Will Carnival copy this successful Royal Caribbean strategy?
Carnival doesn’t use its newest and largest ships for short cruises. Not yet, anyway.
One big difference between Royal Caribbean and Carnival is how the two leading cruise lines approach short sailings. Both regularly offer sailings as short as 3-days. On the East Coast, both offer quick itineraries visiting the Bahamas.
However, the difference is in the ships they use. Royal Caribbean offers short cruises on some of its newest and largest ships. For example, Utopia of the Seas, currently the newest ship in Royal Caribbean’s fleet and a member of the Oasis class of mega-ships, sails 3- and 4-night itineraries from Port Canaveral.
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It isn’t just Utopia. Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas, a sister ship to Utopia, is set to begin sailing short itineraries from Miami later this year. And while the all-new Star of the Seas is going to be sailing week-long itineraries for the most part, it is starting with two special 4-night sailings when it launches in August.
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Carnival, on the other hand, doesn’t use the same strategy. Its newest and largest ships are the Excel Class, which include Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration, and Carnival Jubilee, and all three exclusively sail longer itineraries. The same can even be said about the cruise line’s previous class of ships.
Just to name few examples, Carnival uses the Radiance for short cruises from West Coast ports, and the Conquest and Glory from Miami and Port Canaveral, respectively. Radiance is 25 years old and is roughly half the size of Excel-class ships, Conquest is slightly larger and was launched in 2002, while Glory is its sister ship, launched a year later. Image source: Carnival Corp.
Will Carnival start short sailings on large ships?
To gauge cruisers’ interest in shorter sailings, Carnival brand ambassador John Heald conducted an informal poll on his popular Facebook page.
The poll, which had received more than 64,000 votes at the time of this writing, had three choices related to sailing on the largest ships:
- I hope the new big ships will do shorter cruises like some of your competitors are doing. The big ship should be doing four-day cruises.
- I prefer to do the longer cruises on the Mardi Gras, Carnival Jubilee, and Carnival Celebration and I don’t think four days is enough time to truly enjoy them.
- I don’t really cruise on the big ship. The Excel class is not for me.
It might surprise you to learn that the overwhelming winner was the second response. In fact, responses in favor of longer cruises on the big ships outnumbered responses wanting to see shorter cruises by more than 10-to-one. Less surprising is that a significant number of respondents indicated that they don’t like cruising on the Excel class ships at all. The big ships can simply feel overwhelming to many people.
Several responses pointed out that shorter cruises tend to have more of a “party” atmosphere than week-long sailings. Heald follower Terri Buchanan Wood said “I love the big ships and the small but I do not like the short cruises due to the party crowd.”
Admittedly, I can see both sides. I’ve done a total of four 3-night cruises on Royal Caribbean or Celebrity ships, including two on Oasis-class ships.
While the argument that three days isn’t enough to fully experience the ship is valid, these ships are so massive that in many ways, a full week isn’t even enough. However, a longer cruise (especially with multiple sea days) does give cruisers more opportunities to experience more amenities and spend some of their vacation relaxing, instead of trying to see and do as much as possible.
Things could change for Carnival
It’s worth pointing out that unlike Royal Caribbean, which currently has seven mega-ships in its fleet, Carnival has only three. However, its fleet is expected to add several more over the next few years.
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Two more Excel-class ships are set to be delivered in 2027 and 2028. Plus, Carnival has ordered three ships in a new, even larger, class to be delivered from 2029 through 2033. As Carnival adds more massive ships to its fleet, it could certainly transition one or more of them to short cruises. After all, Royal Caribbean didn’t start regularly offering short cruises on Oasis-class ships until it had more than three mega-ships.
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