Travel Forum / Travel Types / Cruises / February 2006

Queen Mary 2 is a low passenger density ship (high passenger space ratio).
Large ship without a lot of people jam packed.  As a comparison, the new
Carnival ships that are 110 thousand tons hold 3700 people (all berths)
while the QM2 which is almost 149 thousand tons holds only 3090.  And she's
a "one off", or "one of a kind", meaning the design costs can't be spread
over 4-8 or more ships in the fleet.  She's exceedingly expensive, doesn't
hold nearly as many people as smaller ships do, and as such, she needs to
command premium pricing to be as profitable as the older Destiny class
ships.  I remember hearing on TV that Destiny class ships were the most
profitable ships in the entire company... I think it was Micky Arison that
said it.

The fact that I get frequent e-mails advertising special pricing means QM2
probably isn't commanding premium pricing... or at least she's not filling
up at premium pricing.

Royal Caribbean will likely make 5-8 ships in the new size, so the costs to
design the class of ship will be spread over many ships.  And they'll hold
many more people than the QM2.  So chances are they will be highly popular
and highly profitable.

Voyager ships are, in fact, so popular that they DO command premium pricing.
So there is no reason to believe that the new RCI ships won't be even more
popular.

Queen Mary 2 can almost function as a loss leader.  She's the ship that they
make all the TV shows about.  It gets people interested in going on a
cruise... and when they book they fill up all the Carnival, Royal Caribbean
and other ships out there.

I don't think the new RCI ships will be the end of the bigger is better
craze.  But I doubt that you'll see a lot of "one of a kinds" built that
size again.

--Tom