cruise ships full capacity

Major Cruise Companies: Capacity Restart Projections by 2022

• October 4, 2021

Accounting for nearly 90 percent of the current cruise capacity, five major cruise corporations – Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Group, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, MSC Cruises and Genting Cruise Lines, dominate the market.

According to the October 2021 edition of the Cruise Ships in Service Report by Cruise Industry News , the five companies are responsible for nearly 305,000 out of the 350,000 berths set to be in service during the month of October.

As more ships enter service for their brands through the end of the year, the companies will have a large part of their fleets back in service by early 2022.

Here are the latest details, according to data from the 2022 Global Cruise Ship Index  and  2021 Annual Report :

Carnival Corporation

Percentage of the Fleet Capacity in Service by January 1:  64%

Total Ships:  95                                                                               Ships in Service by January 1:  55 Berths in Service by January 1:  162,423

Carnival:  17 ships (or 70% of the fleet) and 54,354 berths Costa:  6 ships (or 45% of the fleet) and 20,676 berths AIDA:  10 ships (or 70% of the fleet) and 26,304 berths Princess:  8 ships (or 70% of the fleet) and 26,270 berths P&O:  4 ships (or 70% of the fleet) and 15,011 berths Holland America:  6 ships (or 55% of the fleet) and 14,070 berths Cunard:  2 ships (or 65% of the fleet) and 4,684 berths Seabourn:  2 ships (or 35% of the fleet) and 1,054 berths P&O Australia:  Resuming service after January 1, 2022

With eight out of nine brands now in service, Carnival Corporation is continuing its staggered return to service globally. 

While 33 vessels are currently in service for the company’s brands , a total of 55 ships are set to be sailing by Jan. 1.

Representing 64 percent of the fleet’s full occupancy, the vessels account for a total of 162,423 berths.

With plans to reactivate 17 vessels of its 24-ship fleet, Carnival Cruise Line should have the most vessels in service by early 2022.

Royal Caribbean Group

Percentage of the Fleet Capacity in Service by January 1:  83%

Total Ships:  61 Ships in Service by January 1:  50 Berths in Service by January 1:  114,358

Royal Caribbean:  21 ships (or 85% of the fleet) and 75,800 berths Celebrity:  11 ships (or 80% of the fleet) and 20,880 berths Silversea:  8 ships (or 80% of the fleet) and 2,764 berths TUI:  5 ships (or 70% of the fleet) and 13,300 berths Hapag-Lloyd:  5 ships (or 100% of the fleet) and 1,614 berths

With its main brand leading the way, Royal Caribbean Group currently has 35 cruise ships back in service around the world.

As more vessels join the active lineup over the next months, the corporation may see 50 of 61 ships sailing with guests by Jan. 1.

With capacity for nearly 115,000 berths at full occupancy, the vessels represent roughly 83 percent of the fleet’s total berths.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings

Percentage of the Fleet Capacity in Service by January 1:  74%

Total Ships:  28 Ships in Service by January 1:  18 Berths in Service by January 1:  43,833

Norwegian:  11 ships (or 65% of the fleet) and 38,400 berths Oceania:  4 ships (or 65% of the fleet) and 3,884 berths Regent:  3 ships (or 60% of the fleet) and 1,549 berths

After a long operational pause, all Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings brands have now resumed service .

Sailing in Europe and North America, the companies are currently operating revenue sailings with eight cruise ships . By Jan. 1, a total of 18 vessels and over 45,000 berths are poised to be back in service around the world.   

The numbers mean that the corporation may have 74 percent of its berths in service by early 2022.

Percentage of the Fleet Capacity in Service by January 1:  93%

Total Ships:  19 Ships in Service by January 1:  17 Berths in Service by January 1:  59,328

MSC Cruises:  17 ships (or 90% of the fleet) and 59,328 berths Explora Journeys: Launching service in 2023

With 12 ships currently sailing with guests , MSC Cruises plans to have most of its 19-ship fleet back in service by Jan. 1.

As five additional vessels welcome passengers back in the coming months, the company may see 59,328 berths or 93 percent of its capacity at full occupancy back in the market by early 2022.

Genting Cruise Lines

Percentage of the Fleet Capacity in Service by January 1:   58%

Total Ships:  10 Ships in Service by January 1:  5 Berths in Service by January 1:  8,992

Dream:  2 ships (or 65% of the fleet) and 6,800 berths Star:  0 ships (or 0% of the fleet) and 0 berths Crystal:  3 ships (or 100% of the fleet) and 2,192 berths

Two of the three Genting Cruise Lines brands are currently back in guest operations , sailing in different destinations.   

Crystal Cruises leads the way with its entire three-ship fleet in service offering luxury cruises in Europe and North America.

Dream Cruises was one of the first major cruise brands to resume revenue services and presently has two vessels sailing in Asia.

Together, the two brands currently have 8,992 berths back in service, which represents 58 percent of Genting’s fleet capacity at 100 percent occupancy.

Cruise Industry News Email Alerts

• Breaking News

Get the latest breaking  cruise news .  Sign up.

54 Ships | 122,002 Berths | $36 Billion | View

Highlights:

• Mkt. Overview
• Record Year
• Refit Schedule
• PDF Download
• Order Today

• 2033 Industry Outlook 
• All Operators
• Easy to Use
• Pre-Order Offer
• Advertising
• Cruise News
• Magazine Articles
• Quarterly Magazine
• Annual Report
• Email Newsletter
• Executive Guide
• Digital Reports

Privacy Overview

• CruiseMapper
• Ships and Lines

Cruise Ship Size Comparison, Dimensions

Compare cruise ship sizes by length, weight (tonnage), height, width/beam. Review cruise ship dimensions in both meters and feet, and FAQ information, definitions.

Cruise ship size comparison

In our huge table below there's a list of all most famous, ever best passenger cruise ships sorted by name. This survey also offers smaller cruise ships size comparison of top luxury all-inclusive vessels with gross tonnage even lesser than 5,000 GT. Now the list of all ship sizes related and integrated articles:

• passenger capacity of cruise ships
• cruise ships cost
• newest cruise ships (on order/under construction)
• list of the biggest cruise ships of the world
• world's largest cruiseship building companies
• cruise line companies list

Length of a cruise ship (Length Overall / LOA)

The cruise ship length is professionally referred to as LOA (length overall), meaning the maximum length between the two most distant points on its hull. LOA may also include the tip of the bowsprit - the pole extending from the ship's prow (usually on tall sailing ships, yachts, and smaller boats). The bowsprit is the "winning" part of the ship when competing in a race or during trials/speed tests.

Another passenger cruise ship length measuring (though not included in this survey) is called LWL. LWL signifies "loaded waterline length" (or just "waterline length"). It excludes the total length, denoting only the length at the point where the vessel sits in the water. The LWL measure plays an important role when assessing some ship properties, like "hull speed" (aka "displacement speed"), water displacement, the amount of paint needed for the ship's bottom, etc.

Longest cruise ship in the world

The longest cruise ships by size also occupy the first two positions in the list of the largest cruise ships of the world by passenger capacity and gross tonnage. The humongous Royal Caribbean's floating cities Allure and Oasis boast the whole 360 meters in length (1,181 ft), and breadth of 47 meters (154 ft), the unbelievable for a passenger cruise ship tonnage of 225,300 tons, and max crew-passenger capacity of almost 8,500 (2,170+6,300) - each!

Weight of a cruise ship (tonnage) and draft

The size (tonnage weight) of a cruise ship is measured in "gross tonnage" (GT). It relates to the vessel's internal volume (keel to funnel* and to the outside of the hull) and applying a mathematical formula. The cruise ship tonnage is generally used for determining registration fees, port fees, safety rules, regulations. Another ship data (though not included in this survey) is the vessel's "deadweight tonnage" (DWT), which is the weight a vessel can safely carry (cargo, passengers, etc).

The cruise ship draft (or draught) measures the number of meters/feet from the waterline to the lowest point of the keel - or the ship's "invisible" portion below the surface (and especially when loaded). The cruise ship's draft is very important when considering docking in a particular port, sailing through channels or the inland waterways of the continents (rivers and canals).

*Note: Actually, the ship's funnel is the only part of the enclosed interior space that is NOT included in its Gross Tonnage measurement.

Cruise ship weight

As one of our fans Mr John Spooner (cruiser / Retired Master Mariner) have pointed out, the "Gross Tonnage" weight is a measurement of VOLUME, and not of MASS. GT  is an index related to marine vessels' overall internal volume. According to Wikipedia's definition:

• "Gross Tonnage" (GT) calculations are based on the volume of all the ship's enclosed spaces.
• "Gross Register Tonnage" (GRT) is the vessel's total internal volume measured in "register tons" (each ton equals 100 ft3 / 2,83 m3).
• Neither GT nor GTR measures the vessel's displacement (mass), but really show how big cruise ships are.
• "Deadweight Tonnage" (DWT) measures how much weight a cruise ship (or any of the marine vessel types) can carry safely. This a weighted sum of the vessel's cargo (incl provisions, passengers, crew), fuel, water (fresh and ballast), etc.
• "Displacement Tonnage" is how much weight the water that a cruise ship (any vessel) displaces when floating (the total weight of the ship / including its contents). Displacement is usually applied to the navy rather than commercial marine vessels. It is measured when the ship is loaded at full capacity.

Compare cruise ship sizes

Winter is here! Check out the winter wonderlands at these 5 amazing winter destinations in Montana

• Plan Your Trip

How To Find Out How Full A Cruise Ship Is

Published: December 9, 2023

Modified: December 28, 2023

by Kaylil Cobbs

• Travel Guide
• Travel Tips

Introduction

Planning a cruise can be an exciting adventure filled with anticipation of the experiences and destinations that await you. One of the factors that can greatly impact your cruise experience is the level of occupancy on the ship. Knowing how full a cruise ship is can help you make informed decisions about your travel plans, such as choosing the right time to book or selecting a cruise line that aligns with your preferences.

However, finding out how full a cruise ship is can sometimes be a challenging task. While cruise lines may not openly disclose their occupancy rates, there are several methods and resources available that can provide you with valuable insights. In this article, we will explore some effective ways to find out how full a cruise ship is, allowing you to make informed decisions for your next cruise adventure.

By utilizing these strategies, you can gain an understanding of the occupancy levels on a cruise ship and make decisions that optimize your experience. So, let’s dive in and discover how you can uncover this valuable information!

