Royal Caribbean Eyeing New Ship Classes

Jason Liberty, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, expressed the company’s confidence in its growth trajectory during the second quarter earnings call when discussing future ship orders.

Liberty mentioned that the company consistently designs the next classes of ships for all its brands, maintaining a commitment to disciplined capacity growth and generating global demand over an extended period. He noted that planning for the Icon of the Seas began approximately seven years in advance.

Liberty also indicated that future ships might be smaller due to potential homeports and transit ports with size restrictions. He hinted about the consideration of replacing older ships, mentioning that some ships in the fleet were reaching 30 to 35 years of age and would eventually need replacement. Specifically, smaller ships might replace these older vessels.

Older ships in the Royal Caribbean fleet include the Grandeur of the Seas, launched in 1996, and the Enchantment and Rhapsody of the Seas, both built in 1997. The Celebrity fleet, however, trends younger, with the oldest ship being the Celebrity Millennium, built in 2000. The Silversea brand has one ship at the 30-year mark, the Silver Cloud, which entered service in 1994, and the second oldest being the Silver Wind, built in 1995.

Liberty emphasized further, “You’re not just thinking longer term in terms of growing and orders but also your environmental foot footprint and what we can be doing further reduce our emissions and the fuel that we burn.”