(6 a.m. EDT) -- Carnival Corporation's president and CEO Micky Arison confirmed today that he had no intention of building a bigger ship than rival Royal Caribbean's 5,400 passenger, 225,282-ton Oasis of the Seas.

In an interview with Radio 2's Jeremy Vine at The Travel Convention in Barcelona -- a gathering of 1,000 of the U.K.'s most senior travel industry executives -- Arison was asked if he had "ship envy" over Oasis of the Seas. The Carnival boss replied: "Queen Mary 2 (150,000 tons) is probably the biggest ship we will ever build. Carnival Dream at 130,000 tons is probably as large as we will build for Carnival. We built a ship of 116,000 tons (Ventura) for P&O Cruises and I have no intention of going bigger. I think at these sizes, we can deliver the right level of service and value."

Arison also hinted that the biggest mega-ships were too restricted in terms of where they could sail. "We try to build within a size that will give us the most flexibility," he said. "We like to be able to access ports like Venice and to fit under certain bridges."

Oasis of the Seas, which sails some inaugural cruises in late November and embarks on its maiden voyage in December, will cruise the Caribbean year-round and will be restricted to the ports that can take the very largest ships -- among them St. Maarten, Nassau and St. Thomas.

Vine also pushed Arison on the issue of discounting, suggesting that a brawl on P&O's Ventura last Christmas, much publicised in the U.K. media at the time, was the result of lowering prices to an extent that P&O was attracting "people who shouldn't be on ships at all."

But Arison was resolute that his policy of filling ships at any price was not related to the incident. "Each brand makes its own pricing decisions," he said. "They do what they have to do. Whether someone starts a fight is not an issue of what they earn; it's more to do with how much beer they've consumed and what their personal circumstances are."

Courtesy of Cruisecrittic

Some people want a holiday in the malls of America, and others want to be on a cruise," Travel Weekly quotes Arison as saying. "With big ships you have less flexibility in terms of the ports you can visit. We study these things because we want ships that can go into lots of ports and places."

Courtesy USA Today

Cam J

[ 10-07-2009: Message edited by: Cam J ]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmwnc1:
Yes, time to develop a new class of cruise ship along the 70-80k ton range that can be cloned across the multitude of brands. Not that that is a bad thing. Just time for something completely different.

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Agreed. A totally new class would be just as nice as a 200,000 TON ship. Howver I think that a totally new class around 120-130k range would be nice.

quote:

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Originally posted by dmwnc1:
Yes, time to develop a new class of cruise ship along the 70-80k ton range that can be cloned across the multitude of brands. Not that that is a bad thing. Just time for something completely different.

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I doubt you will see that as the time and money invloved in designing a completely new class would not make sense financially.

Also, as they say, "if it 'aint broke, don't fix it!".

There's nothing to indicate that anything radically different is warranted.

The QV/Luminosa platform which is an evolution of the Vista and Spirit Classes works very well.

Add to that, HAL and Cunard are unlikely to recieve any new tonnage in the near future after the upcoming deliveries as those brands need to focus on filling the ships they already have.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cam J:

Agreed. A totally new class would be just as nice as a 200,000 TON ship. Howver I think that a totally new class around 120-130k range would be nice.

Cam J

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What evereyone really wants is something totally new and different but different is expensive and not always warranted.

There needs to be a compelling reason to design completely new and different as this not only consumes a lot of time and money, but means that crews onboard need to learn a totally different set of working facilities and functions.

Despite what everyone says, the QV/Luminosa platforms really are completely new from the Vistas. There is a commonality in their looks and interior layouts, but the hull form is completely different.

The new ships that Princess will order will be a slightly larger evoloution of the existing Ruby Princess. She probably won't look or feel radically different but the hull form and frames will be completely new as will a lot that is not visible to the naked eye of the passenger.

So there's nothing to say that a completely NEW class of ship would have any vast differences from the existing ones.

Just my twnty two cents...