Step 1: Check the cruise line’s website

One of the first places to start your search for information about the occupancy level of a cruise ship is the official website of the cruise line you are interested in. Cruise lines often provide details about their ships, including the capacity and the availability of cabins.

Visit the cruise line’s website and navigate to the section that provides information about their fleet or specific ships. Look for details such as the number of cabins, the maximum capacity of passengers, and any available indicators of availability, such as sold-out sailings or limited availability for certain itineraries.

Some cruise lines may even provide real-time updates on the availability of cabins or upcoming sailings. This can give you an idea of how full a particular cruise might be. Keep in mind, though, that the information provided on the cruise line’s website is often a general overview and may not reveal the exact occupancy level.

If the website does not provide specific information about occupancy levels, you can still gather valuable insights. Look for any promotional offers or discounts that are being advertised. If a cruise line is offering significant discounts for a specific sailing, it could indicate that the ship is not fully booked.

Additionally, some cruise lines offer the option to select cabins during the booking process. If you notice that there are many available cabins across different categories, it can be an indication that the ship is not yet at full capacity.

Remember to check the cruise line’s website regularly, as availability can change rapidly due to cancellations or last-minute bookings. By keeping an eye on updates, you can stay informed about the occupancy levels and make decisions accordingly.

Step 2: Contact the cruise line directly

If you want to get the most accurate and up-to-date information about the occupancy level of a cruise ship, it is often best to reach out to the cruise line directly. Contacting the cruise line’s customer service or reservations department can provide you with valuable insights regarding the availability of cabins and the overall occupancy rate of the ship.

Start by checking the cruise line’s website for contact information. Look for a phone number or email address that you can use to reach out to them. Be prepared with specific questions about the current occupancy level, as well as any desired sailings or itineraries you have in mind.

When speaking with a representative from the cruise line, explain your interest in knowing how full the ship is and ask if they can provide you with any information or insights. While they may not disclose exact occupancy numbers, they can often give you a general sense of the availability or suggest alternative sailings if your preferred dates are already heavily booked.

Remember to be polite and courteous when contacting the cruise line. Customer service representatives are there to assist you, and being respectful can go a long way in obtaining helpful information. Be prepared for the possibility that some cruise lines may not provide specific details about occupancy levels, as this information is not always publicly shared.

Even if the cruise line cannot provide you with exact information, they may be able to offer other helpful details that can assist you in gauging the occupancy level. For example, they may be able to tell you how quickly certain sailings have been filling up or provide insights on past booking trends.

By reaching out to the cruise line directly, you can gain insights that may not be readily available through other sources. This direct communication can help you make more informed decisions regarding your cruise plans and ensure that you have a memorable and enjoyable experience onboard.

Step 3: Use third-party websites and apps

In addition to checking the cruise line’s website and contacting them directly, utilizing third-party websites and apps can also help you gather valuable information on the occupancy level of a cruise ship. These platforms aggregate data from various sources, providing you with insights into availability and occupancy rates.

Start by exploring popular online travel agencies or booking platforms. These websites often display the availability of cabins and can indicate the level of occupancy for specific sailings. Look for indicators such as limited availability, close to sold-out, or discounts for certain sailings. While this information might not give you exact occupancy numbers, it can give you a sense of how full the ship might be at a given time.

There are also dedicated cruise websites and apps that provide data on occupancy rates. These platforms use algorithms to estimate the percentage of cabins that are booked or available on a particular cruise. While these estimates may not always be 100% accurate, they can still give you a rough idea of the ship’s occupancy level.

Some of these websites and apps even provide historical data or trends, allowing you to see how full a ship typically is during different times of the year or for specific itineraries. This can help you make informed decisions when planning your cruise.

When using third-party websites and apps, be sure to compare information from different sources to get a more comprehensive understanding of the occupancy level. Keep in mind that availability and occupancy rates can change rapidly, so check regularly for the most up-to-date information.

By utilizing third-party websites and apps, you can access a pool of data and insights from multiple sources, giving you a broader view of the occupancy level of a cruise ship. This information can help you make informed decisions and plan your cruise experience accordingly.

Step 4: Check social media and online forums

Social media platforms and online forums can be valuable resources for finding information about the occupancy level of a cruise ship. Many cruise enthusiasts and travelers share their experiences, including details about how full or crowded a particular sailing was.

Start by searching for cruise-related groups or forums on platforms like Facebook, Reddit, or Cruise Critic. These communities are filled with individuals who have firsthand knowledge of different cruise ships and can provide insights into the occupancy levels of specific sailings.

In these online communities, you can find discussions, reviews, and trip reports from people who have recently been on the cruise you are interested in. Look for keywords such as “crowded,” “busy,” or “full” to get an idea of the ship’s occupancy level.

Similarly, check the cruise line’s official social media accounts. They often provide updates and interact with their followers, who may share their experiences and observations about how full the ship was during their trip.

Keep in mind that the information shared on social media and online forums is based on individual experiences and opinions, so it may not be entirely accurate or representative of every sailing. However, these platforms provide a valuable insight into the overall sentiment and experiences of past passengers.

Engage in the conversation by posting questions or comments about the occupancy level of the cruise ship you are interested in. Many enthusiastic cruisers are happy to share their knowledge and help fellow travelers make informed decisions.

By checking social media and online forums, you can tap into a community of cruise enthusiasts who can provide you with valuable insights and real-world experiences regarding the occupancy level of a cruise ship. This information can help you set realistic expectations and plan your cruise accordingly.

Step 5: Consult travel agents or online booking sites

Travel agents and online booking sites can be excellent resources for finding information about the occupancy level of a cruise ship. These professionals have access to various tools and data sources that can provide valuable insights into the availability of cabins and the overall occupancy rate.

If you prefer to work with a travel agent, reach out to them and inquire about the occupancy level of the cruise ship you are interested in. Experienced travel agents often have direct communication channels with cruise lines and can provide you with up-to-date information on availability and occupancy rates.

Travel agents also have access to booking systems and databases that can indicate the availability of cabins for specific sailings. They can check availability in real-time and provide you with insights into how full or crowded a ship might be for your desired dates.

If you prefer the convenience of online booking, utilize reputable online travel agencies or booking sites. These platforms often display the availability of cabins and may even provide indicators of limited availability or sold-out sailings. By browsing through different sites and comparing the information they provide, you can get a better understanding of the occupancy level of a cruise ship.

When consulting travel agents or using online booking sites, be sure to ask specific questions about the occupancy level and any available data or insights they can provide. The more information you can gather, the better equipped you will be to make informed decisions about your cruise plans.

Keep in mind that availability and occupancy rates can fluctuate, so it’s important to stay updated and check regularly for any changes. Both travel agents and online booking sites can provide you with the latest information and help you navigate through the available options to find the best cruise experience for you.

By consulting travel agents or utilizing online booking sites, you can tap into their expertise and access valuable data to determine the occupancy level of a cruise ship. This information can guide your decision-making process and ensure a smooth and enjoyable cruise adventure.

Step 6: Consider booking during off-peak times

If knowing the occupancy level of a cruise ship is a significant factor for you, considering booking during off-peak times can increase your chances of finding a less crowded experience. Off-peak seasons typically have lower demand, which can result in lower occupancy rates and a more spacious and relaxed atmosphere onboard.

Off-peak times vary depending on the destination and cruise line, but they generally include periods outside of popular vacation seasons, major holidays, and school breaks. This may include shoulder seasons (just before or after peak seasons) or less popular travel months.

Booking during off-peak times not only increases the likelihood of a less crowded ship, but it may also come with other benefits such as lower prices, discounts, and promotions. Cruise lines often offer attractive deals to fill cabins during these periods, making it a win-win situation for budget-conscious travelers.

When considering off-peak times, keep in mind that it is essential to research and understand the potential impact on weather conditions, itineraries, and available shore excursions. Some destinations may have their own peak and off-peak seasons based on climate or cultural events.

By booking during off-peak times, you can increase your chances of enjoying a more relaxed and spacious cruise experience while potentially saving money. However, it is always advisable to weigh the pros and cons and consider your personal preferences and travel goals when making your decision.

Remember to plan ahead and book early to secure your preferred sailings during off-peak times, as availability may still be limited. Consulting with travel agents or utilizing online booking sites can help you navigate the options and find the best deals for your desired travel dates.

Ultimately, choosing to book during off-peak times can be a strategic way to enhance your cruise experience by avoiding crowds and enjoying a more tranquil and leisurely voyage.

Knowing how full a cruise ship is can greatly impact your overall cruise experience. By utilizing various strategies and resources, you can gather valuable insights into the occupancy level of a cruise ship and make informed decisions for your next voyage.

Start by checking the cruise line’s website for information on cabin availability, promotions, and discounts. Contacting the cruise line directly can provide you with personalized information and insights from their representatives.

Utilizing third-party websites and apps can give you a broader view of the occupancy level by aggregating data and estimating availability. Exploring social media and online forums can provide you with real-world experiences and observations from fellow cruisers.

Consulting with travel agents or using online booking sites can give you access to expert knowledge and up-to-date information on cabin availability and occupancy rates. Finally, considering booking during off-peak times can increase your chances of finding a less crowded ship.

Combine these strategies and resources to gain a comprehensive understanding of the occupancy level of a cruise ship. This knowledge will enable you to plan and book your cruise with confidence, ensuring a memorable and enjoyable experience.

Remember to regularly check for updates, as availability and occupancy rates can change rapidly. Keep your travel goals, personal preferences, and budget in mind when making your decision.

With the right information and insights, you can set sail on your dream cruise adventure, knowing the occupancy level of your chosen ship and enjoying a well-planned and unforgettable journey.

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Carnival Ships by Size [2023] with Comparison Chart

Below you'll find a complete list of Carnival Ships by Size . From the cruise line's oldest ship (Carnival Sunshine) to their newest planned 2023 cruise ship, the Carnival Jubilee.

You'll find a massive difference between Carnival's smallet and the largest ship in their fleet. Scroll to the bottom of our sizing chart. You'll find that earlier ships were less than half the size of today's largest Carnival ships. To say, "my how you've grown" would be an understatement.

The drastic change in size can also be measured by "passenger count." Max capacity spans a range from 2,600 guests to over 6,600 passengers for Carnival's largest cruise ship, the Carnival Celebration.

