25 ocean cruise newbuilds ordered during 202425 ocean cruise newbuilds ordered during 2024
After the near drought of pandemic-era cruise ship orders, 2024 opened with Carnival Corp. & plc nailing an Excel-class newbuild and continued with multiple companies firming new capacity.
October 18, 2024

At a Glance
- Series extensions and prototypes
- Numerous multi-ship orders
- Orderbook extends to 2036, further than ever before
The running total is 25 newbuilds, plus an additional five known (publicly announced) options.
These span Carnival Corp., Royal Caribbean Group, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Viking, A&K Travel Group, Scenic Group, Disney and Oriental Land Co.
Many notable orders
There have been many notable orders. The NCLH eight-ship deal with Fincantieri on the eve of Seatrade Cruise Global in Miami was a blockbuster, with four ships for Norwegian Cruise line and two each for Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, stretching the orderbook out to 2036, further than ever before.
Royal Caribbean Group extended its Oasis series to a seventh ship and its Icon fleet to a fourth, and Carnival added another Excel and broke out with three of a 230,000gt prototype for its namesake brand. Disney Cruise Line will be fielding five more ships — one of them ordered by Oriental Land Co. continuing the Wish series but the rest unspecified; are they Wish vessels or a new class?
In Viking's prospectus and filings as a public company this year, it talked about entering into loan agreements during 2021 and 2022 to finance multiple ship deliveries through 2028, and its orderbook now extends into 2029.
Two years after A&K Travel Group acquired Crystal in June 2022, it ordered a pair of classic ships for the brand, and has talked about expedition newbuilds as well.
Scenic Group continued its Emerald Cruises yacht series to a third from Halong Shipbuilding.
The 2024 orders are spread across Fincantieri (15), Meyer Werft (seven) and one each at Meyer Turku, Chantiers de l'Atlantique and Halong Shipbuilding.
The 2024-contracted ships, by order of announcement (cruise line, nunber of ships, shipyard, lower berths, gross tonnage, year of delivery):
Feb. 13
Carnival Cruise Line 1 Meyer Werft 5,400 180,000 2027
Feb. 15
Royal Caribbean 1 Chant de l'Atl 5,668 227,000 2028
March 26
Carnival Cruise Line 1 Meyer Werft 5,400 180,000 2028
April 8
NCL 4 Fincantieri 5,000 200,000 2030, 32,
34, 36
Oceania Cruises 2 Fincantieri 1,400 86,000 2027, 29
Regent 2 Fincantieri 850 77,000 2026, 29
April 9
Emerald Cruises 1 Halong 128 5,755 2026
June 21
Viking 2 Fincantieri 998 54,300 2028, 29
options 2 2030
June 27
Crystal 2 Fincantieri 690 61,800 2028 + ?
option 1 2032
July 9
Oriental Land Co. 1 Meyer Werft 2,500 144,000 2028
July 23
Carnival Cruise Line 3 Fincantieri 6,000 230,000 2029, 31, 33
Aug. 12
Disney Cruise Line 4 Meyer Werft ? ? 2027-31
Aug. 27
Royal Caribbean 1 Meyer Turku 5,610 250,800 2027
options 2
Total: 25 (Plus five announced options; there are likely more.)
Orderbook resources and analysis
The Seatrade Cruise Orderbook, updated monthly, can be downloaded at www.seatrade-cruise.com/the-orderbook/updated-seatrade-cruise-orderbook-october-2024.
For a deeper orderbook analysis and commentary, see the current issue of Seatrade Cruise Review with a white paper by Christian Savelli, director cruise analytics at Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company.
Read more about:
Carnival Corp. & plcRoyal Caribbean GroupVikingNorwegian Cruise Line HoldingsDisney Cruise LineFincantieriMeyer WerftMeyer TurkuChantiers de l'AtlantiqueScenic GroupA&K TravelAbout the Author
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