What does "capacity" really mean?

[Kellyann]

Silly me but I really thought that when the "capacity" is listed for a ship, it means the maximum number of passengers allowed.  With that silly thought I booked the CCL Sunrise (2984) thinking that it was smaller than maybe the NCL Breakaway (4028) by more than a 1000 people.  It's been posted many times on this board that if 3 & 4 are assigned in a room that the number can mushroom to almost 3900 from 2984 to start.  If this is the case and capacity means not exactly, then how could one ever be successful in trying to book a smaller capacity ship?  Could there be more than 5000 on a ship like the Breakaway?  Not looking for snarky remarks, just trying to make better and more knowledgeable decisions in the future.

[bstel]

i am pretty sure that capacity is listed based on full double occupancy.  plus on certain ships the single rooms.  so all ships full capacity can be higher.

[VentureMan_2000]

Cruise Ship Capacity

The "full" cruise ship passenger capacity is based on double occupancy (2 guests per cabin). The cabin's capacity varies according to stateroom's type, category, and also by line and ship. 

Max (largest) passenger capacity of a cruise ship is when all the berths, plus all upper and lower bunks, "Pullman" beds and single and double sofa beds (available in types and numbers according to the ship's cabin grades) are all occupied by the most numerous crowd the ship can ever gather on board.
 

Sunrises MAX capacity is 3873.

However, on most of the sailings, even the full-ship capacity (at double occupancy level) is not reached.
 

 

[chengkp75]

There are two "capacities" for a ship.  The one used most commonly in advertising and in travel sites is "normal occupancy" or "double occupancy".  This is the number of "lower berths", or the number of passengers when there are two to a cabin, so this gives a rough idea of the number of cabins on a ship, and therefore the "size" of the ship.  Therefore, this is the number to use to compare when looking for a "smaller" ship.  The "maximum capacity" is based on the number of lifeboat seating, and is a regulatory ceiling.  All ships will have more "berths" (lower beds, upper beds, sofas) than the maximum capacity in order to allow those wanting to book 3 or 4 in a cabin to have a choice of a variety of cabin types.

 

And, yes, Breakaway could have more than 5000 pax if booked heavily.  But your premise is still correct, the Sunrise is smaller than the Breakaway, by about 1000, regardless of whether it is "normal" or "maximum" capacity, though there could be times where there are more pax on Sunrise than Breakaway.

[chengkp75]

4 minutes ago, VentureMan_2000 said:

However, on most of the sailings, even the full-ship capacity (at double occupancy level) is not reached.

Not really.  Industry standard/average is to sail at 105% "normal" capacity.

[VentureMan_2000]

Yup... stand corrected.  My Info was from 2015.  Info I found from March 2019 says Cruise lines occupancy rate for the entire cruise line is usually between 105-108%.

[Susan in Maine]

Older, smaller ships usually have a lower capacity than the big new ones. A lot depends on what is important to you when you pick a cruise. If you want the newest coolest amenities, then you're going to be on a big ship. If, however, you prefer a quieter, more 'traditional' experience, you might want to look into older ships.

 

Just make sure they haven't been renovated to add a lot more passengers without expanding the common areas.  Carnival has several ships with a double occupancy capacity of around 2000 passengers.

[jimbo5544]

29 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Not really.  Industry standard/average is to sail at 105% "normal" capacity.

Interesting, are there stats for that by line?

[Organized Chaos]

49 minutes ago, Kellyann said:

Silly me but I really thought that when the "capacity" is listed for a ship, it means the maximum number of passengers allowed.  With that silly thought I booked the CCL Sunrise (2984) thinking that it was smaller than maybe the NCL Breakaway (4028) by more than a 1000 people.  It's been posted many times on this board that if 3 & 4 are assigned in a room that the number can mushroom to almost 3900 from 2984 to start.  If this is the case and capacity means not exactly, then how could one ever be successful in trying to book a smaller capacity ship?  Could there be more than 5000 on a ship like the Breakaway?  Not looking for snarky remarks, just trying to make better and more knowledgeable decisions in the future.

