Is Royal Caribbean building any small ships?

[Charles4515]

15 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

You will likely be surprised at the pricing scheme. 

Someday I might price it but ironically for the subject of this thread I am currently into small ships. Not smaller though, small ships which Royal won’t ever have. So until we can get our old gang back together, or another group which may never happen, that cruise on super mega sized ships I won’t be pricing Icon although I would like too. Have you done Icon yet?

[Biker19]

9 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

Have you done Icon yet?

Biker usually looks for value and itinerary - neither of those are likely to be an Icon thing for a while.

[Tolkmit]

32 minutes ago, blt23 said:

Vancouver-Alaska and Eastern Med are both high yield markets that can't accommodate mega ships yet are core itineraries for attracting and retaining guests who want to cruise in multiple different regions.

 

With Vision, Voyager, Radiance classes all getting old, Royal will need to build some new "smaller" ships if they want to stay in those markets long term. Vancouver/Alaska is the more restricted one and even that could easily fit a ship of at least 3k guests/130k tons, which feels like it could still work financially for Royal on those itineraries.

 

By comparison, Tampa and Baltimore are lower yielding, have tighter height limits, and have alternative ports relatively nearby which all makes it much less likely that Royal tries to build new ships for them.

 

It makes sense for Royal to build some new medium sized ships for their key non-Caribbean markets, but I can also envision a future where basically every ship sailing Caribbean cruises in the summer is Icon/Oasis sized.

 

Alaska can handle Quantum class size ships. The vast majority of ports Royal regularly sends Radiance class ships to in the Eastern Med can as well in fact. Project Discovery is likely to be a "smaller" ship compared to Icon the same way Project Sunshine (aka Quantum Class) was to be a "smaller" ship compared to Oasis... still fairly large by every other measure.

 

People who want something new that is closer to Radiance or Vision size... I think are likely to be disappointed. They would cost around half of what Icon cost, fit around half as many passengers as Icon, so they would need to charge similar rates to what they are getting for Icon to make it worth building them instead of just more Icon class ships... and it seems doubtful the market would support that sort of pricing.

[woodscruise]

From reading through this topic, one thing comes to mind that you do not put all your eggs in one basket. With the Oasis and Icon ships, they are primary based in the Caribbean, and more recently in the New York region, with another doing a European season in conjunction with a dry docking. What happens if there is another financial crisis as we saw in 2008. By building these mega ships, Royal is limiting to where they can put their assets. I personally, cannot see an Oasis or Icon ship based in the Pacific region, unless China improves dramatically with the Spectrum and Ovation being based there from 2025.

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, woodscruise said:

From reading through this topic, one thing comes to mind that you do not put all your eggs in one basket. With the Oasis and Icon ships, they are primary based in the Caribbean, and more recently in the New York region, with another doing a European season in conjunction with a dry docking. What happens if there is another financial crisis as we saw in 2008. By building these mega ships, Royal is limiting to where they can put their assets. I personally, cannot see an Oasis or Icon ship based in the Pacific region, unless China improves dramatically with the Spectrum and Ovation being based there from 2025.

They don’t have their eggs in one basket.They have plenty of ships other than Oasis class or Icon. That is why they can take their time with the new class of medium size ships. 

[c-leg5]

10 hours ago, Hoopster95 said:

Totally wrong. Name ports in the Med that Voyager Class or Quantum class do not go to compared to other mass market lines like NCL, Princess and HAL only.

I am not an authority on cruising in the Med. I only use TA’s as a mode of transport from A to B. If I wanted to travel in Europe I would take a land vacation. 
 

However, my statement is totally correct regarding cruising from my example of Galveston. 7-day sailings used to alternate, eastern and western and now it is the same route week after week due to Oasis ships being unable to dock on the other route.
 

I would be surprised if this is the only area of the world experiencing restrictions. 

[PhillyFan33579]

3 hours ago, woodscruise said:

From reading through this topic, one thing comes to mind that you do not put all your eggs in one basket. With the Oasis and Icon ships, they are primary based in the Caribbean, and more recently in the New York region, with another doing a European season in conjunction with a dry docking. What happens if there is another financial crisis as we saw in 2008. By building these mega ships, Royal is limiting to where they can put their assets. I personally, cannot see an Oasis or Icon ship based in the Pacific region, unless China improves dramatically with the Spectrum and Ovation being based there from 2025.

I have never heard anything remotely close to RCi’s future fleet consisting of only Oasis and Icon class ships.