:

Brilliance ( Radiance class) is here for this season 

yes, hope to see you when we board 1st Dec for Cruisin Country 🙂 

[Chiliburn]

20 hours ago, arxcards said:

Maybe. The OP was about stuff years beyond the horizon, much like Lelepa and Oasis class in Oz. My response was made in that context.

What was Lelepa again ?

Sydney Port authority has advised the state,that a cruise terminal in Botany would interfere with the container terminal operations.

So there goes a oasis class for Sydney ,I don’t know where else they could put one.

[gbenjo]

1 hour ago, Chiliburn said:

What was Lelepa again ?

Sydney Port authority has advised the state,that a cruise terminal in Botany would interfere with the container terminal operations.

So there goes a oasis class for Sydney ,I don’t know where else they could put one.

The OPT. The last renovations  they did there were to make the wharf  capable of accommodating an Oasis class ship.The terminal itself may not be ideal but would cope, especially with Royal’s new check in systems which dramatically speed up the process. Thats not to say an Oasis class ship is necessarily coming here , I still think the problem is , where does it go when it gets here.

[arxcards]

5 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

What was Lelepa again ?

 

I thought it was a leper colony, but apparently it is a one-of-a-kind private island for cruising. It must be nothing like Conflict Islands if it is the only one of its' kind in the southern hemisphere. I hear that they only have perfect days there.

Perfect Day at Lelepa | Royal Caribbean Cruises

 

[Chiliburn]

8 hours ago, gbenjo said:

The OPT. The last renovations  they did there were to make the wharf  capable of accommodating an Oasis class ship.The terminal itself may not be ideal but would cope, especially with Royal’s new check in systems which dramatically speed up the process. Thats not to say an Oasis class ship is necessarily coming here , I still think the problem is , where does it go when it gets here.

You would know better than anyone but from what I can work out OPT would be suitable for a port visit but not for an embarkation day and turn around.

Ovation goes smoothly on a good day but an oasis with 6,000 passengers on a bad day wouldn’t be nice. There would be some unhappy people.

[gbenjo]

7 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

You would know better than anyone but from what I can work out OPT would be suitable for a port visit but not for an embarkation day and turn around.

Ovation goes smoothly on a good day but an oasis with 6,000 passengers on a bad day wouldn’t be nice. There would be some unhappy people.

Why?  The same process but over a longer period of time..staggered check in times adhered to and a bit   of common sense and flexibility shown   by “ everybody” and I don't se a problem.

[Sparky74]

14 hours ago, gbenjo said:

Why?  The same process but over a longer period of time..staggered check in times adhered to and a bit   of common sense and flexibility shown   by “ everybody” and I don't se a problem.

Common sense ain’t that common!

[gbenjo]

12 minutes ago, Sparky74 said:

Common sense ain’t that common!

Too true…….so many switch the brain off when going on cruise. 😁

[icat2000]

I have no desire to go on one of those big Mammoth ships that RCL are pushing on the Australian market at the moment and I notice having to discount heavily too. Who wants to wait 2 hours to get on and off those ships. And all the people. 

 

They should be building 2000 - 3000 pasenger ships max. 

 

I told my PVP at Princess that I was sick and tired of the same boring itineraries and to change it up. I said how many times can one cruise around NZ or to the same Pacific Islands. 

[gbenjo]

7 minutes ago, icat2000 said:

I have no desire to go on one of those big Mammoth ships that RCL are pushing on the Australian market at the moment and I notice having to discount heavily too. Who wants to wait 2 hours to get on and off those ships. And all the people. 

 

They should be building 2000 - 3000 pasenger ships max. 

 

I told my PVP at Princess that I was sick and tired of the same boring itineraries and to change it up. I said how many times can one cruise around NZ or to the same Pacific Islands. 

That is the problem, I guess, in Australia, we only have a limited amount of destinations to go to.

[Sparky74]

6 hours ago, gbenjo said:

Too true…….so many switch the brain off when going on cruise. 😁

 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Although it hasn't yet become a problem in our part of the world some places, especially in Europe, are starting to kick back against the mega cruise ships and I suspect this will become more and more common over the next few years. The mega ships will end up just being floating resorts with few, if any, port stops and (hopefully) a whole new wave of cruising will start to happen with smaller ships (max 3000 passengers) being built for visiting ports. This maybe a dream now but I hope it becomes a reality.

 

And, yes, I know there are plenty of luxury lines with smaller ships but the very fact that they are small ships means they can be too expensive, so there needs to be something in between. 

[Sparky74]

I love the idea of smaller (<3,000 pax) ships. But I’m guessing it will mean higher fares as we lose economy of scale. 
It also flys in the face of "bigger is better" which tends to be a philosophy of American companies including cruise lines. 

[arxcards]

4 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Although it hasn't yet become a problem in our part of the world some places, especially in Europe, are starting to kick back against the mega cruise ships and I suspect this will become more and more common over the next few years. The mega ships will end up just being floating resorts with few, if any, port stops and (hopefully) a whole new wave of cruising will start to happen with smaller ships (max 3000 passengers) being built for visiting ports. This maybe a dream now but I hope it becomes a reality.

 

And, yes, I know there are plenty of luxury lines with smaller ships but the very fact that they are small ships means they can be too expensive, so there needs to be something in between. 

I am well and truly off the P&O wagon these days, but I do wish they hung onto either Eden or Aria. For the actual ships, they were a great mid size option. One would hope that HAL could bring back Volendam or Zaandam for our summer seasons.

 

If they want to go to Bora Bora and some of the other Tahitian ports now, they will need to be much smaller than 3000 pax. I also suspect that locally, Isle of Pines doesn't want large cruise ships to return as they are not longer showing on any P&O itineraries. I miss IOP, but can't blame the locals for not bending over backwards to bring cruising back. As much as the covid lockouts were given for ships not resuming visits there, I think they realised during the pause that life was nicer without us swimming around their sacred rock.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, Sparky74 said:

I love the idea of smaller (<3,000 pax) ships. But I’m guessing it will mean higher fares as we lose economy of scale. 
It also flys in the face of "bigger is better" which tends to be a philosophy of American companies including cruise lines. 

Maybe the fares will be higher but if so the quality would have to be of a higher standard as well. I did a budget comparison on out two upcoming Japan cruises, one on Princess and the other on Regent, taking into account all the things we'd pay extra for on Princess that are included on Regent. The difference was under $50pp per day. 

 

Yes, current thinking is bigger is better but if more ports start banning the megaships, and passengers get sick of fighting crowds in those ports that do accept the megaships, or who actually want to visit ports instead of being on a floating resort, then the trend might change.