What next after Icon 3?

[ApexoftheSeas]

What coming after Icon 3? More Icon? More Oasis? Project Discovery? Something Else?

[smokeybandit]

Any of the above

[Jill]

Hopefully “Discovery” class to begin replacing the older, smaller ships.

Once all the Icons are built, that’ll put Royal at 9 mega ships and 9 mini mega’s (quantum and freedom class). 18 BIG ships. 
 

Time to bring in some new smaller ships. I personally love the size of voyager class. 

[JohnK6404]

I would hope Royal would design a smaller LNG fuel class to replace some of the older vessels that can access the smaller ports, etc. I understand the big money/profits of course are in the larger ships, and right now we prefer them, but I hope they don't completely abandon the smaller class ships. Maybe an LNG version of Voyager class as @Jill mentioned above? You could argue Celebrity can fill that niche going forward, but they don't offer the same experience... maybe a little too "mature" of an experience for my wife and I right now! 

[ApexoftheSeas]

I would love to see some smaller ships with lots of stuff to do and maybe even a central park.

[CrimsonCruiser]

I also think it's about time for Royal to think about making another mid sized ship after Icon 3. and I think it would be cool if they emailed a survey to emerald and above c&A members (cruisers who are most likely to have been on several cruises and several classes of ships) and ask them what "new" thing they wish was on an older ship. Then they could use that feedback to see what regular cruisers like about the new mega ships and find out a way to get the vibe on a smaller ship. Like the 270 area is really great and could vibe nicely on a calm and quiet ship.

[Mike.s]

An email from C&A, that would be a first for many of us

[Vancity Cruiser]

Consumerism at its finest lol. We know about 1 more Oasis class and 3 Icon class ships (the first of which hasn't even gone into service) to the tune of more than $5B. But you know.....what about after that?

 

Reminds me of vacations when my kids were little. I know we already went mini golfing, swimming, water skiing, to the amusement park, and had pizza and Ice cream but now I'm booooooored.

[RCIfan1912]

 

I would hope Royal would design a smaller LNG fuel class to replace some of the older vessels that can access the smaller ports, etc. I understand the big money/profits of course are in the larger ships, and right now we prefer them, but I hope they don't completely abandon the smaller class ships. Maybe an LNG version of Voyager class as @Jill mentioned above? You could argue Celebrity can fill that niche going forward, but they don't offer the same experience... maybe a little too "mature" of an experience for my wife and I right now! 

Yeah, I love, LOVE the giant mega ships but don't they have to start replacing the Voyager class and the smaller class below that? Even the Freedom class is starting to get up there. They are gonna have to I would thing order some new "smaller" ships at some point. 

[Cakemeister]

I think the Amped Voyager-class ships have a lot of mileage left on them. IMO they need to replace some of the smaller ships, like the Vision class, with something "small" (for RCCL) but modern. Maybe that is Project Discovery. Can they make a small ship that is as profitable as a jumbo ship?

I was on Radiance this year and the ship has flaws that can't be fixed with amplification.

[Thumper44]

7 hours ago, Cakemeister said:

I was on Radiance this year and the ship has flaws that can't be fixed with amplification.

I'm really interested in your honest opinion here.  What kind of things on the Radiance class can't/shouldn't be fixed with amplification?

[Cakemeister]

The width of the corridors and the placement of the elevators, to start.

Compared to a larger ship, the corridors on Radiance are very narrow.

The elevators in the Centrum area are arranged five in a row. For someone who is disabled, like Mrs. Cake, it's impossible to get to some of the elevators before it closes.

The bathroom in my cabin had a shower curtain in the shower instead of the clamshell door. It took me a week to figure out how to get the shower curtain to work right. Maybe that is something that can be fixed, but I don't really know what goes into amplification besides changing some of the restaurants.

