Despite almost a year of cruising being shut down,
last week Viking Cruises made headlines when it ordered a brand new ship. And Viking is not
the only cruise line that's ordering building or accepting new ships... So this week I thought we'd
take a look at why cruise lines are still building new ships, even during the cruising shutdown?
In March last year the cruise lines entered into a voluntary cruise pause, in response to COVID.
Originally the cruise pause was only expected to last about a month or so,
but it's now going to be well and truly over a year with the cruise lines being shut down.
The majority of cruise ships are still laid up waiting to resume passenger services, yet despite
this, ships are still being built and in the case of Viking at least, new ships are being ordered.
So why is this? The very first thing to note is that cruise ships are ordered years in advance
of their delivery. So the cruise ships that are being completed during the cruising shutdown were
ordered years ago. A good example is P&O's newest ship Iona which was recently handed over to P&O
cruisers. But due to the cruising shutdown, is yet to enter service. At a cost of over US$900 million
dollars, building a ship like Iona isn't something that piano does on a whim, but Iona forms a vital
part of P&O's long-term fleet renewal program. The ship was ordered in September of 2016. While the
ship is an excellence-class cruise ship, many of which have been ordered for the various Carnival
Corporation brands the interior is unique to Iona. As such time is spent completing
the interior design and other design work even after the ship is ordered. For a ship which is
'first in class' or a one-off design such as the Queen Mary 2, this process can take a bit longer,
as they work to perfect the dimensions stability and performance of the ship. This means that using
the same design for multiple ships is faster and more cost effective over time... Back to Iona,
the keel was laid down in May of 2019 at the Meyer-Werft Shipyard in Papenburg Germany and this
is when construction commenced on the building of the ship. By February of 2020 Iona was ready to be
floated out which is a pretty quick timeline when you think about it! This is made possible due to
the large amount of prefabrication that's used in constructing cruise ships these days, so while the
keel was laid in May of 2019, a lot of work had already been done creating prefabricated blocks
that made up the construction of the ship. Heavy engineering items, for example, can have long
lead times so things like engines, stabilizers, thrusters, generators and air conditioning units
need to be ordered, built and delivered quite often before the shipyard can start putting the
ship together. By the time a cruise ship is floated out it is relatively complete,
but there's still a lot of work to be done on the interior design of the ship. This means completing
all the interior decor and completion on work connecting plumbing, electrics and
air conditioning. Shipyards have perfected this process and it is done fairly quickly, especially
when you compare it to ships of old. I'll use two of my favorite ships as an example. The QE2's
keel was laid down in July of 1965 and the ship was complete and handed over to Cunard in April
of 1969. Her successor, Queen Mary 2 had her keel laid down in July of 2002 and the ship was handed
over to Cunard in December of 2003. Now, QE2 did have some prefabrication used in its construction,
but by the time Queen Mary 2 was built it was mostly prefabricated blocks that were put together
to create the ship, which greatly increased the speed in which the ship could be built...
So again back to Iona, she was planned to be delivered to P&O in 2020, but due to the pandemic
this hasn't happened yet. But this does give you a pretty good idea as to the time frames needed
between ordering and accepting a new cruise ship. Now of course Iona is not the only ship
to be completed during COVID times, and this is a similar situation that's being experienced with
new cruise ships. Such as Mardi Gras, Celebrity Apex and Enchanted Princess... Actually I made
a video about the ships that were due out in 2020 and 2021 which you can check out in the info card
or the description below. And this brings me to my second point - COVID! COVID has impacted more than
just the cruise lines, with major disruptions being felt across multiple industries. This
includes the shipyards, as well as manufacturers of various components required to build a ship.
With many of the major shipyards in Europe there have been numerous delays with the construction
of cruise ships. Normally this would be bad for cruise lines, but given the cruising shutdown it's
actually in a strange way worked out for them, because there's absolutely no rush to accept
and finish paying for new cruise ships whilst the industry is in shut down. Additionally COVID
has led to some cruise lines delaying their new builds, or tweaking the delivery time frames. This
is not the same as cancelling a build, and in fact given the significant problems caused by COVID,
it's reassuring to see that there aren't mass cancellation of new build cruise ships. Largely
because of those long lead times on building a new cruise ship that I mentioned before, coupled with
the cruise line's general sense that things will rebound once the vaccines are widely accessible.
So now we know how long it takes to build a cruise ship and what kind of impact COVID is having on
those time frames, but you may have noticed at the same time that cruise lines are accepting
and building new ships, they're also retiring and scrapping old ones? This is certainly something
that I've seen mentioned in the comments on my various videos about ships being scrapped.
Firstly, all the new build cruise ships either ready for service or expected in the coming years
have long been part of the plan. Cruise lines were planning for these ships well before COVID
interrupted the cruise industry. At the same time, many of the older ships that we've seen
scrapped in 2020 and 2021 were already flagged to be withdrawn or redeployed over the coming years.
It is true that cruise lines were keeping older cruise ships in service for longer and longer
due to the cruise boom that we experienced prior to COVID, but even before COVID cruise lines were
retiring older cruise ships. If we look at P&O again they sold their much-loved Oriana
after nearly 25 years of service in 2019 in anticipation for Iona joining the fleet in 2020.
That being said there is no denying that the COVID shutdown has brought forward the retirement
of many of these older cruise ships, many of these ships have ended up being scrapped as they are not
enough buyers for second-hand cruise ships during this crisis. So to answer the original question:
Cruise ships are still being built because they were ordered and construction commenced well
before COVID became a problem. They're still being built even while older ships are being scrapped
because cruise lines need new ships for their long-term future, and they're not being cancelled
because there is a strong confidence in the industry rebounding once the pandemic is
brought under control. And just to finish off, and in relation to Viking's brand new order,
well this is an interesting line because Viking operates both ocean cruising and river cruising.
Their newest order for an Egyptian-based river cruise ship reflects the fact that river cruising
is already having an easier time than ocean cruising, thanks largely to the smaller ships,
fewer passengers and limited itineraries that don't - in many cases - need to cross
international borders. This is all working together to make river cruising seem even more
likely to rebound strongly in a post-pandemic world. Thanks so much for watching and i hope
you found the video interesting? If you did please give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe
and hit the notification bell so you don't miss future videos. I'd like to take a moment to thank
Stephen Payne the designer of QM2 for helping me with this video. I'd also like to thank
Andrew Sassoli-Walker (solentphotographer.com) a Southampton based photographer, for his support in
the images used in this video, and I've linked to their websites and social media in the description
below. Of all the cruise ships that were due to come out in 2020 or are expected in 2021 or 2022,
which one are you most excited to travel on? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks once
again for watching and when it is safe for us to set sail again, I hope to see you on board.
[Happy Music]