First, we have to clear something up. We're measuring Carnival ships size by the metric, "Gross Tonnage." This always causes a bit of confusion amongst our community members. It's not simply "weight" that determines this size measurement. The definition is technical and boring, but we'll provide it anyway.

We told you it was boring! So why do we use this measurement to determine Carnival Ships Size? As noted above, it's used for safety rules and whatnot. As such, it's prevalent. Every passenger cruise ship will have this measurement . That makes it easy to compare ship size across ship, class, line and more. We've also used it to compare across cruise lines to bring you the list of the largest cruise ships in the world . Ok, we're done with today's maritime measurement course. Here's the good stuff.

Carnival Ships by Size (Largest to Smallest)

Click above to  pin this Carnival Cruise Ships by Size Infograph to your cruise planning board , so you can refer back to it when choosing your next ship!

That's every Carnival Cruise Ship currently active in their fleet, along with a couple newer ships coming down the pipeline. You can see the vast difference in ship size . This is particularly dramatic when looking at Carnival's newest planned ship, the Carnival Celebration! Here's a visual representation showing the smallest of the fleet vs this new behemoth.

The experience on these two ships will be completely different! On the Carnival Celebration, you'll be lucky to experience half of the venues on this largest, active Carnival cruise ship. Whereas the smaller ships offer a more quaint and personal experience.

In just a day or two, you'll have your bearings and likely a fixed routine on these ships. Which is better ? That's all going to depend on personal preferences! Some say "size matters." Others say, it's the "motion in the ocean" that is more important. We'll let you decide!

We've create a new post to see how these ships rank on a global scale. Carnival has a showing (albeit small) on the list of the 20 Largest Cruise Ships in the World ! Click to find out which vessels made it and where it ranks. There we also analyze Carnival's average ship size versus all other lines!

Often we're asked if size affects price. The cost of a Carnival cruise isn't directly correlated with size. You won't find that the bigger the ship, the more the cost. Nor will you find the opposite. You won't necessarily pay less for the largest Carnival ship vs the smallest. It will all depend on the specific itinerary. To get a sense of pricing, please use our widget below.

Now on to sizing. To find your specific Carnival Cruise ship, feel free to use our menu below. Clicking on any will let you quickly jump to that ship's stats.

Click on any for quick access to ship stats for that vessel.

• 1) Carnival Celebration
• 2) Carnival Jubilee
• 3) Carnival Mardi Gras
• 4) Carnival Venezia
• 5) Carnival Panorama
• 6) Carnival Horizon
• 7) Carnival Vista
• 8) Carnival Breeze
• 9) Carnival Magic
• 10) Carnival Dream
• 11) Carnival Splendor
• 12) Carnival Conquest
• 13) Carnival Glory
• 14) Carnival Liberty
• 15) Carnival Valor
• 16) Carnival Freedom
• 17) Carnival Sunshine
• 18) Carnival Radiance
• 19) Carnival Sunrise
• 20) Carnival Luminosa
• 21) Carnival Miracle
• 22) Carnival Pride
• 23) Carnival Legend
• 24) Carnival Spirit
• 25) Carnival Elation
• 26) Carnival Paradise

Below we've listed all Carnival Ships by size, including a bit more info. You'll find a bunch of very helpful sizing metrics, including tonnage, length, capacity, speed, cost, cabins and much more!

1) Carnival Celebration Size

The Carnival Celebration has a construction date of 2022 and a total size of 183,521 gross tons. The ship measures 1,130 feet (344 meters) in length and falls in line as number 1 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s XL Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Celebration holds 8,375 passengers. That includes 6,630 cruise vacationers and 1,745 staff members. The Carnival Celebration total number of staterooms is 2,641.

• Gross Tonnage : 183,521 GT
• Ship Length : 1,130 feet (344 meters)
• Beam : 137 feet (42 meters)
• Draft : 28 feet (9 meters)
• Max Speed : 26 mph (23 knots)
• Year Built : 2022
• Ship Class : XL
• Capacity : 6,630 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,745
• Total on Board : 8,375
• Total Staterooms : 2,641
• Passenger Decks : 17
• Flagged Country : Panama
• Ship Cost : $1,000 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Celebration age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Celebration Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

2) Carnival Jubilee Size

The Carnival Jubilee has a construction date of 2023 and a total size of 183,521 gross tons. The ship measures 1,130 feet (344 meters) in length and falls in line as number 2 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s XL Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Jubilee holds 8,365 passengers. That includes 6,630 cruise vacationers and 1,735 staff members. The Carnival Jubilee total number of staterooms is 2,641.

• Beam : 138 feet (42 meters)
• Year Built : 2023
• Crew Members : 1,735
• Total on Board : 8,365
• Passenger Decks : 12
• Flagged Country : Bahamas
• Ship Cost : $950 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Jubilee age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Jubilee Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

3) Carnival Mardi Gras Size

The Carnival Mardi Gras has a construction date of 2020 and a total size of 180,800 gross tons. The ship measures 1,130 feet (344 meters) in length and falls in line as number 3 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s XL Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Mardi Gras holds 8,375 passengers. That includes 6,630 cruise vacationers and 1,745 staff members. The Carnival Mardi Gras total number of staterooms is 2,641.

• Gross Tonnage : 180,800 GT
• Year Built : 2020

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Mardi Gras age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Mardi Gras Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

4) Carnival Venezia Size

The Carnival Venezia has a construction date of 2019 and a total size of 135,500 gross tons. The ship measures 1,060 feet (323 meters) in length and falls in line as number 4 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Vista Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Venezia holds 6,538 passengers. That includes 5,260 cruise vacationers and 1,278 staff members. The Carnival Venezia total number of staterooms is 2,116.

• Gross Tonnage : 135,500 GT
• Ship Length : 1,060 feet (323 meters)
• Beam : 122 feet (37 meters)
• Max Speed : 21 mph (18 knots)
• Year Built : 2019
• Ship Class : Vista
• Capacity : 5,260 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,278
• Total on Board : 6,538
• Total Staterooms : 2,116
• Passenger Decks : 14
• Flagged Country : Italy
• Ship Cost : $780 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Venezia age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Venezia Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

5) Carnival Panorama Size

The Carnival Panorama has a construction date of 2019 and a total size of 135,500 gross tons. The ship measures 1,055 feet (322 meters) in length and falls in line as number 5 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Vista Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Panorama holds 6,596 passengers. That includes 5,146 cruise vacationers and 1,450 staff members. The Carnival Panorama total number of staterooms is 1,823.

• Ship Length : 1,055 feet (322 meters)
• Draft : 27 feet (8 meters)
• Capacity : 5,146 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,450
• Total on Board : 6,596
• Total Staterooms : 1,823
• Passenger Decks : 15

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Panorama age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Panorama Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

6) Carnival Horizon Size

The Carnival Horizon has a construction date of 2018 and a total size of 133,500 gross tons. The ship measures 1,055 feet (322 meters) in length and falls in line as number 6 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Vista Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Horizon holds 6,427 passengers. That includes 4,977 cruise vacationers and 1,450 staff members. The Carnival Horizon total number of staterooms is 1,967.

• Gross Tonnage : 133,500 GT
• Year Built : 2018
• Capacity : 4,977 passengers
• Total on Board : 6,427
• Total Staterooms : 1,967
• Ship Cost : $800 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Horizon age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Horizon Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

7) Carnival Vista Size

The Carnival Vista has a construction date of 2016 and a total size of 133,500 gross tons. The ship measures 1,055 feet (322 meters) in length and falls in line as number 7 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Vista Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Vista holds 6,427 passengers. That includes 4,977 cruise vacationers and 1,450 staff members. The Carnival Vista total number of staterooms is 1,967.

• Year Built : 2016

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Vista age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Vista Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

8) Carnival Breeze Size

The Carnival Breeze has a construction date of 2012 and a total size of 130,000 gross tons. The ship measures 1,004 feet (306 meters) in length and falls in line as number 8 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Dream Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Breeze holds 6,110 passengers. That includes 4,724 cruise vacationers and 1,386 staff members. The Carnival Breeze total number of staterooms is 1,845.

• Gross Tonnage : 130,000 GT
• Ship Length : 1,004 feet (306 meters)
• Year Built : 2012
• Ship Class : Dream
• Capacity : 4,724 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,386
• Total on Board : 6,110
• Total Staterooms : 1,845
• Ship Cost : $740 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Breeze age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Breeze Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

9) Carnival Magic Size

The Carnival Magic has a construction date of 2011 and a total size of 130,000 gross tons. The ship measures 1,004 feet (306 meters) in length and falls in line as number 9 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Dream Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Magic holds 6,110 passengers. That includes 4,724 cruise vacationers and 1,386 staff members. The Carnival Magic total number of staterooms is 1,845.

• Year Built : 2011

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Magic age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Magic Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

10) Carnival Dream Size

The Carnival Dream has a construction date of 2009 and a total size of 130,000 gross tons. The ship measures 1,004 feet (306 meters) in length and falls in line as number 10 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Dream Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Dream holds 5,998 passengers. That includes 4,631 cruise vacationers and 1,367 staff members. The Carnival Dream total number of staterooms is 1,823.

• Year Built : 2009
• Capacity : 4,631 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,367
• Total on Board : 5,998
• Passenger Decks : 13

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Dream age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Dream Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

11) Carnival Splendor Size

The Carnival Splendor has a construction date of 2008 and a total size of 113,300 gross tons. The ship measures 952 feet (290 meters) in length and falls in line as number 11 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Splendor Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Splendor holds 4,884 passengers. That includes 3,734 cruise vacationers and 1,150 staff members. The Carnival Splendor total number of staterooms is 1,506.

• Gross Tonnage : 113,300 GT
• Ship Length : 952 feet (290 meters)
• Beam : 116 feet (35 meters)
• Max Speed : 25 mph (22 knots)
• Year Built : 2008
• Ship Class : Splendor
• Capacity : 3,734 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,150
• Total on Board : 4,884
• Total Staterooms : 1,506
• Flagged Country : Malta
• Ship Cost : $700 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Splendor age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Splendor Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

12) Carnival Conquest Size

The Carnival Conquest has a construction date of 2002 and a total size of 110,000 gross tons. The ship measures 953 feet (290 meters) in length and falls in line as number 12 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Conquest Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Conquest holds 4,906 passengers. That includes 3,756 cruise vacationers and 1,150 staff members. The Carnival Conquest total number of staterooms is 1,487.

