If and when Royal Caribbean orders a new cruise ship to be built, it probably won't be ready until 2028 or later.
New cruise ships are just about the most exciting thing in the cruise industry because of all the excitement and hype they generate. It's akin to your favorite sports team signing the next big thing to play for them.
Naturally, there's a lot of intrigue surrounding new ships and Wall Street is equally interested to hear about new ship order plans as much as cruise fans.
During the Royal Caribbean Group earnings call on Tuesday, cruise line executives were asked if they were effectively done with any new ships showing up before 2028.
Royal Caribbean Group President and CEO Jason Liberty thought about the question and said he believes all the ships that could be ordered in time for 2027 are probably done, and maybe even into 2028.
"I think for the most part, you certainly have seen all of our orders through 27 and maybe even into 2028," he said in response to the question.
He danced around the question a bit, as he wanted to emphasize the company was focused on slowly growing its fleet, and not seeking any kind of rapid building program.
"I will say that we heavily subscribed to moderate yield growth, moderate capacity growth, and good cost control."
"So on that moderate capacity growth standpoint, we continue to to look to moderately grow our fleet, moderately grow each of our brands."
A new smaller cruise ship
While the question covers every brand within the Royal Caribbean Group family, cruisers may be aware of Royal Caribbean International's not-so-well-kept secret of plans to build a new smaller cruise ship.
Referred to as the Discovery Class, it's a proposed plan to replace Royal Caribbean's aging smaller ships: the Radiance and Vision Class.
With the Vision Class ships approaching 30 years old in age, not only is the timing ripe, but the ships have a notable gap in experience between them and the newer ships that have launched in the last few years.
Officially, nothing has been confirmed or revealed regarding the Discovery Class ships. However, there have been subtle hints.
As recently as August 2024, Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley talked about them.
He indicated a new ship class was coming in the next three to four years, and was perhaps the most candid about the idea so far.
"We’re working now on another class of ship called Discovery Class. So, that’s going to be super exciting. That’ll come in about another 3 to 4 years from now," he said in an interview.
Doing the math on that quote, three to four years from now is 2027-2028, which is right around the time period Mr. Liberty indicated could be the new timeframe for a future ship order.
What ships Royal Caribbean has on order right now
There are a number of new cruise ships confirmed and ordered to come out in the next few years.
Star of the Seas is under construction in Finland, and will begin sailing in August 2025.
Star is the second Icon Class cruise ship, and will follow-up on the tremendous success of Icon of the Seas. It will sail from Port Canaveral, Florida and offer 7-night Caribbean cruises.
In 2026, a third Icon Class cruise ship will join the fleet.
There's no name yet for this ship, and we know virtually nothing about it yet. Royal Caribbean's tendency is not to talk about new ships beyond the next new cruise ship.
A fourth Icon Class cruise ship will launch sometime in 2027.
After that, we'll get a new Oasis Class ship in 2028.
Royal Caribbean also has options to build a fifth and sixth Icon Class ship.
Options are like reserved slots at a shipyard, which means a cruise line can activate that option later and still get the ship in the construction pipeline.