 

As Susan in Maine alluded to, be sure to keep in mind that the Sunrise is one of Carnival's older/smaller ships that has recently been refitted. The first one to get this was the Sunshine and the Victory will be refitted next spring and become the Radiance. These are older/smaller ships originally designed with fewer cabins and less passengers, but have been refitted to include adding more cabins, more passengers. However, the overall size of these ships hasn't changed and neither has the size of many of their popular common areas that are frequented by passengers the most. In some cases, they've even made a couple of these areas smaller (to be able to fit more cabins). This can cause crowding in some of those areas at times.

[VentureMan_2000]

29 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Interesting, are there stats for that by line?

I was looking at this site and article...

https://www.cruzely.com/how-much-the-biggest-cruise-ships-and-cruise-lines-make-each-day/

 

[chengkp75]

48 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Interesting, are there stats for that by line?

I think this is available via CLIA, but whether it picks out each brand, or just each parent corp, I don't recall.  You can see this on the cruise lines' SEC filings.

[jimbo5544]

2 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

I think this is available via CLIA, but whether it picks out each brand, or just each parent corp, I don't recall.  You can see this on the cruise lines' SEC filings.

Thanks, we are going to cruise world this year and I am sure CLIA will be represented, will ask then.

[jimbo5544]

23 minutes ago, VentureMan_2000 said:

I was looking at this site and article...

https://www.cruzely.com/how-much-the-biggest-cruise-ships-and-cruise-lines-make-each-day/

 

Thanks, very informative.

[Susan in Maine]

There is a ratio for passengers to space. For example Sunrise is 27, while Breakaway is 30. So there is more room per passenger on the Breakaway.  Anthem of the Seas is a huge ship, but her ratio is 35.

 

If you Google it you will find lots of website s with this info.

[chengkp75]

31 minutes ago, VentureMan_2000 said:

I was looking at this site and article...

https://www.cruzely.com/how-much-the-biggest-cruise-ships-and-cruise-lines-make-each-day/

 

But realistically, just looking at profit, especially in a capital intensive industry like cruise lines, is not very indicative, what is truly important is "return on investment", in other words, how much did I have to invest to make that profit, and you find that cruise lines are about middle of the road, or slightly below middle, for all industries.

[jimbo5544]

Just now, chengkp75 said:

But realistically, just looking at profit, especially in a capital intensive industry like cruise lines, is not very indicative, what is truly important is "return on investment", in other words, how much did I have to invest to make that profit, and you find that cruise lines are about middle of the road, or slightly below middle, for all industries.

When some are producing multiple ships a year at more than a billion (Royal is approaching 2 billion) you can see why the return is not what they might want.

[chengkp75]

1 minute ago, Susan in Maine said:

There is a ratio for passengers to space. For example Sunrise is 27, while Breakaway is 30. So there is more room per passenger on the Breakaway.  Anthem of the Seas is a huge ship, but her ratio is 35.

 

If you Google it you will find lots of website s with this info.

I truly don't find the pax/space ratio to be all that informative.  It is based on Gross Tonnage, a readily available figure, when it should be based on "Net Tonnage", the space allocated to the passengers (GT minus the crew spaces, engineering, and tanks).   It also does not include such spaces as Oasis' Boardwalk and Central Park, since these areas are not included in Gross Tonnage.

[chengkp75]

9 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

When some are producing multiple ships a year at more than a billion (Royal is approaching 2 billion) you can see why the return is not what they might want.

While the ROI may not be headline material, the cruise lines do much better than most shipping companies, where ROI's are typically in the basement.  Making a huge amount of money in shipping is very, very difficult.

 

Quick look around, and Carnival Corp has assets of $44.5 billion (how much was invested) and returned $3.15 billion in profit, or a 7% ROI, while the stock market has averaged 10% over the last half century.

Edited August 29, 2019 by chengkp75

[Heidi13]

40 minutes ago, Susan in Maine said:

There is a ratio for passengers to space. For example Sunrise is 27, while Breakaway is 30. So there is more room per passenger on the Breakaway.  Anthem of the Seas is a huge ship, but her ratio is 35.

 

If you Google it you will find lots of website s with this info.

This is only an approximation, as most of these ratios are based on Gross Tonnage (GT) which is a measure of the entire enclosed space within a ship. Ships of similar dimensions can have significantly different GT and even ships of a similar class. The ratio also varies on whether maximum pax occupancy is used, or double occupancy.

 

To be most accurate, the ratio should use Net Tonnage (NT) which eliminates working spaces from the GT to provide more of a cargo capacity, which on cruise ships is passenger spaces. Unfortunately, GT is readily available, but NT not so easy to find for many ships.

