Royal Caribbean Group president ‘recognises opportunity’ to build smaller ships

Royal Caribbean Group president Jason Liberty has confirmed the company is exploring options to add smaller ships to the Royal Caribbean International fleet to expand its product offering.

The latest vessel in the line’s Icon class, Star of the Seas, is the biggest cruise ship in the world and launched this month from Port Canaveral in Florida.

Additional ships in the class, Legend of the Seas and Icon 4, are scheduled to enter service in 2026 and 2027, with options for a fifth and sixth vessel.

Speaking on board Star of the Seas on the topic of a new series of smaller ships called Discovery Class, Liberty said: “Going back to the lens of experiences, there is recognition that there is also an opportunity to build ships that have a lot of amenities and activities, but on a slightly smaller platform.

“That is very much in the ’Dream Engine’ and there is more to come, hopefully relatively soon, but as we expand, it’s not just about large ships, it’s about all different size of ships.”

He highlighted sister brands Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises had smaller ships and the group’s goal was “ultimately to deliver the absolute classification experience in each one of those segments”.

He added the experiences on board and in destinations “will inform” the size and design of future ships, acknowledging smaller vessels were necessary to access certain ports.

Discussing resistance to bigger cruise ships in some European destinations, Liberty conceded there were locations where there was “a lot of concentration of vacation activity”, but said it was “easy to point to cruise”.

He said: “A lot of vacation experiences like the Airbnbs of the world and so forth are creating a lot of that concentration.

“What we have to do in the ports, which we are doing, is continuing to diversify where the ships go and also enhance the experience of what happens there.”

He added the line could “not get away with” putting passengers on a bus and driving them around a city and needed to work with destinations to spread passengers farther afield.

When asked if he thought there were some destinations where it was becoming “a non-business case” to cruise, he said: “I do not think so. I think that whether it’s us as a company or us as an industry, we’re working really well with communities.

“We’re trying to be good listeners and create solutions, not just for ourselves, but for travel overall, and at the same time we’re frantically trying to reduce our environmental footprint.”

Royal Caribbean Group chairman Richard Fain stressed that at the same time as Royal Caribbean was building the Icon Class series, sister brands Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises were building smaller ships with capacity for between 50 and 600 passengers, so the management team are "not fixated on large or small ships, but on bringing magic". 

He added the "flexibility" of a fleet with differently sized ships was important, even if larger ships tend to "get publicity". 

Speaking in a separate session, Royal Caribbean president Michael Bayley said: “We’re already deep into design of the new class [after Icon].

“We’re constantly looking at designing for the future, and in fact, a whole group of us probably spend 50% of our work day designing for the future for Royal Caribbean destinations or ships.”

He said Royal Caribbean had made “a couple of thousand small tweaks and changes” between Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, describing the new vessel as “the culmination of 50 years of development, design, creativity and innovation”.

“Icon is the most amazing next level vacation experience, which has been specifically designed for our key target market of family, which is a very broadly defined group,” he said.

“What we’ve managed to do [with Icon Class] is to create really unique spaces and experiences that work for every generation and every group.”

Bayley added 7.5 million passengers had sailed with the line this year, and that shorter itineraries of three-to-five nights including its private destination of Perfect Day at Coco Cay had had a “phenomenal response” from new-to-cruise customers.