[CruisingSteve]

Probably more Icon class ships. We have only heard about 3 because that is what is contracted to be built. Same thing happened with Oasis class when it was announced. Then came 4, 5, and 6. Royal need to "Test" the ship for profitability. They also want customer feedback and other research before they commit to a 4th one and beyond. $2 Billion per ship is a lot of money to spend.
I would love to see a Project Discovery at around 100,000 tons that can sail from ports like Tampa and get into ports that the big ships can't fit in. Radiance and Vision class ships are almost up for their lifespan. It's a smart business move since they said Vision class ships don't break even until about 80% capacity

[Heymarco]

On 7/26/2023 at 10:03 AM, CruisingSteve said:

Probably more Icon class ships. We have only heard about 3 because that is what is contracted to be built. Same thing happened with Oasis class when it was announced. Then came 4, 5, and 6. Royal need to "Test" the ship for profitability. They also want customer feedback and other research before they commit to a 4th one and beyond. $2 Billion per ship is a lot of money to spend.
I would love to see a Project Discovery at around 100,000 tons that can sail from ports like Tampa and get into ports that the big ships can't fit in. Radiance and Vision class ships are almost up for their lifespan. It's a smart business move since they said Vision class ships don't break even until about 80% capacity

It's so funny because Voyager class is older than Radiance but no one ever mentions them. It's just a better class, hopefully will get more Voyager style ships.

[Heymarco]

On 7/26/2023 at 10:03 AM, CruisingSteve said:

Probably more Icon class ships. We have only heard about 3 because that is what is contracted to be built. Same thing happened with Oasis class when it was announced. Then came 4, 5, and 6. Royal need to "Test" the ship for profitability. They also want customer feedback and other research before they commit to a 4th one and beyond. $2 Billion per ship is a lot of money to spend.
I would love to see a Project Discovery at around 100,000 tons that can sail from ports like Tampa and get into ports that the big ships can't fit in. Radiance and Vision class ships are almost up for their lifespan. It's a smart business move since they said Vision class ships don't break even until about 80% capacity

They built 8 Voyager/Freedom class ships with majority being in former class. 9 might be it for Oasis/Icon, no guarantee any more will come until ordered.

[JasonOasis]

I think what Royal has to figure out going forward is where to they go from here.  

 

Since 2009 with the exception of Quantum Class every Royal ship that has launched the ship itself has been a major part of the destination.  That strategy has worked for Royal which is why soon they will have 6 Oasis Class ships and at least 3 Icon Class ships.  The issue I see is these mega ship can only visit a limited number of ports.  Before in a different thread I wrote Royal when the time comes needs a new class of small ship somewhere along the size of Voyager Class, but the more I think about this I'm wondering if that will happen and if Voyager Class is to small.  

Hear me out, earlier this year or late last year NCL's CEO publicly stated they made some mistakes with their Prima Class ships and they would be fixing those mistakes starting with the 4th Prima Class ship through the 6th Prima Class ship all of those ships delivery dates have been pushed back at least one year.  The biggest mistake according to NCL that they made with Pima and the 3 ships they currently have is they are to small.  So Prima 4, 5, and 6 will all be larger than Prima 1, 2, and 3 but they will not be mega class ships either.  So what this tells me is for a company like Royal the chances of them building a Radiance Class or Vision Class replacement vessel that is the nearly the same size as those ships is probably at or near zero.  And Royal like NCL will probably try to push passengers into their luxury brands like Celebrity if passengers want something small and more intimate.  

Now if we take a look Quantum Class the original size (Quantum, Anthem, Ovation), I believe Prima 4, 5, and 6 will be similar in size to those Quantum ship.  Don't forget Prima 1, 2 and 3 are all smaller than Freedom Class vessels.  Quantum ships aren't small by any stretch of the imagination but they are mega ship either which is great.  Their size however does allow them to go into many different ports all over the world additional ports all over the world where an Oasis and Icon Class ship can not go.  There are still some ports a Radiance and Voyager Class vessel can visit where even a Quantum Class original size ship can go but that list is no where near as expansive as the list of port Oasis and Icon Class can't go.  I also think it would be an easier argument for Royal to make for more ports around the world to expand their ports to accommodate a Quantum Class size ship than an Oasis/Icon Class size ship.   I think if Royal took a clean sheet design approach to Quantum class original  size ship and designed a brand new ship that is either the same size or perhaps just ever so slightly smaller they would still be able to continue to offer cruises to customers who aren't just looking for the ship to be the destination but also continue to offer cruises to many different ports around the world as their smaller older ships creep closer to retirement in the 2030s and 2040s.

[Rackham]

Based on this chart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cruise_ships) NCL doesn't have anything resembling a large ship. Their largest, from this chart, ranks 23rd in the world by size. Spectrum of the Seas, Quantum-ultra, ranks as 22nd largest in the world. Looking at the fleet mix, NCL could stand to gain larger ships if that's the market they want to be in. Royal, on the other hand, has a portion of their fleet consisting of aging small ships to either overhaul, retire, or transfer in the next decade or so. NCL needs to look larger in the mass market space while Royal needs to consider smaller. Two sides of the same coin of fleet development.