• Gross Tonnage : 110,000 GT
• Ship Length : 953 feet (290 meters)
• Year Built : 2002
• Ship Class : Conquest
• Capacity : 3,756 passengers
• Total on Board : 4,906
• Total Staterooms : 1,487
• Ship Cost : $500 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Conquest age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Conquest Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

13) Carnival Glory Size

The Carnival Glory has a construction date of 2003 and a total size of 110,000 gross tons. The ship measures 952 feet (290 meters) in length and falls in line as number 13 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Conquest Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Glory holds 4,906 passengers. That includes 3,756 cruise vacationers and 1,150 staff members. The Carnival Glory total number of staterooms is 1,485.

• Year Built : 2003
• Total Staterooms : 1,485

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Glory age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Glory Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

14) Carnival Liberty Size

The Carnival Liberty has a construction date of 2005 and a total size of 110,000 gross tons. The ship measures 952 feet (290 meters) in length and falls in line as number 14 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Conquest Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Liberty holds 4,916 passengers. That includes 3,756 cruise vacationers and 1,160 staff members. The Carnival Liberty total number of staterooms is 1,487.

• Year Built : 2005
• Crew Members : 1,160
• Total on Board : 4,916

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Liberty age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Liberty Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

15) Carnival Valor Size

The Carnival Valor has a construction date of 2004 and a total size of 110,000 gross tons. The ship measures 952 feet (290 meters) in length and falls in line as number 15 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Conquest Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Valor holds 4,936 passengers. That includes 3,756 cruise vacationers and 1,180 staff members. The Carnival Valor total number of staterooms is 1,490.

• Year Built : 2004
• Crew Members : 1,180
• Total on Board : 4,936
• Total Staterooms : 1,490

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Valor age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Valor Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

16) Carnival Freedom Size

The Carnival Freedom has a construction date of 2007 and a total size of 110,000 gross tons. The ship measures 952 feet (290 meters) in length and falls in line as number 16 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Conquest Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Freedom holds 4,904 passengers. That includes 3,754 cruise vacationers and 1,150 staff members. The Carnival Freedom total number of staterooms is 1,490.

• Year Built : 2007
• Capacity : 3,754 passengers
• Total on Board : 4,904

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Freedom age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Freedom Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

17) Carnival Sunshine Size

The Carnival Sunshine has a construction date of 1996 and a total size of 102,853 gross tons. The ship measures 893 feet (272 meters) in length and falls in line as number 17 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Sunshine Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Sunshine holds 4,152 passengers. That includes 3,002 cruise vacationers and 1,150 staff members. The Carnival Sunshine total number of staterooms is 1,321.

• Gross Tonnage : 102,853 GT
• Ship Length : 893 feet (272 meters)
• Beam : 125 feet (38 meters)
• Max Speed : 24 mph (21 knots)
• Year Built : 1996
• Ship Class : Sunshine
• Capacity : 3,002 passengers
• Total on Board : 4,152
• Total Staterooms : 1,321
• Ship Cost : $400 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Sunshine age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Sunshine Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

18) Carnival Radiance Size

The Carnival Radiance has a construction date of 2000 and a total size of 101,509 gross tons. The ship measures 893 feet (272 meters) in length and falls in line as number 18 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Sunshine Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Radiance holds 4,981 passengers. That includes 3,873 cruise vacationers and 1,108 staff members. The Carnival Radiance total number of staterooms is 1,492.

• Gross Tonnage : 101,509 GT
• Year Built : 2000
• Capacity : 3,873 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,108
• Total on Board : 4,981
• Total Staterooms : 1,492
• Ship Cost : $410 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Radiance age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Radiance Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

19) Carnival Sunrise Size

The Carnival Sunrise has a construction date of 1999 and a total size of 101,509 gross tons. The ship measures 893 feet (272 meters) in length and falls in line as number 19 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Sunshine Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Sunrise holds 4,981 passengers. That includes 3,873 cruise vacationers and 1,108 staff members. The Carnival Sunrise total number of staterooms is 1,492.

• Year Built : 1999
• Ship Cost : $420 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Sunrise age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Sunrise Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

20) Carnival Luminosa Size

The Carnival Luminosa has a construction date of 2009 and a total size of 92,720 gross tons. The ship measures 963 feet (294 meters) in length and falls in line as number 20 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Luminosa Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Luminosa holds 3,876 passengers. That includes 2,826 cruise vacationers and 1,050 staff members. The Carnival Luminosa total number of staterooms is 1,130.

• Gross Tonnage : 92,720 GT
• Ship Length : 963 feet (294 meters)
• Beam : 106 feet (32 meters)
• Draft : 26 feet (8 meters)
• Ship Class : Luminosa
• Capacity : 2,826 passengers
• Crew Members : 1,050
• Total on Board : 3,876
• Total Staterooms : 1,130
• Ship Cost : $550 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Luminosa age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Luminosa Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

21) Carnival Miracle Size

The Carnival Miracle has a construction date of 2004 and a total size of 88,500 gross tons. The ship measures 963 feet (294 meters) in length and falls in line as number 21 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Spirit Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Miracle holds 3,590 passengers. That includes 2,680 cruise vacationers and 910 staff members. The Carnival Miracle total number of staterooms is 1,062.

• Gross Tonnage : 88,500 GT
• Ship Class : Spirit
• Capacity : 2,680 passengers
• Crew Members : 910
• Total on Board : 3,590
• Total Staterooms : 1,062
• Ship Cost : $375 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Miracle age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Miracle Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

22) Carnival Pride Size

The Carnival Pride has a construction date of 2002 and a total size of 88,500 gross tons. The ship measures 963 feet (294 meters) in length and falls in line as number 22 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Spirit Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Pride holds 3,590 passengers. That includes 2,680 cruise vacationers and 910 staff members. The Carnival Pride total number of staterooms is 1,062.

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Pride age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Pride Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

23) Carnival Legend Size

The Carnival Legend has a construction date of 2002 and a total size of 88,500 gross tons. The ship measures 963 feet (294 meters) in length and falls in line as number 23 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Spirit Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Legend holds 3,540 passengers. That includes 2,610 cruise vacationers and 930 staff members. The Carnival Legend total number of staterooms is 1,062.

• Capacity : 2,610 passengers
• Crew Members : 930
• Total on Board : 3,540

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Legend age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Legend Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

24) Carnival Spirit Size

The Carnival Spirit has a construction date of 2001 and a total size of 88,500 gross tons. The ship measures 963 feet (294 meters) in length and falls in line as number 24 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Spirit Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Spirit holds 3,540 passengers. That includes 2,610 cruise vacationers and 930 staff members. The Carnival Spirit total number of staterooms is 1,062.

• Year Built : 2001

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Spirit age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Spirit Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

25) Carnival Elation Size

The Carnival Elation has a construction date of 1998 and a total size of 70,367 gross tons. The ship measures 855 feet (261 meters) in length and falls in line as number 25 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Fantasy Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Elation holds 3,526 passengers. That includes 2,606 cruise vacationers and 920 staff members. The Carnival Elation total number of staterooms is 1,026.

• Gross Tonnage : 70,367 GT
• Ship Length : 855 feet (261 meters)
• Beam : 103 feet (31 meters)
• Year Built : 1998
• Ship Class : Fantasy
• Capacity : 2,606 passengers
• Crew Members : 920
• Total on Board : 3,526
• Total Staterooms : 1,026
• Passenger Decks : 10
• Ship Cost : $300 Million

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Elation age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Elation Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

26) Carnival Paradise Size

The Carnival Paradise has a construction date of 1998 and a total size of 70,367 gross tons. The ship measures 855 feet (261 meters) in length and falls in line as number 26 among Carnival's 26 active cruise ships. It’s included in Carnival’s Fantasy Class. At full capacity, the Carnival Paradise holds 3,526 passengers. That includes 2,606 cruise vacationers and 920 staff members. The Carnival Paradise total number of staterooms is 1,026.

To see how this compares, click through to see Carnival Paradise age and stats vs all Carnival ships. There you’ll find graphs showing length, capacity, tonnage and more for this ship vs all in the fleet.

Also check out the Carnival Paradise Deck Plans . You’ll find detailed floorplans as well as a full list of Things to Do on the ship.

Carnival Cruise Ships by Size FAQs

We're constantly asked about Carnival's ships and size statistics. Here are the most frequently asked questions for your convenience!

Which Carnival cruise ship is the biggest? The largest active vessel in Carnival's fleet is the Carnival Celebration. She weighs in at 183,521 gross tons. However, the Celebration will soon share this title with the planned Carnival Jubilee. The sister ship will be completed in 2023.

Which Carnival cruise ship is the smallest? Carnival's smallest, active cruise ship is the Carnival Paradise with a gross tonnage measuring 70,367. The smallest ship that has sailed with the cruise line was significantly smaller. The original Carnival Mardi Gras (built in 1961) was 1/3rd the size, at 18,261 GT.

How big is a Carnival cruise ship? Carnival's fleet varies in size as seen from our chart. The smallest, active ship holds 3,526 total passengers (including staff) and measures 855 feet in length. The Carnival Celebration, in comparison, holds 8,375 passengers and spans 1,130 feet in length. For reference, the Eiffel Tower is roughly 900 feet high!

We hope that the above list of Carnival Ships by size help you to find your ideal cruise.

If you enjoyed this, feel free to check out our post, Carnival Ships by Class .

If you enjoyed this post, please use the buttons below to share this post with your favorite Carnival Cruise Community!

Gangwaze is your one-stop destination for shore tours, pre-cruise hotels, transfers, vacation insurance & more. We’ve partnered with industry leaders to bring you the best deals and the most convenience.

We love hearing from you. Email us directly or holler through socials.

• Ask a Cruise Question

What does "capacity" really mean?

By Kellyann , August 29, 2019 in Ask a Cruise Question

Recommended Posts

Silly me but I really thought that when the "capacity" is listed for a ship, it means the maximum number of passengers allowed.  With that silly thought I booked the CCL Sunrise (2984) thinking that it was smaller than maybe the NCL Breakaway (4028) by more than a 1000 people.  It's been posted many times on this board that if 3 & 4 are assigned in a room that the number can mushroom to almost 3900 from 2984 to start.  If this is the case and capacity means not exactly, then how could one ever be successful in trying to book a smaller capacity ship?  Could there be more than 5000 on a ship like the Breakaway?  Not looking for snarky remarks, just trying to make better and more knowledgeable decisions in the future.

Link to comment

Share on other sites.

i am pretty sure that capacity is listed based on full double occupancy.  plus on certain ships the single rooms.  so all ships full capacity can be higher.