 

Edit - reading the rest of the thread, I just noted the Chief had already responded, apologies for duplication. 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Heidi13

[taglovestocruise]

7 hours ago, Kellyann said:

Could there be more than 5000 on a ship like the Breakaway?  Not looking for snarky remarks, just trying to make better and more knowledgeable decisions in the future.

Would not get that high unless you count the crew, then it could hit over 6000. Max cap would be 4002. Numbers are very misleading, Symphony of the seas can max out at 6680, it would hit 8500 with crew. We have sailed 3 Oasis class ships and at times you wonder where is everybody,  Oasis sailing have been some of the most uncrowded sailings I have been on.

Breakaway facts from wiki...  

Type:	Cruise ship
Tonnage:	145,655 - 169,145 gross tonnage (GT)
Length:	1,068 ft (326 m) - 1,100 ft (340 m)
Beam:	169 ft (52 m)
Decks:	18-20
Speed:	21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Capacity:	3,352 - 4,002 passengers
Crew:	1,657 - 1,999

[AL3XCruise]

2 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Would not get that high unless you count the crew, then it could hit over 6000. Max cap would be 4002. Numbers are very misleading, Symphony of the seas can max out at 6680, it would hit 8500 with crew.

Those Breakaway numbers are incorrect.  Design lower berth 3,963 per NCL and the shipyard.  You can bet if there are 3,963 lower berths the maximum cap isn't just 4,002!

 

I was on the Breakaway a few years ago when the Captain noted it was one of their busiest cruises, with nearly 6,600 souls on board.  Assuming 1600 to 1700 crew (numbers given by most sources), that leaves 4,900 to 5,000 passengers.  Those numbers make sense based on what has been reported by other CC users, but I'll admit I haven't seen a primary source document to verify it with.  Still I'll take the word of @chengkp75 and the vessel's master over wikipedia.

 

7 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

To be most accurate, the ratio should use Net Tonnage (NT) which eliminates working spaces from the GT to provide more of a cargo capacity, which on cruise ships is passenger spaces. Unfortunately, GT is readily available, but NT not so easy to find for many ships.

 

To add to what has been said, layout also plays a factor.  I noticed that there are several small changes between Breakaway and Escape which seem to make traffic flow better on the Escape despite a slightly higher passenger count and roughly the same amount of public space.  That, combined with what has already been pointed out about NT, means the "space ratio" is a rough estimate.

[SantaFeFan]

9 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

This is only an approximation, as most of these ratios are based on Gross Tonnage (GT) which is a measure of the entire enclosed space within a ship. Ships of similar dimensions can have significantly different GT and even ships of a similar class. The ratio also varies on whether maximum pax occupancy is used, or double occupancy.

 

To be most accurate, the ratio should use Net Tonnage (NT) which eliminates working spaces from the GT to provide more of a cargo capacity, which on cruise ships is passenger spaces. Unfortunately, GT is readily available, but NT not so easy to find for many ships.

 

Edit - reading the rest of the thread, I just noted the Chief had already responded, apologies for duplication. 

 

From this non-maritime person, no apologies are necessary as far as I am concerned. Both you and chengkp75 educate us on many cruise and ship matters. I am always appreciative of anything the two of you share and teach is. If both of you post the same information, it further reinforces that both of you are the experts, and we are fortunate to be learning from you. 

 

Thanks to both of you for educating us about an industry we enjoy so much. Please don't stop - it really helps a lot when you graciously share your knowledge. 

[Susan in Maine]

My point in noting the passenger/space ration was not for it to be a deciding factor in choosing a cruise. However, it is an additional piece of information that can be useful.

[klfrodo]

10 hours ago, SantaFeFan said:

 

From this non-maritime person, no apologies are necessary as far as I am concerned. Both you and chengkp75 educate us on many cruise and ship matters. I am always appreciative of anything the two of you share and teach is. If both of you post the same information, it further reinforces that both of you are the experts, and we are fortunate to be learning from you. 

 

Thanks to both of you for educating us about an industry we enjoy so much. Please don't stop - it really helps a lot when you graciously share your knowledge. 

Mike drop 🎤

 

It's only 8:58AM and I've learned something new. I can start my 3 day weekend now.