Tag Archives: new ships

Carnival Corporation to Trim Down Cruise Newbuilding Pace

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Carnival Corporation will decelerate its new building pace in an effort to not only moderate supply growth, but keep spending down, according to Josh Weinstein, president and CEO, speaking on the company’s year-end and fourth-quarter earnings call.

Weinstein said that the company didn’t expect to take delivery of any new ships in 2026, and beyond that, would only build two ships a year going forward.

“Going forward, we are committed to using our expected cash flow strength to repair the balance sheet over time, and we’ll be disciplined and rigorous in making newbuild decisions accordingly,” he said.

“We have just four ships on order through 2025, plus our second incredible Seabourn luxury expedition ship to be delivered in 2023.

“This is our lowest order book in decades,” Weinstein continued. “We don’t expect any new ships in 2026 and anticipate just one or two new builds each year for several years thereafter.”

Left on the Carnival orderbook through 2025 are the Carnival Jubilee, Cunard’s Queen Anne, the Sun Princess, another Princess newbuild that has yet to be named and the Seabourn Pursuit.

No new builds are on order for the company’s other brands including Holland America Line, AIDA Cruises, P&O Cruises and P&O Cruises Australia. Carnival’s joint venture with China State Shipbuilding Corporation was not mentioned.

With more old ships exiting combined with recent deliveries and the upcoming new build schedule, the company expects about 25 per cent of its capacity to be what it considers new ships in 2023.

That means an eight-percentage point increase in balcony cabins across the fleet, and differentiated onboard experiences resulting in greater onboard revenue.

1st Celebrity ships in new class to be named Edge and Beyond

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Image result for celebrity cruises edge class
Celebrity Edge steel cutting ceremony

 Celebrity Cruises has named two new ships being built for 2018 and 2020: Celebrity Edge and Celebrity Beyond.

They will be the first two ships in a new class. Two additional Edge-class ships are due in 2021 and 2022.

It will be Celebrity’s first new ship class since the debut of Celebrity Solstice in 2008. There are five Solstice-class ships (Solstice, Equinox, Eclipse, Silhouette and Reflection).

Celebrity and shipyard STX France cut the first steel for the Celebrity Edge this week.

Making a run at the cost-conscious consumer

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At a time when other river cruise lines are scaling back on growth, French river cruise company CroisiEurope this week announced it will launch seven new river cruise vessels this year and next.

Granted not all seven are full-size European river cruise ships — two are 22-passenger canal barges, and one is launching on the Mekong — but still, seven ships is worth noting, especially for a company many of us here in the U.S. didn’t know much, if anything, about as recently as a couple years ago.

By the time these seven vessels are launched, CroisiEurope will have 46 company-owned vessels in its fleet. In 2014, the company carried some 200,000 cruise passengers (compared to the approximately 250,000 passengers carried by Viking River Cruises), although only about 8,000 to 9,000 of those hailed from the U.S. But CroisiEurope is growing its U.S customer base, and quickly.

So, what’s the deal with Croisi? Well, the company saw an opening at the lower end of the river cruise market and it is clearly going after it. For a long time, river cruising has grappled with a reputation of being a bit pricey. Travel agents would lament that while they wanted to sell more river cruises, especially since the very inclusive vacation style generally offers lofty commissions, not all of their clients could afford it.

Therein lies the opportunity for CroisiEurope, which after 40 years of building river cruise ships in Europe, is banking on its home-turf shipbuilding ties and a more pared down version of river cruising to bring lower prices to market. And while CroisiEurope’s older vessels do not compete with the sleek newbuilds being churned out by U.S.-facing river cruise lines such as Viking, AmaWaterways, Avalon, Uniworld and all the rest, the company has upped its ship design game and its newest batch of river cruise ships is focused on chicer interiors and enhanced amenities.

Another line going after this segment with arguably even chicer ships is Emerald Waterways, the lower-priced sister brand to Scenic. And it is having a good deal of success too. Having only launched in 2014, Emerald is on pace to have seven river cruise ships in Europe by 2017 (its fifth vessel, the 182-passenger Emerald Belle, was slated to launch this spring, but has been set back by a fire in the shipyard).

As river cruising piques more travelers’ interests, and the travel style opens up to a wider audience, there is clearly going to be more demand for and thus greater opportunity to provide a more accessible river cruising experience.