VentureMan_2000

Cruise ship capacity.

The "full" cruise ship passenger capacity is based on double occupancy (2 guests per cabin). The cabin's capacity varies according to stateroom's type, category, and also by line and ship. 

Max (largest) passenger capacity of a cruise ship is when all the berths, plus all upper and lower bunks, "Pullman" beds and single and double sofa beds (available in types and numbers according to the ship's cabin grades) are all occupied by the most numerous crowd the ship can ever gather on board.  

Sunrises MAX capacity is 3873.

However, on most of the sailings, even the full-ship capacity (at double occupancy level) is not reached.  

There are two "capacities" for a ship.  The one used most commonly in advertising and in travel sites is "normal occupancy" or "double occupancy".  This is the number of "lower berths", or the number of passengers when there are two to a cabin, so this gives a rough idea of the number of cabins on a ship, and therefore the "size" of the ship.  Therefore, this is the number to use to compare when looking for a "smaller" ship.  The "maximum capacity" is based on the number of lifeboat seating, and is a regulatory ceiling.  All ships will have more "berths" (lower beds, upper beds, sofas) than the maximum capacity in order to allow those wanting to book 3 or 4 in a cabin to have a choice of a variety of cabin types.

And, yes, Breakaway could have more than 5000 pax if booked heavily.  But your premise is still correct, the Sunrise is smaller than the Breakaway, by about 1000, regardless of whether it is "normal" or "maximum" capacity, though there could be times where there are more pax on Sunrise than Breakaway.

4 minutes ago, VentureMan_2000 said: However, on most of the sailings, even the full-ship capacity (at double occupancy level) is not reached.

Not really.  Industry standard/average is to sail at 105% "normal" capacity.

Yup... stand corrected.  My Info was from 2015.  Info I found from March 2019 says Cruise lines occupancy rate for the entire cruise line is usually between 105-108%.

Susan in Maine

Older, smaller ships usually have a lower capacity than the big new ones. A lot depends on what is important to you when you pick a cruise. If you want the newest coolest amenities, then you're going to be on a big ship. If, however, you prefer a quieter, more 'traditional' experience, you might want to look into older ships.

Just make sure they haven't been renovated to add a lot more passengers without expanding the common areas.  Carnival has several ships with a double occupancy capacity of around 2000 passengers.

29 minutes ago, chengkp75 said: Not really.  Industry standard/average is to sail at 105% "normal" capacity.

Interesting, are there stats for that by line?

Organized Chaos

49 minutes ago, Kellyann said: Silly me but I really thought that when the "capacity" is listed for a ship, it means the maximum number of passengers allowed.  With that silly thought I booked the CCL Sunrise (2984) thinking that it was smaller than maybe the NCL Breakaway (4028) by more than a 1000 people.  It's been posted many times on this board that if 3 & 4 are assigned in a room that the number can mushroom to almost 3900 from 2984 to start.  If this is the case and capacity means not exactly, then how could one ever be successful in trying to book a smaller capacity ship?  Could there be more than 5000 on a ship like the Breakaway?  Not looking for snarky remarks, just trying to make better and more knowledgeable decisions in the future.

As Susan in Maine alluded to, be sure to keep in mind that the Sunrise is one of Carnival's older/smaller ships that has recently been refitted. The first one to get this was the Sunshine and the Victory will be refitted next spring and become the Radiance. These are older/smaller ships originally designed with fewer cabins and less passengers, but have been refitted to include adding more cabins, more passengers. However, the overall size of these ships hasn't changed and neither has the size of many of their popular common areas that are frequented by passengers the most. In some cases, they've even made a couple of these areas smaller (to be able to fit more cabins). This can cause crowding in some of those areas at times.

29 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said: Interesting, are there stats for that by line?

I was looking at this site and article... https://www.cruzely.com/how-much-the-biggest-cruise-ships-and-cruise-lines-make-each-day/

48 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said: Interesting, are there stats for that by line?

I think this is available via CLIA, but whether it picks out each brand, or just each parent corp, I don't recall.  You can see this on the cruise lines' SEC filings.

2 minutes ago, chengkp75 said: I think this is available via CLIA, but whether it picks out each brand, or just each parent corp, I don't recall.  You can see this on the cruise lines' SEC filings.

Thanks, we are going to cruise world this year and I am sure CLIA will be represented, will ask then.

23 minutes ago, VentureMan_2000 said: I was looking at this site and article... https://www.cruzely.com/how-much-the-biggest-cruise-ships-and-cruise-lines-make-each-day/  

Thanks, very informative.

There is a ratio for passengers to space. For example Sunrise is 27, while Breakaway is 30. So there is more room per passenger on the Breakaway.  Anthem of the Seas is a huge ship, but her ratio is 35.

If you Google it you will find lots of website s with this info.

31 minutes ago, VentureMan_2000 said: I was looking at this site and article... https://www.cruzely.com/how-much-the-biggest-cruise-ships-and-cruise-lines-make-each-day/  

But realistically, just looking at profit, especially in a capital intensive industry like cruise lines, is not very indicative, what is truly important is "return on investment", in other words, how much did I have to invest to make that profit, and you find that cruise lines are about middle of the road, or slightly below middle, for all industries.

Just now, chengkp75 said: But realistically, just looking at profit, especially in a capital intensive industry like cruise lines, is not very indicative, what is truly important is "return on investment", in other words, how much did I have to invest to make that profit, and you find that cruise lines are about middle of the road, or slightly below middle, for all industries.

When some are producing multiple ships a year at more than a billion (Royal is approaching 2 billion) you can see why the return is not what they might want.

1 minute ago, Susan in Maine said: There is a ratio for passengers to space. For example Sunrise is 27, while Breakaway is 30. So there is more room per passenger on the Breakaway.  Anthem of the Seas is a huge ship, but her ratio is 35.   If you Google it you will find lots of website s with this info.

I truly don't find the pax/space ratio to be all that informative.  It is based on Gross Tonnage, a readily available figure, when it should be based on "Net Tonnage", the space allocated to the passengers (GT minus the crew spaces, engineering, and tanks).   It also does not include such spaces as Oasis' Boardwalk and Central Park, since these areas are not included in Gross Tonnage.

9 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said: When some are producing multiple ships a year at more than a billion (Royal is approaching 2 billion) you can see why the return is not what they might want.

While the ROI may not be headline material, the cruise lines do much better than most shipping companies, where ROI's are typically in the basement.  Making a huge amount of money in shipping is very, very difficult.

Quick look around, and Carnival Corp has assets of $44.5 billion (how much was invested) and returned $3.15 billion in profit, or a 7% ROI, while the stock market has averaged 10% over the last half century.

40 minutes ago, Susan in Maine said: There is a ratio for passengers to space. For example Sunrise is 27, while Breakaway is 30. So there is more room per passenger on the Breakaway.  Anthem of the Seas is a huge ship, but her ratio is 35.   If you Google it you will find lots of website s with this info.

This is only an approximation, as most of these ratios are based on Gross Tonnage (GT) which is a measure of the entire enclosed space within a ship. Ships of similar dimensions can have significantly different GT and even ships of a similar class. The ratio also varies on whether maximum pax occupancy is used, or double occupancy.

To be most accurate, the ratio should use Net Tonnage (NT) which eliminates working spaces from the GT to provide more of a cargo capacity, which on cruise ships is passenger spaces. Unfortunately, GT is readily available, but NT not so easy to find for many ships.

Edit - reading the rest of the thread, I just noted the Chief had already responded, apologies for duplication. 

taglovestocruise

7 hours ago, Kellyann said: Could there be more than 5000 on a ship like the Breakaway?  Not looking for snarky remarks, just trying to make better and more knowledgeable decisions in the future.

Would not get that high unless you count the crew, then it could hit over 6000. Max cap would be 4002. Numbers are very misleading, Symphony of the seas can max out at 6680, it would hit 8500 with crew. We have sailed 3 Oasis class ships and at times you wonder where is everybody,  Oasis sailing have been some of the most uncrowded sailings I have been on.

Breakaway facts from wiki...  

2 hours ago, taglovestocruise said: Would not get that high unless you count the crew, then it could hit over 6000. Max cap would be 4002. Numbers are very misleading, Symphony of the seas can max out at 6680, it would hit 8500 with crew.

Those Breakaway numbers are incorrect.  Design lower berth 3,963 per NCL and the shipyard.  You can bet if there are 3,963 lower berths the maximum cap isn't just 4,002!

I was on the Breakaway a few years ago when the Captain noted it was one of their busiest cruises, with nearly 6,600 souls on board.  Assuming 1600 to 1700 crew (numbers given by most sources), that leaves 4,900 to 5,000 passengers.  Those numbers make sense based on what has been reported by other CC users, but I'll admit I haven't seen a primary source document to verify it with.  Still I'll take the word of @chengkp75  and the vessel's master over wikipedia.

7 hours ago, Heidi13 said: To be most accurate, the ratio should use Net Tonnage (NT) which eliminates working spaces from the GT to provide more of a cargo capacity, which on cruise ships is passenger spaces. Unfortunately, GT is readily available, but NT not so easy to find for many ships.

To add to what has been said, layout also plays a factor.  I noticed that there are several small changes between Breakaway and Escape which seem to make traffic flow better on the Escape despite a slightly higher passenger count and roughly the same amount of public space.  That, combined with what has already been pointed out about NT, means the "space ratio" is a rough estimate.

9 hours ago, Heidi13 said: This is only an approximation, as most of these ratios are based on Gross Tonnage (GT) which is a measure of the entire enclosed space within a ship. Ships of similar dimensions can have significantly different GT and even ships of a similar class. The ratio also varies on whether maximum pax occupancy is used, or double occupancy.   To be most accurate, the ratio should use Net Tonnage (NT) which eliminates working spaces from the GT to provide more of a cargo capacity, which on cruise ships is passenger spaces. Unfortunately, GT is readily available, but NT not so easy to find for many ships.   Edit - reading the rest of the thread, I just noted the Chief had already responded, apologies for duplication . 

From this non-maritime person, no apologies are necessary as far as I am concerned. Both you and chengkp75 educate us on many cruise and ship matters. I am always appreciative of anything the two of you share and teach is. If both of you post the same information, it further reinforces that both of you are the experts, and we are fortunate to be learning from you. 

Thanks to both of you for educating us about an industry we enjoy so much. Please don't stop - it really helps a lot when you graciously share your knowledge. 

