Tag Archives: royal caribbean cruises

Royal Caribbean Will Invest $250 Million to Expand Presence in Miami

Posted on by
Reply

Image result for oasis of the seas

Oasis Class and Quantum Class to call Miami Home

Big Thank You To David Block for this story.

Check out David’s Google+ site; https://plus.google.com/u/0/112416669860023952159/posts

Royal Caribbean Cruises has plans to open a new cruise terminal in Miami by 2018, increasing its presence in the U.S. market and giving its giant new-build vessels a potential homeport in South Florida.

Earlier this week, the Miami-Dade county Board of Commissioners signed a legislative resolution which will likely lead to a new home for Royal Caribbean’s ships in the region.

The resolution, obtained by Skift from the Miami-Dade county Board of Commissioners, shows that a long-term lease to accommodate Royal Caribbean’s large new vessels will likely be signed in the next four months.

According to deal, Royal Caribbean will invest more than $100 million to build a new cruise terminal in a ten-acre plot on the north side of PortMiami. Its expected investment over the course of the contract is $250 million.

Royal Caribbean Cruises will introduce eight new ships across its six brands by the end of 2020, including four more gigantic Oasis- and Quantum-class ships.

PortMiami says the deal is a good one for them because Royal Caribbean will bear the brunt of all upfront costs for building the new terminal. The port just completed a costly dredging project to let large cargo and cruise ships access its facilities.

Image result for port of miami cruise terminal

Port of Miami.

“Although much work remains to determine the cost ranges for various elements of this program, RCL will bear the full cost for constructing the cruise terminal, parking garage, ancillary facilities, and any bulkhead work,” according to the report.

PortMiami expects to earn $9.5 million annual from leasing the land to Royal Caribbean, an increase from the about $1.2 million it currently earns from cargo companies using the land. The initial lease will run for 20 years and will be renewable in ten year increments once the original terms expire.

Royal Caribbean’s biggest vessels now homeport at Port Everglades due to its infrastructure’s support for larger ships, and PortMiami wants the cruise line’s continued business.

“At the time that PortMiami failed to secure the Oasis of the Seas and the Allure of the Seas, the Port did not have facilities capable of hosting these vessels nor did it have suitable expansion plans,” reads the document.

Royal Caribbean can bring in other investors to help finance the new terminal, but will be on the hook for at least 20 percent of the venture when the project is completed.

Royal Caribbean to move Oasis ships to new Miami terminal

Posted on by
Reply

The terminal will have two glass-faced buildings with slanted roofs facing each other.

MIAMI — Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. will move at least one and probably two of its Oasis-class ships to a new terminal it expects to open in Miami in 2018.

Two of the 5,400-passenger ships, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, currently sail from Port Everglades about 30 miles to the north. The new Harmony of the Seas will sail from Port Everglades from Nov. 17 to April 18.

At an event at the waterside Perez Art Museum in Miami, RCCL chairman Richard Fain announced that the new terminal will be designed by the architectural firm Broadway Malyan of Singapore. He unveiled renderings of the building, expected to be finished by the end of 2018.

The 170,000-square-foot terminal has two glass-faced buildings with slanted roofs facing each other, forming a shallow V. Royal Caribbean has dubbed it the “Crown of Miami.”

It is unusual because most cruise terminals are designed by engineers, not architects. “If we had been doing this 10 years ago, we would not have been so ambitious with the aesthetic side of it,” Fain said.

But he said Miami has gone through an architectural renaissance. The Perez Art Museum, for example, was designed by the renowned Swiss firm Herzog & De Meuron.

The building will be part of a $200 million investment Royal Caribbean is making to build the terminal, which it will own, on land leased from Miami-Dade County.

Fain said the terminal is intended to handle a single large ship at a time, and has room for a ship slightly larger than the 225,000-ton Oasis class. By 2018, Royal Caribbean will have four in the class, including a ship under construction for delivery in 2018.

In a coup, Port Everglades in 2010 won the opportunity to be the home port for the first two Oasis ships, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. It will now lose one, possibly both, of those vessels. The Oasis of the Seas will sail from Port Canaveral this winter.

“This will cement us as the cruise capital of the world,” said Port Miami director Juan Kuryla. He said the terminal is expected to boost the port’s annual traffic from 5 million to 6 million passenger movements and add 1 million passengers a year to RCCL’s current total of 750,000.

Royal confirms plans for fifth Oasis-class ship

Posted on by
Reply

Royal Caribbean Cruises has confirmed plans to build a fifth Oasis-class ship and two more ships for Celebrity Cruises.

The parent company of Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises has signed a memorandum of understanding with French shipyard STX France for a fifth Oasis ship, to be delivered in Spring 2021. It comes just days following the launch of the third Oasis-class ship, Harmony of the Seas (pictured). The fourth in class will launch in 2018.

An order has also been placed for two additional Edge-class ships for sister brand Celebrity Cruises, being delivered in autumn 2021 and 2022.

The line already has two Edge vessels on order, the first coming in 2018 and the second in 2020. Each will carry 2,900 passengers.

Royal Caribbean Cruises chairman and chief executive, Richard Fain, said: “The response to the arrival of Harmony of the Seas is staggering, eliciting excitement from eager cruisers from markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

“And Edge-class is one of the most highly anticipated new projects, following the high bar of Modern Luxury design set by its predecessors.”

Royal Caribbean International boss, Michael Bayley, added that the positive response to Harmony was proof that “this class of ship will continue to drive exceptional performance for the brand”.

Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president and chief executive of Celebrity, said: “Although our first Edge-class vessel is still over two years away from delivery, there has been a tremendous amount of interest around the new standard of style Edge-class will introduce.”

Final contracts for the ships are set to be complete this financial quarter.