Maybe someone with more knowledge or experience with cruise ships than me can answer this, do you believe the cruise industry will eventually “collapse under it’s own ‘weight’”? Reading about Galveston and it’s growth in the cruise industry. Seem like cruise ships are coming online a lot faster than they are being decommissioned. While there be a “shakeout” similar to the personal computer industry back in the 90’s? Many PC companies crashed and burned. My daughter and granddaughters took a cruise out of Galveston a few weeks ago and I “stalked” them with “Marine Tracker”. Unreal at how many cruise ships were underway at one time. Sailing out of Florida/Canaveral, it looked like a parade.
It is an interesting phenomenon. As more ships join the schools bottom feeding a growing number of passengers buying very low cost trips the industry must certainly reach a point where profits, quality, or failing economic conditions lead them to Alang.
I see it as nearing the end of a frenzied bubble of passengers who “spend it while you’ve got it” and cruise vampires who see passengers as a commodity, sort of like Grand Banks codfish.
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As a long-retired career naval officer and (expired) merchant mariner, I am also a frequent cruiser. Retired from the USN in 1993 and took first cruise with my wife in 2004. Now after a couple of dozen, with eight in the last 15 months, I have the same observations and perhaps some insight.
We have cruised on HAL, Carnival, RCL and Princess in the more distant past, then did four cruises on Celebrity from 2019-2022. Early last year we ‘discovered’ MSC Cruises and the last eight have been with that line.
Using MSC as an example, cruises offer a getaway that can be a low in cost as $420pp for a 7-night cruise from Port Canaveral. That includes lodging, all meals, assorted free beverages and lots of entertainment opportunities. Increase that to $755 and you add wifi and a premium drink package with unlimited non-alcoholic and 15 alcoholic drinks per day. I don’t believe there is anything else in the travel/hospitality industry that can match that.
Cruise lines select ports based, of course, on the obvious need for good maritime services for these large ships, but also on the geographic market area these ships will draw on. While many folks fly to distant cruise ports, the majority prefer to drive there. Airlines are pricey and limit your luggage, but cruise ships do not. Different clientele drive to NYC, Baltimore, Norfolk, Canaveral and Miami as East Coast ports, and Galveston adds another growing port to Tampa and New Orleans on the GOM.
MSC has just opened a the world’s largest cruise terminal in Miami, capable of handling three ships at one time, with 36,000 passengers debarking/embarking in a day. They are building a new terminal in Galveston, and will move the MSC SEASCAPE (170k tons, 5800+ pax) there later this year. Her sister ship SEASHORE has been based in PC and will be joined later this year by the GRANDIOSA (181k tons, 6300+ pax). These ships generally sail at, or close to, full capacity.
MSC just brought the new WORLD AMERICA (216K tons, 6,800 pax) to Miami. She is the second of that class, with four more coming. And MSC just announced the Constellation class as a follow-on, at 265k tons the largest cruise ships afloat.
As noted by the OP, how can this trend continue? Where will all the cruisers come from to feed this growing capacity? Is MSC, the largest shipping line in the world, misjudging the future of the cruise industry?
As a final bit, almost all the cruise lines have a “ship-within-a-ship” concept, with more upscale features. MSC has the ‘Yacht Club’ as the pinnacle of its four Experience Levels, and is the only cruise line to incorporate the concept as a closed, gated community on the ship. ON SEASHORE, with 5700 pax, the YC has a capacity of 300. Six of our eight MSC cruises have been in the YC, as are the next nine we have booked. The rest of the ship is frequently referred to as GenPop.
Sorry for the very long post.
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Your comments regarding ports are critical. Ports are a major component in the process. I look at them the same way I used to watch seagulls circling the old Ocean Phoenix (ex Oregon Mail) while processing pollock in the Bering Sea. The ports and local chandlers feed off the scraps. Public money finances the facilities used by cruise companies that pay virtually no taxes to the nations that host them. The seagulls gain a short term benefit but like those airborne scavengers, at the end of the season they either starve or try to survive on what few scraps remain. It’s a parasitic industry.
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Cruise vacations are a bargain and one can have a good time as long as you don’t look below the surface. It’s kinda like iPhones, you really don’t want to know who is making them and what their lives are like. The private island destinations are a real bone of contention for me. The cruise lines pay off the officialdom and commandeer some land in a poor country. They brag about spending millions of dollars developing the property but the citizens of the country aren’t allowed to enter, even when there are no ships. If the local citizens protest about the low pay the officialdom will call the police or military to shut that down quick. Port fees go into the pockets of the politicians. All to keep the cruise guests captive and spending on cruise line owned property. The fact that the cruise lines income is not taxed properly is the fault of the politicians in the country in which they operate. The US politicians are bought cheap.
That all being said I have enjoyed cruising on Seabourn on occasion. Their crew is compensated well which is a rarity but the service shows.
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Eventually, everything will collapse. But with the baby boomers retiring, settling on compromised bucket lists & credit so easily available for those who couldn’t afford it otherwise, I don’t think the cruise ship industry collapse will happen anytime soon unless a case of a national financial crisis.
I was on the MSC world America on a random week long voyage, ans it was full. And not even full of Americans, a huge percentage of Europeans and canadians.
Its the same force thats causing this “labor shortage” is causing the cruise lines to take off - a huge chunk of the population is retiring.
That and its a fantastic way to travel most of the time. Food on MSC world America left much to be desired, but still a beautiful ship.
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One of my siblings and her husband like to cruise. My wife once tried to convince me to take a cruise after she went on an enjoyable office personnel cruise. For me, it would be a sort of busman’s holiday, with the chance of contracting norovirus.
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If anyone is thinking of cruising I would recommend Viking Cruise Lines. Suits retired masters and chief engineers of a grumpy disposition.
Wine and Food very good.
No casinos or kids only 900 onboard
Excellent lecturers on all sorts of subjects, attendance voluntary.
For example I learnt all about L’Anse aux Meadows and the Vikings before we got there.
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And they aren’t trying to upsell you every minute, according to my equally approving sister.