My point in noting the passenger/space ration was not for it to be a deciding factor in choosing a cruise. However, it is an additional piece of information that can be useful.

10 hours ago, SantaFeFan said:   From this non-maritime person, no apologies are necessary as far as I am concerned. Both you and chengkp75 educate us on many cruise and ship matters. I am always appreciative of anything the two of you share and teach is. If both of you post the same information, it further reinforces that both of you are the experts, and we are fortunate to be learning from you.    Thanks to both of you for educating us about an industry we enjoy so much. Please don't stop - it really helps a lot when you graciously share your knowledge. 

Mike drop  🎤

It's only 8:58AM and I've learned something new. I can start my 3 day weekend now.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in

• Welcome to Cruise Critic
• New Cruisers
• Cruise Lines “A – O”
• Cruise Lines “P – Z”
• River Cruising
• Cruise Critic News & Features
• Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
• Special Interest Cruising
• Cruise Discussion Topics
• UK Cruising
• Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
• Canadian Cruisers
• North American Homeports
• Ports of Call
• Cruise Conversations

Announcements

• New to Cruise Critic? Join our Community!

Write Your Own Amazing Review !

Click this gorgeous photo by member SUPERstar777 to share your review!

Features & News

LauraS · Started Thursday at 07:37 PM

LauraS · Started Thursday at 04:48 PM

LauraS · Started Thursday at 04:19 PM

LauraS · Started Thursday at 03:29 PM

LauraS · Started Tuesday at 11:57 PM

• Existing user? Sign in OR Create an Account
• Find Your Roll Call
• Meet & Mingle
• Community Help Center
• All Activity
• Member Photo Albums
• Meet & Mingle Photos
• Favorite Cruise Memories
• Cruise Food Photos
• Cruise Ship Photos
• Ports of Call Photos
• Towel Animal Photos
• Amazing, Funny & Totally Awesome Cruise Photos
• Write a Review
• Live Cruise Reports
• Member Cruise Reviews
• Create New...

The top 10 biggest cruise ships in the world

M odern cruise ships continue to grow in size, with the biggest cruise ship, the Icon of the Seas , launching at the start of this year, and her sister ship the Star of the Seas expected to surpass her in size.

Both of these ships are operated by Royal Caribbean International, which operates five of the ten largest cruise ships in the world. Carnival Corporation, arguably the biggest cruise company in the world, features three times on the list through its subsidiaries P&O Cruises and Costa Cruises.

All of the heaviest cruise ships in the world were built within the last 20 years, although the majority – six of the ten – were built within the last five years.

So, here are the top ten biggest cruise ships in the world, by gross tonnage. 

10. P&O Cruises MS Arvia : 185,581 gross tonnes

The MS Arvia is P&O Cruises’ fourth ship to be built by German shipyard Meyer Werft. Weighing in at 185,581 gross tonnes, the 345m (1,130-foot) Arvia is slightly larger than her sister ship, the MS Iona . The 20-deck ship is the largest ship commissioned for the British cruise market and has a maximum passenger capacity of 6,264 passengers, with 1,800 crew onboard. 

The ship is the second liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered Excellence-class vessel for P&O, following the Iona . Arvia is powered by a 61,760kW LNG drive system, with a propulsion power of 37 megawatts. The LNG-powered propulsion system allows the vessel to sail at a maximum speed of 21.5 knots.

After being floated out in August 2022, the Arvia mainly operates itineraries around the Caribbean or the Mediterranean.

9. Costa Cruises – Costa Smeralda : 185,010 gross tonnes

The Costa Smeralda is the first LNG-powered vessel in the Costa Cruises fleet. With a gross tonnage of 185,010gt, the 20-deck Excellence-class ship measures 337m (1,106 feet) in length. The second LNG-powered cruise ship to enter operation in the world, she has a maximum capacity of 6,554 passengers with 1,646 crew and a service speed of 21.5 knots.

Construction of the Costa Smeralda began at the Meyer shipyard in Turku, Finland, in September 2017. Meyer Turku collaborated with the Meyer Werft Papenburg shipyard to develop and integrate the LNG propulsion plant for the ship. She is fitted with four 16-cylinder, Caterpillar MaK 16VM46DF engines, with 15.4 megawatts (20,710 horsepower) output per engine, resulting in a maximum power of  37 megawatts (50,000 horsepower).

The ship, which was named after the Emerald Coast of Sardinia, entered service in December 2019 , departing Savona on its maiden voyage in the Mediterranean, where it has sailed since.

8. Costa Cruises – Costa Toscana : 186,364 gross tonnes

The Costa Toscana is the sister ship of the Costa Smeralda and is also powered by LNG . measuring 337m (1,106 feet) long and weighing in at 186,364 gross tonnes, the Toscana has a maximum capacity of 6,338 passengers and 1,678 staff across her 20 decks.

Like her sister ship, the Toscana was also built at the Meyer shipyard in Finland, with construction completed in 2021. She is also powered by four MaK-Caterpillar engines, with a total power of 57.2 megawatts (76,706 horsepower), and two ABB Azipod motors , resulting in a service speed of 17 knots.

Named in homage to the Tuscany region of Italy, Costa Toscana mainly sails around the Mediterranean Sea but Costa Cruises has also used the ship to sail itineraries further afield, such as around Brazil and the UAE.

7. MSC Cruises – MSC World Europa : 215,863 gross tonnes

The only entry in the top ten from MSC Cruises, MSC World Europa measures 333m (1,094 feet) in length. With 215,863 gross tonnage, she can house more people than any other ship in the MSC fleet: up to 6,762 passengers across 2,633 cabins spread over 22 decks, in addition to 2,138 crew.

Built by Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France, the World Europa ’s LNG-power propulsion system was subcontracted to Finland-based Wärtsilä. Five LNG-powered, 14-cylinder Wartsila 46DF dual-fuel engines power the vessel, with a propulsion power of 44 megawatts ( 59,005 horsepower). She also features nitrogen oxide reduction (NOR) units, two Wartsila LNGPac fuel storage and supply systems, seven thrusters, and two fixed-pitch propellers. 

The MSC World Europa was floated out at the end of 2021 and was initially used as an accommodation vessel for fans attending the 2022 FIFA World Cup, with the ship berthed at Doha Port in Qatar during the tournament. Following the competition, the ship subsequently travelled several routes around the UAE, before sailing to the Mediterranean, where it has sailed itineraries since.

6. Royal Caribbean International – Allure of the Seas : 225,282 gross tonnes

The first of many entries on this list operated by Royal Caribbean, Allure of the Seas weighs in at 225,282 gross tonnes. Measuring 362m (1,187 feet), she is only 50mm (2 inches) longer than her sister ship the Oasis of the Seas . The Allure has a maximum capacity of 6,780 passengers and 2,200 crew across 18 decks.

Built at the Turku Shipyard in Finland, the Allure took two years to build , floating out in 2010. She features six Wärtsilä 46 diesel engines with a total power output of 97 megawatts (130,053 horsepower). It is propelled by three electric Azipod azimuth thrusters. The ship can travel at a cruising speed of 22 knots.

With a homeport of Galveston, Texas in the US, the Allure mainly serves itineraries around the Bahamas but she is scheduled to sail routes around the Mediterranean in 2025.

5. Royal Caribbean International – Oasis of the Seas : 226,838 gross tonnes

The oldest ship on this list, the Oasis of the Seas has been in service for over a decade. She was the biggest cruise ship at the time when floated out in 2009, with a gross tonnage of 226,838gt and a length of 360m (1,181 feet). The Oasis has a maximum capacity of 6,699 passengers and 2,181 staff across 18 decks.

The Oasis took two years to build at the Meyer shipyard in Turku, Finland, with the keel laid on 12 November 2007 and the ship arriving at her homeport of Port Everglades in Florida, US, on 13 November 2009.

The Oasis is powered by eight Wärtsilä V12 diesel engines, which generate 5.6 megawatts (7,500 horsepower) each, alongside four bow thrusters. The main propulsion system consists of three 20-megawatt (26,820 horsepower) electric Azipod motors, resulting in a combined propulsion power of 82 megawatts (109,964 horsepower) and a standard cruising speed of 23 knots.

The Oasis mainly operates routes around the Caribbean, but occasionally repositions to offer itineraries in the Mediterranean.

4. Royal Caribbean International – Harmony of the Seas : 226,963 gross tonnes

The third Oasis-class ship built by Royal Caribbean, Harmony of the Seas weighed in bigger than her existing sister ships at launch in 2016, with 226,963 gross tonnage, but she has since been surpassed by newer vessels. With a total length of 362m (1,188 feet), Harmony has a maximum capacity of 6,780 passengers and 2,300 staff across 18 decks.

Royal Caribbean placed an order with STX France for the construction of Harmony of the Seas in December 2012. The first steel for the ship was cut at STX France’s Saint-Nazaire shipyard in September 2013, while the keel-laying ceremony was held in May 2014.

The Harmony is powered by three 18.9-megawatt Wärtsilä 16V46 16-cylinder main generator diesel engines and three Wärtsilä 12V46 12-cylinder engines producing 13.9 megawatts each. The propulsion power is provided by three electric Azipod azimuth thrusters and manoeuvring is assisted by four 5.5-megawatt Wärtsilä CT 3500 tunnel thrusters. The propulsion system results in 82 megawatts (109,964 horsepower) and enables the ship to sail at a standard speed of 23 knots.

Harmony of the Seas embarked on her inaugural seven-night Western Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona, Spain, in June 2016, and currently operates itineraries around the Western Caribbean from her homeport of Galveston, Texas in the US.

3. Royal Caribbean International – Symphony of the Seas : 228,081 gross tonnes

At launch in 2018, the Symphony of the Seas surpassed the Harmony as the biggest cruise ship, weighing in at 228,081 gross tonnes. Measuring 361m (1,185 feet), the Symphony has a maximum capacity of 6,680 passengers and 2,200 staff across 18 decks and was the testing ground for Royal Caribbean's new muster drill . With a total length of 361m (1,185 feet), She is roughly 30 metres (98 feet) longer than the largest military ships , the US Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and the USS Gerald R. Ford .

The keel-laying ceremony for the Symphony of the Seas was held in October 2015 at STX’s Saint-Nazaire shipyard in France, and the ship sailed out in June 2017. She is powered by six diesel sets, each composed of three Wärtsilä 16V46D engines and three Wärtsilä 12V46D engines, as well as three 20-megawatt electric Azipod main engines – resulting in 82 megawatts (109,964 horsepower) of propulsion power and a standard cruising speed of 22 knots.