Since rumors and speculation have Discovery-class at Neo Panamax sizing, here's the requirements for those ships and characteristics of Royal's current fleet starting with Quantum and ending with Radiance. All taken from Wikipedia. I'm going to speculate from sizing and ship ages that there'll also be a Discovery Ultra-class (at some point) which will be post Panamax sized. Discovery taking over the role of Vision-class and some Radiance-class ships while Discovery Ultra takes over for some Radiance and Voyager-class ships at the start. 

General characteristics New Panamax

Tonnage    120,000 DWT
Length    366 m (1,201 ft)
Beam    51.25 m (168 ft)
Height    57.91 m (190 ft)
Draft    15.2 m (50 ft)
 

Quantum characteristics

Tonnage    168,666 GT
Length    348 m (1,141 ft 9 in)
Beam    48.9–49.47 m (160 ft 5 in – 162 ft 4 in) (max)
Draught    8.5–8.8 m (27 ft 11 in – 28 ft 10 in)

Freedom characteristics

Tonnage    154,407 GT
Length    338.8 m (1,111 ft 6 in)
Beam    
38.6 m (126 ft 8 in) at waterline
56.0 m (183 ft 8 in) bridge wings
Height    63.7 m (209 ft) above water line
Draft    8.5 m (28 ft)

Voyager characteristics

Tonnage    138,000 GT
Length    311.32 m (1,021.40 ft)
Beam    48.01 m (157.50 ft)
Draft    8.8 m (29 ft)

Radiance characteristics

Tonnage    90,090 GT
Length    962 ft (293 m)
Beam    105.6 ft (32.2 m)
Draft    26.7 ft (8.1 m)

[Cruisingmama]

Personally I think more cold weather ships with indoor water areas for families are due. Anthem is the only ship now with an indoor family pool and that is being replaced out of NJ with the Odyssey - which baffles my mind. November through April you have back to back (other than January) 7 night cruises with 3.5+ days of no "outside" time unless you are wearing a coat. Defeats the entire purpose of "escaping" the winter.  Certainly won't feel like a vacation - more like being snowed in - in a crowded ship with lots of bored children and stressed parents. I also anticipate the solarium adult only rules will not often apply... But I digress.  For NE winter and Europe sailings (especially shoulder season Europe) - Would be smart for them to build a few more cold weather ships having a nice combination of the Quantum/Oasis class features with indoor water retreat for families and some new bells and whistles.  

A few smaller ships are also due - but I think there's some time for those yet.

[Chili]

One thing to think about is what kind of fuel would a smaller ship use ?

 If Royal was going to go to the expense of developing a new class of ship ,for service in 30 years time,it wouldn’t be a ship that burns dirty oil .
At the moment the cleanest fuel is LNG and from what I believe it takes up a lot of room to store it . A smaller ship that runs on LNG would be down on cabin space and paying passengers. So I don’t think it would be economical.

Wasn’t Icon originally supposed to have a hydrogen fuel cell ?
That didn’t seem to happen ,maybe it might with Discovery class.

[steverk]

If we're going to speculate about Royal's direction, and we want to sound intelligent about it, we need to look at it from Royal's point of view. That means developing a list of requirements and working from there.

For the requirements we need to know the mission of the new ship? Does it go to cold weather ports like Alaska and Norway? Does it need to transit the Panama and/or Suez Canal? Is it going to be used to open new markets or ports for Royal? A bigger ship has better economy of scale, but only if you can fill it. How big should it be? I'm sure there's much more to this, but you get the point.

IMO, Royal needs a new class of ship that can go to cold weather ports and should be able to transit the Panama Canal. It will be as large as possible and still meet these requirements. That still gives it a decent, but not great, economy of scale. Not everyone agrees that Royal will build this. They very well could make yet another warm weather monster in the 300,000 GRT range, but I'm going with my theory!

The requirement to transit the canal limits the size of the ship dramatically.  The Celebrity Edge class ships can and do transit the new canal.  They are about 130,000 GRT, so that's probably about the size of the new class. Since most of us are more familiar with Royal's ships, Voyager of the Seas is 137,276 GRT.

