PHILIPSBURG — The cruise industry is rapidly changing and those changes could very well affect St. Maarten’s economy. This appears from a report on CNN by Terry Ward that describes the emergence of super-sized cruise ships.
Ward describes how cruise companies are building ever larger ships to serve their customer base. And larger is not always better because the amenities on the new generation cruise ships are so extensive that passengers will hardly feel the need to disembark once they dock at a port.
Royal Caribbean launched the largest cruise ship in the world in January 2024: the Icon of the Seas. In April of this year Norwegian Cruise Line put Norwegian Aqua in the water, a monster with a passenger capacity of 3,600. Four even larger ships are on order; they all can carry as many as 5,000 passengers.
That’s not the end of it. MSC Cruises launched MSC World America, also in April; passenger capacity: 6,762. This cruise liner sails Caribbean itineraries. In 2027 the company will start using MSC World Atlantic for Caribbean cruises.
Carnival Cruises takes delivery of the first of three ships with more than 3,000 cabins and a maximum capacity of 8,000 passengers.
In August of this year Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas will start seven-night Caribbean cruises. This ship has twenty (!) decks with water slides, a water park and forty places to eat and drink.
Royal Caribbean will launch Legend of the Seas in 2026 and another Icon Class cruise liner in 2027.
The cruise industry is booming. According to the Cruise Lines International Association more than 37 million passengers are expected to take a cruise this year. In the meantime, 77 new cruise ships will enter the market between now and 2036, according to the global cruise ship order book.
The design of these super cruisers feels like bad news for a destination like St. Maarten that depends heavily of cruise-related revenue. Cruise Critic’s editor-in-chief Colleen McDaniel told Terry Ward: “These ships feel like a destination unto itself.”
Suzanne Salas, an executive vice president for marketing, ecommerce and sales at MSC Cruises notes that people no longer go on a cruise to get to a destination like the Bahamas (or St. Maarten for that matter). “People want to cruise to have innovation, to have bars, to have dining and to have entertainment.”
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