The Symphony commenced her seven-day maiden voyage from Barcelona in April 2018, and since then has mainly operated itineraries around the Caribbean from her homeports of Miami, New York, and Fort Lauderdale.

2. Royal Caribbean International – Wonder of the Seas : 235,600 gross tonnes

Royal Caribbean's flagship, Wonder of the Seas is the fifth Oasis-class cruise ship built for the cruise company. Weighing in at 235,600 gross tonnes, the Wonder was the largest ship in the world when she was completed in January 2022. Measuring 362m (1,187 feet) in length, the 18-deck Wonder has a maximum capacity of 7,084 guests across its 2,867 staterooms, as well as housing 2,369 crew.

Built by Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, Wonder is powered by two Wärtsilä 16V46D engines and four Wärtsilä 12V46D engines; and uses three 20-megawatt electric Azipod engines for propulsion, combining for a propulsion power of 82 megawatts (109,964 horsepower and a standard cruising speed of 22 knots.

The Wonder sailed her maiden voyage in March 2022 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and has since served itineraries around the Caribbean from her homeports of Miami and Cape Canaveral.

1. Royal Caribbean International – Icon of the Seas : 248,663 gross tonnes

Weighing 248,663 gross tonnes and measuring 365 metres (1,1967 feet), the Icon of the Seas is the largest cruise ship in the world. Christened on 23 January 2024, the Icon has a maximum capacity of 7,600 passengers and 2,350 crew across 20 decks. She is the lead ship of the new Icon-class, with a sister ship the Star of the Seas due to be delivered in 2025 and another ship planned for delivery in 2026.

Built by Meyer Turku in Finland, the Icon is the first ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet that can be powered by LNG. It uses three Wärtsilä 14V46DF and three Wärtsilä 12V46DF for its main generator engines, which provide 67.5 megawatts of energy to run the ship. She is propelled by three 20-megawatt Azipod thrusters as well as five 4.8-megawatt Wärtsilä WTT-45 CP bow thrusters, with a cruising speed of 22 knots.

After sailing her maiden voyage on 27 January 2024, the Icon now sails year-round itineraries of seven-night trips around the Eastern and Western Caribbean from her homeport of Miami, Florida.

"The top 10 biggest cruise ships in the world" was originally created and published by Ship Technology , a GlobalData owned brand.

The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.

Watch CBS News

The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse is impacting cruises and could cause up to $10 million in losses for Carnival

By Caitlin O'Kane

Updated on: March 28, 2024 / 10:22 PM EDT / CBS News

The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse  has impacted cruise travel in Baltimore. Carnival Cruise Line had to temporarily move its Baltimore operations to Norfolk, Virginia, as the Baltimore Harbor has been closed to marine traffic — which could cause up to a $10 million monetary loss for the company. 

The company's ship, Carnival Legend, was scheduled to return to Baltimore on  Sunday, March 31, but guests will instead go to Norfolk. There will be a complimentary bus service to get back to Baltimore from that port, Carnival announced on Tuesday . The drive between these cities could be up to five hours long. 

The upcoming Carnival Legend cruise on March 31 will depart and return to Norfolk. 

"Our thoughts remain with the impacted families and first responders in Baltimore," Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said in a statement. "We appreciate the pledge made by President Biden today to dedicate all available resources to reopen Baltimore Harbor to marine traffic as soon as possible. As those plans are finalized, we will update our future cruise guests on when we will return home to Baltimore, but in the meantime, we appreciate the quick response and support from officials in Norfolk."

"We will continue to actively monitor the situation and look forward to getting back to Baltimore as soon as possible," a Carnival spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.

As for the impact on business, the spokesperson told CBS News the company expects a less than $10 million impact on both adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization as well as its adjusted net income for the full year 2024. 

Cruise Lines International Association , the largest cruise industry trade association, says 12 cruise ships made 115 trips through Baltimore in 2024. And in 2023, about 444,000 cruise passengers moved through the port, the 29th largest in the U.S.

Other cruise companies like Royal Caribbean and American Cruise Lines also have ships that go to Baltimore, however, it is unclear if those lines have been impacted yet. CBS News reached out to several cruise companies for comment. 

The bridge collapsed around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday when a cargo ship, called the Dali , lost power and crashed into one of the bridge's columns. The ship made a mayday call ahead of the crash and first responders were able to prevent cars from driving onto the bridge, but eight construction workers  were on the structure pouring concrete.

Two of the construction workers were recovered alive, but the other six were presumed dead on Tuesday. Two bodies were found in a construction vehicle  submerged in the water on Wednesday. 

Following the incident, Maryland Governor Wes Moore declared a state of emergency and President Biden said the federal government would pay for the entire cost of reconstructing the bridge, which is still sitting in the river, on top of the cargo ship, which had 22 people on board – none of them harmed.

Baltimore is the ninth-busiest port in the nation and handled a record 11.7 million tons of cargo last year,  the Associated Press reports. More than 50 shipping and cruise ship companies do business with the port, mainly moving cars, coal, wood, steel, aluminum, home appliances, furniture, sugar and liquefied natural gas. 

"For everybody who is buying cars, for everybody who is (buying) farm equipment, we're the largest port in the country that does that," Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said . "So this is not just impacting Maryland."

Shipping companies and automakers will likely divert ships heading to Baltimore to other East Coast cities, experts say, according to the AP.

Ships waiting to get into Baltimore were stalled after the incident, with many drifting in the North Atlantic, waiting to be assigned to a new port, according to Windward Maritime, which analyzes maritime data. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said rebuilding the bridge  won't be easy or cheap. "That does not necessarily mean it will take five years to replace, but that tells you what went into that original structure going up," he said. "We need to get a sense of the conditions, of the parts that look ok, to the naked eye, but we just don't know yet, especially in terms of their foundational infrastructure."

Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

More from CBS News

Body of third construction worker recovered from Key Bridge wreckage in Baltimore

Transcript: Rep. French Hill on "Face the Nation," April 7, 2024

Decades after their service, "Rosie the Riveters" to be honored

Congress faces lengthy to-do list when lawmakers return next week

Short vs. long cruises: Which one is right for you? Here's how they compare.

Whether you want a weekend getaway or to max out your vacation days, there’s a cruise for that.

Cruise lines offer itineraries ranging from a few days to months long . But there are more differences between short and long sailings than just the amount of time guests spend on board. The length of a cruise can help dictate the types of ports passengers visit, the kind of ship they’re sailing on and even the general vibe on board.

“It's important to walk our guests through and for cruisers to think about, what's the experience that they're trying to have,” said Jamie Margolis, owner of Moms at Sea Travel, a Dream Vacations franchise. “So, we try to tease out that information, like, ‘What's your vacation style?’ ”

What can guests expect from short cruises?

Cruises can be divided into those shorter or longer than a week, according to Jared Feldman, owner of travel agency Jafeldma Travel. “So, anything less than that is really considered a short cruise,” he said.

Those around three nights long are often aimed at new-to-cruise guests “who aren’t really ready to commit to seven days but really want to quote-unquote test the waters, let's say – to see if cruising is right for them,” he added.

Those sailings typically feature just one port and a sea day, and often visit tried-and-true cruise destinations. Travelers sailing from South Florida ports like Miami and Fort Lauderdale will likely visit Nassau in the Bahamas or one of many cruise line private islands , for example. While those sailing from Galveston, Texas, can expect to stop in Cozumel.

Margolis called three-and-four-night voyages a “great intro to cruising,” albeit with more limited itinerary choices. “Is their dream to go to Saint Kitts? They're probably not going to find that on a short sailing,” she said.

Shorter cruises may also lend themselves more to a party atmosphere and be less kid-friendly. But Margolis noted that’s not unique to cruising. “I mean, it's the nature of travel that short weekends can be celebratory,” she said.

And with diverse onboard offerings – from ship-within-a-ship concepts to kids clubs – passengers can often carve out their own experience.

Cruise lines have new offerings in that shorter category. Celebrity Cruises is launching its first regular weekend itineraries in the Caribbean this month, and Royal Caribbean International’s Utopia of the Seas will offer three-and-four-night sailings when it debuts in July.

What can guests expect from long cruises?

Feldman said any sailing over seven days could be considered a “longer cruise.” Those can range from around 10 days to more than six months. Royal Caribbean is currently operating a nine-month world cruise to more than 60 countries.

While short cruises “can feel like a bit of a whirlwind,” according to Margolis, longer itineraries offer more time to explore a greater variety of ports. They may feature less-visited destinations such as Aruba and Curaçao and often take place on smaller, older vessels (though ships are refurbished regularly).

That’s partly due to the limitations in places they stop. “Some of the ports … cannot really accommodate this large ship hardware,” Feldman said. “So, you need a smaller-size ship to navigate in and out of these ports.”

The onboard demographic also tends to skew older on those cruises since retired passengers typically have more free time, and travelers with kids are often beholden to school schedules.

If you want a middle ground, though, Margolis said a seven-night cruise “really takes you through what I think is, like, the whole cruise cycle.”

"You get on, you get acclimated, you find all the different amenities, and then you're able to … truly relax, disconnect, unwind,” she said. ‘And then you know, midweek, you start getting your luggage tags, and you go through that mental process of accepting that you're going to have to get off in a couple of days and go back to work.”

At that length, it's also easier to tack on a bit of extra time on the front or back end of the sailing to explore on their own, Feldman added.

Are short or long sailings cheaper?

Because short sailings frequently take place on larger ships, they are “very attractively priced” to help fill the cabins. But that doesn’t mean they’ll always be cheaper than a longer cruise.

A cruise with more stops will have higher port fees, but passengers may book longer itineraries further out and get better fares.

Looking for cheap cruises?: Here's what to know know about finding deals.

“Most times, you're not going to book a three-to-four-night sailing 12 to 18 months in advance,” said Feldman. “You're going to book that much closer in.”

The ship’s age also plays a role in how it’s priced, with shiny new vessels commanding higher rates . “So, there's a lot of different variables in play that kind of dictate where you're going to come out ahead or how much your cruise is ultimately going to cost based on those factors,” said Feldman.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].

latest in US News

Clouds expected at these solar eclipse hot spots

Wife of Texas judge accused of fatally shooting nephew over fight...

