New ship orders for princess

[CaribbeanLVR]

From Captain Foster (Golden Princess) June 2009 he stated that a ship is already under construction. It was started for another Carnival Company line and taken by Princess. It will be like the Ruby Princess and about 90 ft longer and about 200 additional passengers. ;)

 

 

AS CLOSE to 100% as we can get!

 

It is already under construction in the shipyard in Italy, and yes it will be darn close to the Ruby". In fact B.I.L says his e-mails regarding this ship says RUBY II, but that it is NOT finalized. He says it could look similar to the Carnival DREAM. If all goes well it could be ready in late Spring 2011

[LongtimecruiserfromCA]

To my knowledge, there are no Princess ships currently on order or being built. There may be plans for another ship but I don't think it's been ordered yet. I may be wrong, though. I doubt there'll be one to compete with the Oasis as there are few ports capable of handling a ship that size and Princess has many more varied and exotic itineraries than RCCL does so if they did build a ship that size, they would be limiting themselves as to available itineraries. That wouldn't be a good thing.

 

Bigger is not better.....

[Colo Cruiser]

Bigger is not better.....

 

 

I don't think you will see much bigger then we already have. ;)

[hubofhockey]

AS CLOSE to 100% as we can get!

 

It is already under construction in the shipyard in Italy, and yes it will be darn close to the Ruby". In fact B.I.L says his e-mails regarding this ship says RUBY II, but that it is NOT finalized. He says it could look similar to the Carnival DREAM. If all goes well it could be ready in late Spring 2011

 

The Dream looks like a great ship. As long as they keep Farcus away from the interior design, it will be a great addition for Princess. There's nothing wrong with Princess having a larger ship in the fleet. It's good to have choices. For those who like smaller and more intermediate size ships, there are still plenty of choices available.

[RickEk]

My contact also sez that the ship is under construction, which basically leaves us with Carnival transferring either the P&O Azura (which is a Ruby-clone) or the new Dream-class newbuild to Princess. I'd bet on the Dream-class at this point. It would allow Princess to better compete with the new Celebrity ships... but it wouldn't be another Behemoth of the Seas... :p

[bhopal21]

No choice but to wait and see. ;)

 

Dead on Keith; and until an announcement by Princess or Fincantieri all this discussion is just rumor.

 

Mike:)

[kath00]

Princess if you are reading this, PLEASE design a ship with more than one Owner's Suite! Try something like NCL's Pearl with various "true" suites (ie more than 500-600SF, not a 300SF box you claim to be a "suite").

 

I am on like 10 waitlists for Princess OSs, which book up instantly for every cruise! HELP ME!!

 

Katherine

[sidari]

The Azura will not be swapped to Princess .... especially now that all the literature is out and bookings have been taken for what will be another Adults only ship for P and O!.... The Ventura may be moving though !! although it will only be to replace one of the Ocean Village ships sailing out of Palma Majorca .... P and O are currently asking customers what they think of the idea.

 

New ship is just a dream!

[Megsdad]

Not not Norwegian

 

The Oracle has spoken and he may be right - "wait & sea"

 

I think Druke I has a valid point

 

The cost of cancelled brochures/bookings won't cause Carnival a problem

 

But there again Sidari may be right

 

I used to be indecisive but now I just can't make my mind up

[Roses2]

It certainly is easy to understand why many strongly favor that any additional Princess ships be smaller rather than larger.

 

However, it makes little sense unless there are small ships that come on the market at excellent bargains. Remember all the small (700 passenger ships) are from the bankrupt Renaissance Line.

Like it or not, “economy of scale” is a basic tenet of economics and the additional revenue brought in by larger ships far outstrips the additional costs incurred operating them.

Another point to be made is that Princess is an element of the Carnival Corporation, a publicly held stock company that must make business decisions that will enhance return to investors.

Disclosure: Yes, I am a long-time Carnival stockholder and would like to see the stock return to previous levels.

[sidari]

Megsdad ..... you didnt appear in Batman did you ?.... as the Riddler ...:eek:

[Woobstr112G]

I thought I read on CC sometime ago that Princess was going to take a new build from P & O. Anyone else heard this???

 

Bob

[Colo Cruiser]

I thought I read on CC sometime ago that Princess was going to take a new build from P & O. Anyone else heard this???

 

Bob

 

Yes.

[RickEk]

As others have said, I think it is most likely that Princess will be given the Dream-class newbuild...

[captainron]

Hi,

As the Coral and Island age (even after refits) and the Sun Class ships all seem to be destined for OZ sooner or later, it is encumbent on Princess/Carnival Corp to come up with a Panamax vessel replacement(s) to service the Panama Canal/Gatun service and repo services to/fm east and west coasts.

