When is enough, enough?

Royal Caribbean this week has began construction on the fifth Oasis Class ship in the fleet which is set to join her sister, Harmony, Oasis, Symphony and Allure of the Seas in 2021. Royal Caribbean also announced in February this year that due to the demand and popularity of this class of ship they have ordered a sixth vessel. We are talking massive passenger numbers – Each ship can carry around 6000 Passengers normally – So that by 6 is 36,000 passengers on just these 6 ships alone.

Not to mention the other ships in the Royal Caribbean fleet, Princess have 22 ships, MSC, well I have lost count there as they are bring out new ship after new ship so I suppose we must be up to around 26 ships, NCL have 17 ships plus 6 on order and then we have the smaller cruise lines like Cunard, P&O, Fred Olsen and Celebrity to name a few.

Okay some will say that cruise lines are getting rid of some of the older ships in the fleet which is a shame as the smaller-older ships generally have more charm but when you take for instance the Prinsendam in the Holland America fleet, she is leaving but we are seeing what two or three new Pinnacle Class ships which are almost 3 times the size.

This expansion is also seen significantly in the Luxury Market which pretty much all of Luxury Cruise lines building at least one new ship. None more so that Viking Ocean Cruises – Launched in 2015 but by 2027 will have 17 ships!

We have also seen more pictures released this week of the new Expedition ship for Celebrity – Celebrity Flora which is a beautiful like vessel built for the Galapagos Islands which will join the Celebrity Xpedition, Celebrity Xperience and Celebrity Xploration. The latter two more unknown ships for Celebrity – Xploration is a 16 guest charter only vessel and the Xperience is 48 guests.

So what do you think? Are you a fan of the Mega Ships or do you prefer small and friendly?