Joe McConnell
What was probably the most shocking announcement of the night at The Walt Disney Company’s D23 fan event last night in Anaheim, California, did not involve a theme park (although there were tons even those).
We now know, however, that Disney Cruise Line’s recent rapid expansion from operating the same four ships for about 10 years to a total of nine currently in the water or under construction was just the beginning.
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Disney Cruise Line will welcome four more ships to its fleet of five ships currently in service and the four already announced and under construction in the coming years, bringing the fleet size to 13 ships by 2031.
That’s more than triple the number of ships it had at sea for many years, until the Disney Wish launches in June 2022.
Disney announced that while the names and itineraries of the four additional ships just announced are still in development, they will be arriving between 2027 and 2031.
For those keeping track at home, Disney Treasure will set sail for the first time this year as the company’s sixth ship.
Then, in 2025, two more ships will join the fleet. The Disney Destiny will sail from Florida’s Port Everglades. The Disney Adventure, a massive 9,000-person ship that Disney Cruise Line purchased mid-construction from Asia-based Dream Cruises, will sail from Singapore.
And then there is what we thought would be the ninth ship, a Tokyo-based vessel that was announced just a few weeks ago and will begin construction in Germany in 2025 and set sail in 2029.
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But with the newly announced timeline for four additional ships starting in 2027, it appears that at least one of these ships, if not more, will be ready before the previously announced Japan-based ship, which will be created in partnership with Tokyo Disney’s owner Oriental Land Company.
There’s a lot we don’t yet know about these four newly revealed Disney Cruise Line ships, including their size, whether they’ll use a new or existing footprint, and where these additional ships will be based and sail. There are currently a few U.S. ports, like Galveston, that the line only serves during part of the year.
However, Josh D’Amaro, president of Disney Experiences, perhaps gave a hint about the plans for at least some of the ships, saying, “The expansion of our fleet gives more people, in more parts of the world, the opportunity to experience a vacation at sea as only Disney can provide.” Perhaps alluding to the fact that the ships will serve parts of the globe that are new to Disney Cruise Line. For example, the line does not currently sail to or from South America, a market that is important to the company in many ways. In fact, the first D23 fan event to be held in Brazil will take place there in November.
Disney also reported that its current ships are experiencing high demand and satisfaction rates, reaching 97% occupancy in the second quarter of 2024.
For comparison, Royal Caribbean currently has 28 ships. So while 13 ships would still be a significantly smaller fleet for Royal Caribbean, a company that also caters to families, it puts them in a much more similar position in fleet size than when they only had four ships just a couple of years ago.
In a call with investors a few days ago, a Disney executive said that cruise ships tend to “pay for themselves very quickly” and it is clear that Disney is betting big on the sea and its ability to attract “travelers” to its ships for decades to come.
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