 

While it costs USD$250,000 per transit of the canal (in/out) for Coral and Island, it certainly costs more to run a Grand class vessel around the Cape.

 

Similarly, while the action plan is to excavate a parallel canal for the larger than existing Panamax ships, the completion date for same is still well into the future.

 

It will be quite interesting to see what the Corp comes up with to a resolution to the impending problem of these aging vessels.

 

Ciao for now!!!

[robsaw]

Interesting speculation on new builds, but Carnival Corp has stated to its shareholders that, other than already announced builds, no new builds for any Carnival lines will be started until the economic situation improves. So, only new Princess ship would have to come from a build already underway for someone else.

[Megsdad]

Megsdad ..... you didnt appear in Batman did you ?.... as the Riddler ...:eek:

 

Neutral;)

[sidari]

Quote ..... " Nobody at Princess would talk about it today" regarding a New ship!

 

Seems the shipyard have reduced their build costs to that of 5 years ago $500 million which has promted Carnival to consider another 130,000 ton plus ship which may or may not be for Princess!!

 

So there may be some Rumour in the Truth after all...... :confused:

[Megsdad]

Well someone has been talking to others on this board

[Commodore]

Here an article regarding future plans at Carnival for Princess

Carnival Corp. could place ship order soon, says analyst

 

By: Johanna JainchillJuly 28, 2009

According to a Wall Street analyst, Carnival Corp. may place a ship order for a North American brand in the near future, with Princess Cruises likely at the top of the list.

In 2008, Carnival Corp. put the brakes on ship orders for North American brands, citing the sagging dollar and increased shipbuilding costs at the European shipyards.

"We recognize that we are unable to build new ships for our U.S. brands at present dollar-valued costs, [given] our own internal return projections," said Carnival Corp. CEO Micky Arison last year.

UBS equity analyst Robin Farley said this week that shipbuilding prices in euros are currently at the same level that they were five years ago, and that Carnival has ordered ships at these prices in the past. She also noted that commodity prices were down.

"The yards are willing to lose a little money to get an order but not $100-200 million, so the yards probably won’t go any lower on price than where they are currently," Farley wrote in a note to investors.

Princess hasn't placed a ship order since the Ruby Princess, which entered service last year.

It was a marked slowdown for the line, which launched the Crown Princess and Emerald Princess in 2006 and 2007. In 2004, Princess took delivery of three ships in a 90-day period: the Caribbean Princess, Diamond Princess and Sapphire Princess.:confused:

[Colo Cruiser]

Princess hasn't placed a ship order since the Ruby Princess, which entered service last year.

 

 

They won't need to, theres one already started. ;)

[pris993]

We cruised on the first cruise of the GRand Princess in l998 and did a TA on the Ruby this year. The truth is nothing really has changed relative to design of new Princess ships IMHO in all these years.

 

I do wish Princess would come up with a new design, with some different features.

 

We will be cruising on the new Equinox, Celebrity Cruise Line in October. Now this ship does seem to be offering something new and different. We will see when we get aboard.

 

We are elite on Princess, soon to be elite on Celebrity. So do like both lines, simply looking for something different from Princess in the future.

[CruisinChris]

Interesting thread. I just read somewhere yesterday - sorry can't think of the source off-hand - that was quoting the President I believe, saying that while no new builds are on order as of now, the next generation of princess ships is on the design board and actively being worked on.

 

The hulls for Ventura, Azura and Dream were all originally ordered by Princess and transferred by Carnival Corp to other lines. The thought was that Princess had expanded very fast and was having some growing pains, especially with staff and service and they wanted to get comfortable with their new bigger workforce, get the all trained to their standard and be stable for a while before additional expansion. Part of this program was to "home ship" staff. You may remember prior to a couple years ago when the last few big boats came on line staff used to move between ships often. Now they are assigned to ships and return contract after contract. I wouldn't be surprised if they added a new ship in a couple years. If the exchange rate is favorable, the economy stabilized, and bookings remain strong it will happen. Meanwhile, RCCL looks to be self-destructing from a financial view.

[Sailaways_]

Oh please, dear god, let it not be a Dream hull. :eek: The PSR on those ships is awful, worse than even the Gem/Grand class we have already.

 

I bet it's one of Costa's hulls. P&O won't give up the Azura considering all the literature out and how far along it is, but the Costa newbuilds have a lot further to go. IMHO, Costa has been introducing a lot of ships as it is and doesn't "need" another two - probably time for them to slow down.

 

Another vote for a Panamax/smaller vessel, or a brand new class. Innovation is good!

[pseudochicken]

 

I do wish Princess would come up with a new design, with some different features.

 

 

What about the Island and Coral princess?

 

I think they should make more sisters of that class. The 2,000 passengers, 90,000 ton ship range is lacking for Princess. Only two ships?