From my experience business is like politics they go back on what they say. I have a copy of a travel agent cruise publication that I found in the travel agency I used to work at back when I was a travel agent. I don't recall the exact magazine but it was from 1993 I beleive. In it was an interview with Richard Fain RCI's CEO. In it he stated that he would not build ship bigger then the Sovereign class (I am paraphrasing). He said something very similar to Arison. Fastfoward and we have Voyager/Freedom and Oasis!

Also I taped a special many years ago that aired on the Discovery channel or A & E. I think it was Castles at Sea. In it they interviewed Joe Farcus and he said that Carnival would never have mini golf like some other lines. He said that ships are ships and now Carnival has mini golf.

you draw out some very valid points and while I believe that Carnival will build larger than their current ships; perhaps up to about 150 or 160K; Arison's comment about flexibility is key.

The Allure and Oasis are far too large to operate outside of any 'controlled' enviroment such as the Caribbean.

There are some who say that the Freedom class is even too large to operate outside of milk-run itineraries from Florida as they severly tax the infrasturctures of the European ports.

And as Arison has pointed out many times, once you exceed a certain size, the eonomies of scale either flat line or slightly diminish.

But 'crossing the line' in terms of size, you lose a lot of flexibility in deployments which has always worked to the benefit of all of Carnival's brands.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tim in 'Lauderdale:
NYCruiser,

you draw out some very valid points and while I believe that Carnival will build larger than their current ships; perhaps up to about 150 or 160K; Arison's comment about flexibility is key.

The Allure and Oasis are far too large to operate outside of any 'controlled' enviroment such as the Caribbean.

There are some who say that the Freedom class is even too large to operate outside of milk-run itineraries from Florida as they severly tax the infrasturctures of the European ports.

And as Arison has pointed out many times, once you exceed a certain size, the eonomies of scale either flat line or slightly diminish.

But 'crossing the line' in terms of size, you lose a lot of flexibility in deployments which has always worked to the benefit of all of Carnival's brands.

Tim

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You have valid points too but I will play devil's advocate here - at the same time some ports like Jamaica will make the changes to accommodate an Oasis sized ship.

quote:

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Originally posted by dmwnc1:
Yes, time to develop a new class of cruise ship along the 70-80k ton range

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What would you make different about it?

Different for the sake of being different is just throwing money away.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cam J:
I think that a totally new class around 120-130k range would be nice.

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quote:

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Originally posted by nycruiser:
If Oasis and Allure can pull it off especially in these economic times then Carnival Corp will compete and build as big as Oasis or bigger.

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Indeed, aside from QM2 (which has a very different purpose), Carnival hasn't even built anything as big as a VOYAGER-class ship ... and Carnival has had ten years to evaluate those.

I think a cruise line needs two classes of ships. One class they need to operate that is designed to do longer more exotic voyages, and the other they need to design for the shorter party cruises. It is clear that allot of lines are trying to cater to these two markets.

It would be interesting to know what RCI make per pax on a Freedom class ship and compare it to what Carnival make per pax out of a "normal" sized ship.

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Originally posted by mike sa:
I suspect Carnival would build a 350,000grt cruise ship.

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What yard could build a ship that size!? Fincantieri can only build op to 300k.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cam J:
Doug the Carnival Dream isn't a totally new design.

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I think what you want is not just a new design but a radically different one.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sutho:
On a personal note when I go to the Caribbean I love to get on tour and snorkel with turtles, explore the coral reefs and have a great time on the islands. I could not imagine the hoops to jump through to do this on Oasis.

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You can book shore excursions through your TV in the cabin. It's not like you're going to be standing outside the shorex office with 5,399 other people.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sutho:
I dont know if this will ever happen but one thing I would like to see in relation to cruise ship designs is to increase the size of the standard cabins to at least twice the size of what they are now.

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Cabins that big would mean that suddenly instead of 3,000 passengers you are carrying 1,500 passengers. So, double the fares to make the same amount of revenue. And don't even think about what you'd have to do to make up for 1,500 passengers' on-board revenue....

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Originally posted by mike sa:
Sutho, if you built cabins the same size as hotel rooms you would be bankrupt.