Being a cold weather ship implies a thicker hull with thicker propellers. It also means an indoor pool would be a big nice to have.

Norway has passed a law saying that all cruise ships going into the legendary fjords will need to be zero emissions. I expect the new ship will comply.

Given that this is Royal, we can expect a bunch of new and creative bells and whistles on this ship.

So there's my prediction for the next class of ship:

• 130,000+/- GRT
• neo-panamax
• Indoor pool
• Thicker hull and propellers to deal with chunks of floating sea ice
• "Zero" emissions. 
• Lots of new clever toys on board.

I'll even go one step farther. I predict the lead ship in this class will be sailing before the end of the decade.

[ApexoftheSeas]

When do you think we might see details on something after icon 3?

[Matt]

1 hour ago, ApexoftheSeas said:

When do you think we might see details on something after icon 3?

First, they'd have to place an order for a new ship. This is complicated by their debt situation.

As an example, when RCG restructured some of their loans in 2020, there was a stipulation they could not take certain actions, such as "Issuance of debt or equity other than for liquidity". So financing a new ship may be an example of what they can't do.

Granted, I have no idea if that restructured deal is now settled, but wanted to provide an example of how their existing loans could impact their ability to place new ship orders. 

[Doug_Texas]

On 8/9/2023 at 7:43 AM, Chili said:

One thing to think about is what kind of fuel would a smaller ship use ?

 If Royal was going to go to the expense of developing a new class of ship ,for service in 30 years time,it wouldn’t be a ship that burns dirty oil .
At the moment the cleanest fuel is LNG and from what I believe it takes up a lot of room to store it . A smaller ship that runs on LNG would be down on cabin space and paying passengers. So I don’t think it would be economical.

Wasn’t Icon originally supposed to have a hydrogen fuel cell ?
That didn’t seem to happen ,maybe it might with Discovery class.

Liquid hydrogen for use with fuel cells has 31% of the energy density of LNG.  If you've seen the size of the LNG tanks for Icon it seems hydrogen fuel cells would not be an efficient option.  Also, by the time RCL works logistics for LNG filling at home ports they wouldn't want the expense of starting over again for liquid hydrogen.

[JasonOasis]

4 hours ago, Doug_Texas said:

Liquid hydrogen for use with fuel cells has 31% of the energy density of LNG.  If you've seen the size of the LNG tanks for Icon it seems hydrogen fuel cells would not be an efficient option.  Also, by the time RCL works logistics for LNG filling at home ports they wouldn't want the expense of starting over again for liquid hydrogen.

This is the same thing the airline industry is struggling with in particular both Airbus and Boeing.   I think both manufactures know hydrogen is the fuel of the future but for now the issue is storage.  Liquid Hydrogen tanks are huge and right now in the airline industry these tanks can not fit in the usual storage which is the wings and center tank.  Airlines are not willing to devote cabin space fuel storage so right now engineers and others at both Boeing and Airbus are trying to figure out how to move this technology forward.  

Looking at the size of the LNG tanks installed on Icon I can only imagine using todays technology how big liquid hydrogen tank would need to be. 

[Chili]

8 hours ago, Doug_Texas said:

Liquid hydrogen for use with fuel cells has 31% of the energy density of LNG.  If you've seen the size of the LNG tanks for Icon it seems hydrogen fuel cells would not be an efficient option.  Also, by the time RCL works logistics for LNG filling at home ports they wouldn't want the expense of starting over again for liquid hydrogen.

 

4 hours ago, JasonOasis said:

This is the same thing the airline industry is struggling with in particular both Airbus and Boeing.   I think both manufactures know hydrogen is the fuel of the future but for now the issue is storage.  Liquid Hydrogen tanks are huge and right now in the airline industry these tanks can not fit in the usual storage which is the wings and center tank.  Airlines are not willing to devote cabin space fuel storage so right now engineers and others at both Boeing and Airbus are trying to figure out how to move this technology forward.  

Looking at the size of the LNG tanks installed on Icon I can only imagine using todays technology how big liquid hydrogen tank would need to be. 

From what I understand hydrogen will be stored in the form of ammonia. The same as you clean your bathroom,a liquid. Very safe to handle and transport.

They add a extra molecule to hydrogen,I think it’s nitrogen to make ammonia and strip it away before it’s used.

Something like that .

