8 Vessels on order

[dexddd]

Pier in Bahamas by next year?  

[Laszlo]

12 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

Ugh, 5,000-guest ships… No thank you. 

Such a horrible trend in the cruise industry.

I agree 100%, my favorite ships are the Jewel class

[ontheweb]

12 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

Ugh, 5,000-guest ships… No thank you. 

Such a horrible trend in the cruise industry.

And it reverses what they did when they built the Prima class ships making them smaller than the Epic and Breakaway class ships.

[Turtles06]

48 minutes ago, Laszlo said:

I agree 100%, my favorite ships are the Jewel class

My favorite as well! 

[Panhandle Couple]

11 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

They need to make their business more profitable. Operating the smaller ships has a much higher cost per passenger than the newer ships. Think about it as the efficiency of your 8 cylinder car versus newer cars. Although, they did replace the engines on the Epic during dry dock... which involved cutting a big hole in the hull so that they could get the old engines out and the new engines in. After which they had to bondo the hole closed. 

The older ships are well past their financial payoff date.  While older technology, they are much more similar to the majority of cruise ships, and all the commercial cargo ships.

The true life will be determined by the fatigue status of the main structural components, the beam and ribs.

Whether NCL uses them to that point, or sells them is the question.

 

Smaller ships also have less water and wind drag, allowing them use less fuel. That trades off against newer more efficient engines and drive trains.  I'm sure NCL keeps track of fuel consumption vs miles traveled for all their fleet.

[Karaboudjan]

42 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

And it reverses what they did when they built the Prima class ships making them smaller than the Epic and Breakaway class ships.

 

I don't know if it a reverse or just a next step.  NCL has stated interest in longer, more exotic cruises and you probably need smaller ships for that.  On the other hand, there are clearly cruises where 5000+ passenger ships make sense, so why not have some for that as well?

[Turtles06]

19 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

On the other hand, there are clearly cruises where 5000+ passenger ships make sense

Where?

[DCGuy64]

11 hours ago, Middleager said:

Didn't many people say NCL was going bankrupt, no way to climb out of the huge debt.

Right? In 2020 everyone swore the whole industry was going under. Obviously not.

[Laszlo]

Its funny whenever I have mentioned about building a pier at GSC it was followed by 50 comments about how it could never be done, it would cost too much 🤣

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, Karaboudjan said:

 

I don't know if it a reverse or just a next step.  NCL has stated interest in longer, more exotic cruises and you probably need smaller ships for that.  On the other hand, there are clearly cruises where 5000+ passenger ships make sense, so why not have some for that as well?

I would not call the Prima class small ships, just smaller than the ships that were being built immediately before them. 

[The Traveling Man]

12 hours ago, BrianLo said:

What they do need though is a long term replacement goal for the exotic sailings that their small ships do... Prima class should have been that, but the inability to use tenders and the warm weather focus is a major inherent flaw.

I didn't realize that Pr1ma class ships were unable to use tenders.  Could you expand on that?

[shof515]

3 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

I didn't realize that Pr1ma class ships were unable to use tenders.  Could you expand on that?

most likely the prima class lifeboats can not be used as tenders like what the breakaway class has 

[yakcruiser]

3 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

Where?

Florida. RCCL is doing very well sailing their monstrosity's out of Florida on 7-day cookie cutter cruises.

[koolZip]

Norwegian has just announced eight new ships across three brands!

https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/04/norwegian-cruise-line-holdings-8-new-ships-for-3-brands/

 

This strikes me as a pretty bold move and a huge commitment to staking its claim in the coming cruise boom. Then throw in the construction of new piers and it's clear that NCL expects their private island to add a substantial share to the bottom line.

 

The shape of things to come.

[Tak8]

I like hearing about new ships.

[hallux]

It was the most-recently replied to thread when you posted yours - 

 

[JustAPilot]

So much for Del Rio’s refined luxury experience idea with the Prima and Viva. Cram them in as much as you can on those Caribbean Miami departures. 

[shof515]

11 minutes ago, yakcruiser said:

Florida. RCCL is doing very well sailing their monstrosity's out of Florida on 7-day cookie cutter cruises.

they also have other monstrosity doing 3-4 day cruises out of Florida

[hallux]

16 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

I didn't realize that Pr1ma class ships were unable to use tenders.  Could you expand on that?

 

12 minutes ago, shof515 said:

most likely the prima class lifeboats can not be used as tenders like what the breakaway class has 

And yet the Prima still calls at GSC.  Because they don't use the ship's lifeboats as tenders there, but the ship can still call at the tender port...

[The Traveling Man]

18 hours ago, PhillyTravelBug said:

Looks like we are getting four more Prima plus ships through 2028, which includes Aqua. 
 

Four more 200,000 gross ton ships are on order with 5,000 guests for 2030,

2032, 2034, and 2036.  

Multi pier development at great stirrup cay is to begin this year as well.

 

 

I own some RCL stock, but it looks like NCL has a strong future ahead of them.

We've sailed on all but two of NCL's current ships.  I wonder if we'll be able to get those last two under our belts, plus any other new ships that begin sailing in the meantime, before they start retiring or selling off some of the older, smaller ships.  I'm curious about the proposed 5000 passenger ships.  I've seen videos of RCCL's monster ships.  They have some interesting features, lots of dining options, and a wide variety of entertainment venues to appeal to a broad range of interests.  I'm not sure, though, about spending a solid week or more with 5000, 6000, or 7000 of my "closest friends."

[macewank]

32 minutes ago, JustAPilot said:

So much for Del Rio’s refined luxury experience idea with the Prima and Viva. Cram them in as much as you can on those Caribbean Miami departures. 

 

No reason the newer ships can't follow a similar design language and also be bigger.

 

Also no reason why the Prima class can't fill that market and the new ones go a different direction, too. Will be interesting to see where they go with the next couple after Aqua. 

[RedwingHockeyFan]

NCL Encore is the largest in the fleet and stands at 26th largest in the industry.  The large ships being built now seem very popular and it only makes sense that NCL would follow suit in building some.  I myself am really curious to see what the deck plans are going to look like.

[ChiefMateJRK]

2 minutes ago, RedwingHockeyFan said:

The large ships being built now seem very popular and it only makes sense that NCL would follow suit in building some.

Why?  The most successful US Airline (the one that didn't go bankrupt after 911) has never bought a plane bigger than a 737.  Just because the other guys "go big," doesn't make it the smartest business decision.  A common theme here is that many folks prefer the smaller NCL ships.

[CruiseMH]

13 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Why?  The most successful US Airline (the one that didn't go bankrupt after 911) has never bought a plane bigger than a 737.  Just because the other guys "go big," doesn't make it the smartest business decision.  A common theme here is that many folks prefer the smaller NCL ships.

The bigger the ship the less are the costs per passenger.It is as simple as that. For most people it doesn`t make any big difference whether its a 4100 or 5000-passenger-ship. They either hate them anyway or love them anyway. The people who are preferring smaller ships are preferring MUCH smaller ships (2000-2400 passengers).

 

[ontheweb]

6 minutes ago, CruiseMH said:

The bigger the ship the less are the costs per passenger.It is as simple as that. For most people it doesn`t make any big difference whether its a 4100 or 5000-passenger-ship. They either hate them anyway or love them anyway. The people who are preferring smaller ships are preferring MUCH smaller ships (2000-2400 passengers).

 

The problem with the new huge ships is that there are many ports that either they cannot go to or they are getting banned as the ports do not want that many cruise visitors at once.