For decades, the trend in cruising has been that ships continue to get bigger and bigger. More amenities, more cabins, and more passengers have seemingly been a rule. But are there signs that some cruisers are getting fed up?
Social media comments point to a resounding yes.
Ships Continue to Grow in Size
While ships have continually gotten bigger through time, the trend toward megaships seems to have kicked off in earnest with the introduction of Royal Caribbean’s Oasis-class, which debuted about 15 years ago.
The first of these ships, Oasis of the Seas, measures a still-staggering 220,000+ gross tons, with 18 decks, nearly 1,200 feet long and the ability to handle up to 6,800 guests at full capacity.
At the time of its launch, Oasis of the Seas was the largest cruise ship in the world. Today, it is the sixth-largest as Royal Caribbean has pushed their ships even larger. And it’s not just Royal Caribbean. Today, there are now 20 cruise ships that measure 180,000 gross tons or more. Eight break the 215,000 gross ton mark.
Those numbers are going to grow in the years ahead. MSC plans to welcome MSC World America and MSC World Asia in 2025, which are slated to be around 215,000 gross tons each. Disney Adventure will debut in 2025 at around 208,000 gross tons. Royal Caribbean is building Star of the Seas at 250,000 gross tons as a sister to Icon of the Seas, already the world’s largest cruise ship.
But it was a recent announcement from Carnival Cruise Line that made us question if we’re reaching a tipping point.
Carnival is already planning two Excel-class ships (sister ships to its current fleet of Mardi Gras, Celebration, and Jubilee) to debut in 2027 and 2028. These ships should measure around 180,000 gross tons.
Now the cruise line has announced it will debut an entirely new class of ship that will carry up to 8,000 passengers and measure 230,000 gross tons. The new ships will debut starting in 2029.
That size puts them on par with Royal Caribbean’s Oasis class. Evidently, not everyone is a fan of the announcement or the overall trend in cruising.
Online Outcry Over the Size of New Ships
Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald shared the news of the megaships with Carnival fans on his Facebook page. And while many people were excited, many of the 1,800+ comments left on the post were actually critical of the announcement of a larger class of ships.
“Why not build some new smaller ships? The smaller ships are getting older, and a lot of people like them. I’d love to see some brand new smaller ships to sail on,” wrote one reply, which received more than 200 likes.
“Wish they would make a new state of the art SMALLER ship,” wrote another. “Not everyone likes the larger ships and would like to go to the smaller more accessible port of calls.”
That post was also favored by dozens of others.
“So sad that carnival is only going in the direction of massive ships that can only sail from a few ports,” chimed in another commenter.
“Bigger isn’t better. You have many guests that don’t want to be with 6,000 [passengers] on one ship. You also have a couple ports that can’t handle mega ships,” added another.
It wasn’t just John Heald’s post that saw a significant number of people wishing for smaller ships.
Over on Reddit, the top-voted comment echoed the same opinion.
“The industry has been wearing out its welcome in dozens of ports of call due to over-tourism. Yet it keeps building bigger and bigger ships. At some point, they’ll have nowhere to go,” wrote one poster in a comment that was upvoted more than 200 times:
And on Cruzely’s Facebook page we asked if ships were getting too large. The replies were nearly unanimous that cruise ships have gone too far.
“I don’t want to sail on the Behemoth of the Seas,” replied one poster.
Want Smaller Ships? It’s Not Likely Anytime Soon
For those that enjoy smaller ships, the news is grim. We know of only one cruise line — Norwegian — that has built a new class of ships that actually decreased in size from previous builds.
Its Breakaway class was followed by the smaller Prima class. However, since then the cruise line has upped the size of future Prima-class builds and also announced a new class to debut in the years ahead that’s larger than anything else in the fleet.
Larger ships simply make more sense for cruise lines. They are more efficient to operate, generate more revenue per sailing, and frankly, generate much more buzz and interest than smaller ones.
But it’s also clearer than ever that there is a growing trend of passengers — and not a small number — who desire more manageable ships. The big question is will they continue to cruise even on megaships, make the change to older, smaller vessels, or simply take their vacation dollars elsewhere?
