On the eve of Viking River Cruises launching 10 more of its Longships, a defining feature of which is their 190-passenger capacity, Tauck is challenging the idea that more is better.
On March 21, Viking will launch 10 Viking Longships in a simultaneous christening ceremony in Amsterdam. While the Longships can each carry 190 passengers, competitors’ ships of the same length -- feet -- generally carry between 160 and 170 passengers.
But Tauck is bucking the trend toward packing more pax onboard. Tauck is adding two newbuilds to its fleet of European river cruise ships in 2014, and this week announced that the two new ships -- the Inspire and Savor -- will be 23% longer than Tauck’s existing river cruise vessels. But at 443 feet in length, they will accommodate only 130 guests each, 10% more passengers than its current ships.
Tauck’s two new ships will be part of the company’s new Inspiration class of vessels (the company’s existing four ships are now being referred to as the Jewel class).
“When our Inspiration-class ships launch next year, they’ll each have just 130 guests aboard, whereas other major lines carry up to 190 guests” on ships of the same length, Tauck CEO Dan Mahar said in a statement. “That’s an additional 46% more passengers aboard ships of the exact same length. You simply can’t deliver the same relaxed, intimate atmosphere when you put nearly 50% more passengers into the same space.”
Tauck has traditionally put an emphasis on using that extra space to make room for more suites onboard its ships than on other river cruise vessels. For instance, its Jewel-class ships each have 14 suites at 300 square feet each as well as seven junior suites.
“By limiting passenger capacity, we’re able to offer a much higher percentage of suites,” Mahar stated.
Tauck is also placing greater emphasis on service. Each Inspiration-class ship will have a Tauck cruise director and three Tauck directors aboard. During shore excursions, the passengers will be divided into groups of no more than 25 people.