Tom Stieghorst
It is taking longer to get cruise ships these days as the volume of work at shipyards grows.
The latest example comes from Disney Cruise Line, which has ordered two new ships for delivery in 2021 and 2023.
If that schedule holds, it will be five years between the announcement of the ship order and the time that Disney partisans can actually step foot on the line’s latest creation.
It is a good thing that Disney also announced it will have more Star Wars Days at Sea next year, so that fans can have more to do while they wait out the construction time.
Building cruise ships has never been an overnight job. But last time Disney ordered new ships, in 2007, it took a little under four years to get the work done, not five.
Another example comes from Virgin Cruises, which ordered its first three ships last June, the first of which isn’t scheduled to be delivered until 2020. Since Virgin is a brand new line, there won’t be anything for its potential cruise fans to do until then but mark time.
Not so for Crystal Cruise loyalists. The luxury line announced last year that it would build a trio of ships, the first for delivery in late 2018. It is filling the wait time with new products for Crystal devotees, including river cruise ships, a cruise-yacht product and luxury air tours.
K.T. Lim, chairman of Genting Hong Kong, which owns the Crystal brand, was so concerned about getting his ships finished on a reasonable time schedule that he bought a shipyard — Germany’s Lloyd Werft — to do it. Earlier this month, he bought three more for good measure.
The reason for his concern is that orders have piled up at Europe’s three established shipyards. While some brands, notably Carnival Cruise Line, have slowed the pace in recent years, others including Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises are aggressively building and modernizing.
And there are new entrants crowding the field, such as Viking Ocean Cruises, which plans as many as six ships by 2020, although not all are ordered yet.
Of course it is a healthy sign for cruise sellers that companies are building new tonnage for clients, and competing vigorously for the attention and business from retailers.
It’s just that more patience is going to be required before ships on the drawing board turn into the real thing.