[Chili]

 

[smokeybandit]

8 minutes ago, Chili said:

 

It's actually quite a small ship compared to other container ships and while it can run on methanol, it still has a traditional diesel engine. I'll be curious to see what percentage of the time it actually uses the greener engine.

[Chili]

5 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

It's actually quite a small ship compared to other container ships and while it can run on methanol, it still has a traditional diesel engine. I'll be curious to see what percentage of the time it actually uses the greener engine.

Probably just a con job but it’s interesting how it can run on different fuels.
I believe Ammonia can be injected straight into the combustion chamber but has to have some fuel oil to help it combust.

A lot more versatile than L.N.G 

[CruisingSteve]

Probably won't hear anything for a while. Royal has tons of debt from not running any ships for 15 months. There was talk about Project Discovery not long ago. If I was to guess what's next, I would think we would hear something about that since 100k ton ships are cheaper to build than a 250k ton ship but we have to wait and see

[smokeybandit]

The Icon contract was signed in 2016, so that's an 8 year turnaround. Any new class of ship likely wouldn't begin steel cutting until near 2030 if they announced it today.

I don't know what kind of financial obligations a cruise line has before steel gets cut though to know what they have to foot up front.

[Shanenz84]

It's looking like some of these shipyards will become quite empty once the current orders are completed by 2026. Maybe there wouldn't be a 8 year turnaround as it stands now and if it was for a current design (ie. More Icon or even another Oasis) 

[Cakemeister]

The newest Oasis class ships are/were built a long time after the first ones. In between there, they built the Quantum class. It took them from 2009 to 2024, fifteen years, to build six Oasis-class ships and five Quantum-class ships. Covid caused a delay, of course, so call it 13 years of shipbuilding.

In a similar way, maybe we will have the three Icon-class ships, then the Discovery-class ships in the 2028 to 2032 time frame, then three more Icon Plus/Icon Ultra-class ships starting in 2034. That'll take us to 2036, thirteen years from now.

For this timeline to work, Project Discovery must have already been on the drawing board for several years. They probably didn't have anything better to do during lockdown.

Speculation is fun.

[Chili]

I don’t know if it would be done but if Royal wanted to speed up and cut costs to develop the Discovery class. They could just modify Celebrity Edge class .

A water slide ,water park and put the crown and anchor on the side.

[ApexoftheSeas]

15 hours ago, Cakemeister said:

Speculation is fun.

Speculation is fun!

[steverk]

On 9/21/2023 at 12:39 AM, Chili said:

I don’t know if it would be done but if Royal wanted to speed up and cut costs to develop the Discovery class. They could just modify Celebrity Edge class .

A water slide ,water park and put the crown and anchor on the side.

It wouldn't be the first time Royal Caribbean Group did something like that. Radiance and Millennium classes were all built at the same time, are all gas turbine vessels, have nearly identical hull design and are almost the exact same size. They do have different layout and decor though.

[Chili]

I think we be seeing ammonia powered ships in the near future.

 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wärtsilä-i-norge_the-engine-reinvented-worlds-first-full-activity-6983698318992261120-cnAr?utm_source=li_share&utm_content=feedcontent&utm_medium=g_dt_web&utm_campaign=copy

[Fuzzywuzzy]

On 7/15/2023 at 3:32 PM, Jill said:

Hopefully “Discovery” class to begin replacing the older, smaller ships.

Once all the Icons are built, that’ll put Royal at 9 mega ships and 9 mini mega’s (quantum and freedom class). 18 BIG ships. 
 

Time to bring in some new smaller ships. I personally love the size of voyager class. 

Agreed. I know some want to be on the biggest for some reason, we sailed on the Anthem and found it to be too much for us.

[Jill]

1 hour ago, Fuzzywuzzy said:

Agreed. I know some want to be on the biggest for some reason, we sailed on the Anthem and found it to be too much for us.

We still love the big girls for the Caribbean but as we near “bucket list” age, ports are priority. The big girls get old going to the same ports. 

[Jmccaffrey]

I hope Project Discovery is real and is between Freedom and Voyager class. This makes it small but not too small. Best of all worlds.

[Fuzzywuzzy]

12 hours ago, Jmccaffrey said:

I hope Project Discovery is real and is between Freedom and Voyager class. This makes it small but not too small. Best of all worlds.

That would be just about perfect for many of us.