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If you take the Grand class as an example they were originally desinged to carry 2,600 passengers. The newer ones with that extra deck are a cheap way of over crowding. If they had to make an extra deck then why not make all the cabins larger and still aim to carry the 2,600 passengers.

If Royal Caribbean thinks that bigger ships are going to get more passengers, I would like to see what would happen to a mass market line that attempted to do better by increasing cabin sizes that would make their ships more comfortable to travel on.

If the calculations were done right it is possible a mass market line could get away with it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cam J:

What yard could build a ship that size!? Fincantieri can only build op to 300k.

Cam J

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quote:

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Originally posted by dougnewman:
The FREEDOM-class are "proven" and Carnival hasn't built anything that big.

Indeed, aside from QM2 (which has a very different purpose), Carnival hasn't even built anything as big as a VOYAGER-class ship ... and Carnival has had ten years to evaluate those.

And OASIS and ALLURE are not even like those ships ... I do not think you are ever going to see eight ships this size or bigger in the RCI fleet, the way the VOYAGER-class turned out. There's nowhere to put them.

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Originally posted by Sutho:
With regards to cabins - surely with new large ships coming out it would be possible to increase the cabin sizes and not lose out on operating costs.

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Anyway, cabin sizes have increased. If we look at Royal Caribbean ships over the past 20 years, the most common type of cabin is:

SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS (1988): Oceanview, 122 sq ft
LEGEND OF THE SEAS (1995): Large Oceanview, 154 sq ft
VOYAGER OF THE SEAS (1999): Deluxe Oceanview with Balcony, 173 sq ft + 47 sq ft balcony
RADIANCE OF THE SEAS (2001): Deluxe Oceanview with Balcony, 179 sq ft + 41 sq ft balcony
NAVIGATOR OF THE SEAS (2002): Deluxe Oceanview with Balcony, 184 sq ft + 46 sq ft balcony
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS (2006): Deluxe Oceanview with Balcony, 177 sq ft + 74 sq ft balcony
OASIS OF THE SEAS (2009): Superior Oceanview with Balcony, 182 sq ft + 50 sq ft balcony

So the "standard" cabin on Royal Caribbean's latest ship is almost exactly 50% larger than that of 20 years ago, not counting the balcony.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sutho:
If you take the Grand class as an example they were originally desinged to carry 2,600 passengers. The newer ones with that extra deck are a cheap way of over crowding. If they had to make an extra deck then why not make all the cabins larger and still aim to carry the 2,600 passengers.

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Anyway, from a ship design standpoint, you would basically have to design a whole new ship. It is one thing to add another deck and put more of the same kind of cabin on it, or even to add another deck and put a new kind of (larger) cabin on it, but to change the size of all the other cabins on the ship ... that is, I don't want to say impossible, but not easy. You might as well just start with a clean sheet and design a whole new ship because all of a sudden nothing is where it is supposed to be any more, the spacing of your frames doesn't work, the whole structure of the ship gets screwed up. You can't just make cabins a little larger or a little smaller.

Anyway, for the kind of change in cabin size that would make the experience fundamentally different ... you could not do that by bringing the passenger count down from 3,100 to 2,600 in the same sized space. Spread that extra space out among all the cabins and you wind up with cabins that are just slightly larger, and do you think you are going to make more money from the extra 500 passengers, or from higher fares with your cabins now being 200 sq ft instead of 180 sq ft? If you think it is the latter, you are kidding yourself. Sure, if your cabins were 300 sq ft you would get higher fares but then that's what luxury lines do already.

So maybe cabin size will keep creeping up little by little as new classes of ship come out, but the kind of drastic change you want is not going to happen. There are ships with 300 sq ft standard cabins, and they are luxury ships and anyway those cabins are still much smaller than rooms in comparable quality hotels on land. Ultimately even something as big as OASIS is still a ship, there are still compromises to do with it being a ship and not a shoreside resort.

quote:

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Originally posted by nycruiser:
While not as large as the Freedom class ships Carnival has the Dream and the soon to be Magic.

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Arison is simply presenting a viewpoint which justifies Carnival's decision to be prudent with their cash in the near future. I think Arison would still love to play the “my ship is bigger than your ship” game with RCI, but does not think a recession is the appropriate time to do it.

If you doubt me, just remember that Carnival spent at least a few years researching and designing the 'Pinnacle Project'. I believe this was to be a mega-ship near in size to Oasis. The press later reported that the project was put on the 'back burner' because of “its prohibitively high price, due to the dollar/Euro exchange rate". NOT because of the size of bridges or ports.

If Oasis is a big hit, Carnival will want a slice of that pie too – trust me!

P.S. For those of you that want original ship designs, we have had Epic, Oasis and the Celebrity newbuilds – not bad for one year.

Above: Pinnacle?

[ 10-08-2009: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
Cruise line CEO's seem to change there minds like I change my underwear!

Arison is simply presenting a viewpoint which justifies Carnival's decision to be prudent with their cash in the near future. I think Arison would still love to play the “my ship is bigger than your ship” game with RCI, but does not think a recession is the appropriate time to do it.

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Why? Whar Mr. Arison says makes perfectly sense. Carnival played the 'largest ship in the world game' very well with QM2. I doubt she would be nearly as famous as she is now if she would not have been the larges ship in the world back then and in fact I believe that many people still believe and will continue to believe that QM2 is the largest ship in the world (like 'they' believe it now and like 'they' believed that QE2 was the largest ship in the world). I also agree that such very large ships are very limited in where they can be deployed. Actually, the typical ship size of contemporary cruise ships IS already a problem in many ports. There is certainly a 'nice' for such extremely large ships in e.g. the Caribbean but I doubt that replying to Oasis with a larger ship just for the sake of building a larger ship makes any sense at this time - and if it's just about the effect the advantage is probably still on the side of the Carnival group with the more prestigious QM2 (that's maybe 'not fair' but I guess that's how it is).

If you doubt me, just remember that Carnival spent at least a few years researching and designing the 'Pinnacle Project'. [/QUOTE]

I am not sure how much money was spent on that project. There are and always have been many studies like that 'out there' and it's not necessarily too expensive to make such a video or some renderings if it's e.g. a not too detailed study. Also, if I remember right it was not Carnival but Fincantieri who did that.

[ 10-08-2009: Message edited by: Ernst ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
Cruise line CEO's seem to change there minds like I change my underwear!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
I think Arison would still love to play the “my ship is bigger than your ship” game with RCI, but does not think a recession is the appropriate time to do it.

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Whether or not he would like to play the game is not really relevant - he is not going to try to play a game he doesn't think he can make money at. He's not going to go out and try to top OASIS because he thinks it would be fun.

quote:

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
If you doubt me, just remember that Carnival spent at least a few years researching and designing the [b]'Pinnacle Project'.

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I think it is natural that Carnival would consider something like this, but that doesn't mean it was ever anywhere near ordering it. Certainly, as far as I know, Carnival never publicly indicated its intention (or even desire) to build ships much bigger than the current generation.

quote:

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:
If Oasis is a big hit, Carnival will want a slice of that pie too – trust me!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:

If you doubt me, just remember that Carnival spent at least a few years researching and designing the 'Pinnacle Project'. I believe this was to be a mega-ship near in size to Oasis. The press later reported that the project was put on the 'back burner' because of “its prohibitively high price, due to the dollar/Euro exchange rate". NOT because of the size of bridges or ports.

If Oasis is a big hit, Carnival will want a slice of that pie too – trust me!

Above: Pinnacle?

[ 10-08-2009: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

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Malcolm,

thant is not 'Pinnacle' - it was a ship of @180 to 200,000 tons in size. The ship above was a concept Fincantieri was trying to sell Carnival on and is much larger.

I firmly believe Carnival Corp has no intention of competing with Oasis. They are really comfortable in that 3,000 pax 'sweet spot' which seems to generate nice returns, is highly flexible and the pax themselves seem to like.

Tim

[ 10-08-2009: Message edited by: Tim in 'Lauderdale ]