B&H dubbed 'hottest club in town' as New Yorkers scramble to...

Texas grandfather, 105, to watch his 13th total solar eclipse: 'I...

South American heist rings target luxurious US homes, wear...

Man stabbed in back in bloody brawl on Manhattan subway train

60 historic Torah scrolls that survived Nazis celebrated at NYC...

Columbia suspends students for 'Resistance 101' where guest...

Stranded norwegian cruise lines passengers missed ship ‘by more than an hour,’ company claims.

• View Author Archive
• Email the Author
• Follow on Twitter
• Get author RSS feed

Contact The Author

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

The six American and two Australian passengers who were stranded on an African island when a Norwegian Cruise Line ship sailed off without them have returned to the vessel to continue their African voyage, as the cruise line revealed that the group caused their travel headaches over the past few days by missing their departure time by over an hour.

The eight passengers reboarded the ship making a 20-day journey across Africa on Tuesday morning in Dakar, Senegal, a spokesperson for Norwegian confirmed to The Post.

Kurt Gies, the son-in-law of an elderly woman who was also left behind by the ship after she suffered a stroke on a tour, also said he received a text message from one of the group members, Jill Campbell, saying she and her husband reboarded the ship but have not yet spoken with anyone from guest services or Norwegian Cruise Line.

“The only thing we have received so far is [a] small note from the food and beverage director with six little treats left in our state room,” Gies said she texted him.

The crew had to race through seven different countries in 48 hours to meet the ship in Senegal on Tuesday.

But by the time South Carolina couple Jill and Jay Campbell arrived in the country, they said, they weren’t even sure whether they even wanted to get back on the ship.

“After what we witnessed, we truly believe there is a set of rules or policies that the ship may have followed — they followed those rules too rigidly,” Jill Campbell  told the “Today” show.

“I really feel that they forgot they are people working in the hospitality industry and that really the safety and well-being of their customers should be their first priority,” she added, claiming the crew of the ship had a “basic duty of care that they had forgotten about.”

Keep up with The Post's coverage of the Norwegian Cruise debacle

• Eight Norwegian Cruise passengers, including a pregnant woman and an elderly man with a heart condition, were stranded on an African island without money and vital medications after the vessel left port without them.
• A spokesperson for the cruise line claimed the passengers were left on the island “on their own or with a private tour” and missed the “all-aboard time” by over an hour, according to the company.
• Americans Jill Campbell and her husband, Jay Campbell, said they are unsure whether they even want to resume the 20-day voyage after Norwegian Cruise Lines forgot about its “basic duty of care.”
• The eight passengers raced through seven different countries over a span of 48 hours to make it to Senegal, where the ship docked Tuesday morning,
• Doug and Violeta Sanders, a stranded Australian couple, have spoken out about their ordeal , saying it was “the worst experience of our lives.”
• Julie Lenkoff, 80,  suffered a stroke during an excursion on the cruise — and was left “alone” and “helpless” to find her way back to the US, according to her family.
• COLUMN: Cruise ship was right to ditch the late passengers in Africa

Check out The Post’s tips on what to do if you’re left stranded like the Norwegian Cruise passengers

The eight passengers — including a pregnant woman and an elderly man with a heart condition — claimed they were left behind with no money and without vital medications after the Norwegian Dawn left São Tomé without them.

The Campbells claimed the ship was still anchored off the coast of the Central African island when they showed up on Friday, but the skipper refused to let them board.

A spokesperson for Norwegian Cruise Line, however, said the group had missed the all-aboard time by more than an hour after taking a private tour of the island.

“When they missed the all-aboard time of 3 p.m. by more than an hour, their passports were left with the local port agent for retrieval when they returned to the port from their private tour (not organized by us), per the protocol,” the spokesperson said.

The Campbells have acknowledged there was “an issue” on their tour of the island, and that the guide “didn’t get us back” to the ship in time on Friday.

“We were like, ‘Our time is getting really short,’ and they were like’ ‘No problem, we can get you back within an hour,’” Jay said, adding that the tour operator contacted the captain to let them know about the delay.

In its statement, the company said that “once the guests did not make it back to the ship at the previously communicated all aboard time, we worked with them and the local port agent to assist with obtaining the necessary visas for them to rejoin the ship at the next available port.”

Attorney James Diamond from TWC Lawyers said it is a “hard and fast rule” that a ship can leave once a final call has been made.

“They pay a lot of money for docking fees, and renting out the space,” he told ”Seven’s Sunrise.”

“They have times that they have to leave, those times are published and unfortunately, I know it’s morally incorrect, but they do have the right to leave,” he said.

Share this article:

Advertisement

Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever

Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas

Listen to this article

Listen to more stories on curio

Updated at 2:44 p.m. ET on April 6, 2024.

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here .

MY FIRST GLIMPSE of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, from the window of an approaching Miami cab, brings on a feeling of vertigo, nausea, amazement, and distress. I shut my eyes in defense, as my brain tells my optic nerve to try again.

The ship makes no sense, vertically or horizontally. It makes no sense on sea, or on land, or in outer space. It looks like a hodgepodge of domes and minarets, tubes and canopies, like Istanbul had it been designed by idiots. Vibrant, oversignifying colors are stacked upon other such colors, decks perched over still more decks; the only comfort is a row of lifeboats ringing its perimeter. There is no imposed order, no cogent thought, and, for those who do not harbor a totalitarian sense of gigantomania, no visual mercy. This is the biggest cruise ship ever built, and I have been tasked with witnessing its inaugural voyage.

Explore the May 2024 Issue

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

“Author embarks on their first cruise-ship voyage” has been a staple of American essay writing for almost three decades, beginning with David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which was first published in 1996 under the title “Shipping Out.” Since then, many admirable writers have widened and diversified the genre. Usually the essayist commissioned to take to the sea is in their first or second flush of youth and is ready to sharpen their wit against the hull of the offending vessel. I am 51, old and tired, having seen much of the world as a former travel journalist, and mostly what I do in both life and prose is shrug while muttering to my imaginary dachshund, “This too shall pass.” But the Icon of the Seas will not countenance a shrug. The Icon of the Seas is the Linda Loman of cruise ships, exclaiming that attention must be paid. And here I am in late January with my one piece of luggage and useless gray winter jacket and passport, zipping through the Port of Miami en route to the gangway that will separate me from the bulk of North America for more than seven days, ready to pay it in full.

The aforementioned gangway opens up directly onto a thriving mall (I will soon learn it is imperiously called the “Royal Promenade”), presently filled with yapping passengers beneath a ceiling studded with balloons ready to drop. Crew members from every part of the global South, as well as a few Balkans, are shepherding us along while pressing flutes of champagne into our hands. By a humming Starbucks, I drink as many of these as I can and prepare to find my cabin. I show my blue Suite Sky SeaPass Card (more on this later, much more) to a smiling woman from the Philippines, and she tells me to go “aft.” Which is where, now? As someone who has rarely sailed on a vessel grander than the Staten Island Ferry, I am confused. It turns out that the aft is the stern of the ship, or, for those of us who don’t know what a stern or an aft are, its ass. The nose of the ship, responsible for separating the waves before it, is also called a bow, and is marked for passengers as the FWD , or forward. The part of the contemporary sailing vessel where the malls are clustered is called the midship. I trust that you have enjoyed this nautical lesson.

I ascend via elevator to my suite on Deck 11. This is where I encounter my first terrible surprise. My suite windows and balcony do not face the ocean. Instead, they look out onto another shopping mall. This mall is the one that’s called Central Park, perhaps in homage to the Olmsted-designed bit of greenery in the middle of my hometown. Although on land I would be delighted to own a suite with Central Park views, here I am deeply depressed. To sail on a ship and not wake up to a vast blue carpet of ocean? Unthinkable.

Allow me a brief preamble here. The story you are reading was commissioned at a moment when most staterooms on the Icon were sold out. In fact, so enthralled by the prospect of this voyage were hard-core mariners that the ship’s entire inventory of guest rooms (the Icon can accommodate up to 7,600 passengers, but its inaugural journey was reduced to 5,000 or so for a less crowded experience) was almost immediately sold out. Hence, this publication was faced with the shocking prospect of paying nearly $19,000 to procure for this solitary passenger an entire suite—not including drinking expenses—all for the privilege of bringing you this article. But the suite in question doesn’t even have a view of the ocean! I sit down hard on my soft bed. Nineteen thousand dollars for this .

The viewless suite does have its pluses. In addition to all the Malin+Goetz products in my dual bathrooms, I am granted use of a dedicated Suite Deck lounge; access to Coastal Kitchen, a superior restaurant for Suites passengers; complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream (“the fastest Internet at Sea”) “for one device per person for the whole cruise duration”; a pair of bathrobes (one of which comes prestained with what looks like a large expectoration by the greenest lizard on Earth); and use of the Grove Suite Sun, an area on Decks 18 and 19 with food and deck chairs reserved exclusively for Suite passengers. I also get reserved seating for a performance of The Wizard of Oz , an ice-skating tribute to the periodic table, and similar provocations. The very color of my Suite Sky SeaPass Card, an oceanic blue as opposed to the cloying royal purple of the standard non-Suite passenger, will soon provoke envy and admiration. But as high as my status may be, there are those on board who have much higher status still, and I will soon learn to bow before them.

In preparation for sailing, I have “priced in,” as they say on Wall Street, the possibility that I may come from a somewhat different monde than many of the other cruisers. Without falling into stereotypes or preconceptions, I prepare myself for a friendly outspokenness on the part of my fellow seafarers that may not comply with modern DEI standards. I believe in meeting people halfway, and so the day before flying down to Miami, I visited what remains of Little Italy to purchase a popular T-shirt that reads DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL across the breast in the colors of the Italian flag. My wife recommended that I bring one of my many T-shirts featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, as all Americans love the beagle and his friends. But I naively thought that my meatball T-shirt would be more suitable for conversation-starting. “Oh, and who is your ‘daddy’?” some might ask upon seeing it. “And how long have you been his ‘little meatball’?” And so on.

I put on my meatball T-shirt and head for one of the dining rooms to get a late lunch. In the elevator, I stick out my chest for all to read the funny legend upon it, but soon I realize that despite its burnished tricolor letters, no one takes note. More to the point, no one takes note of me. Despite my attempts at bridge building, the very sight of me (small, ethnic, without a cap bearing the name of a football team) elicits no reaction from other passengers. Most often, they will small-talk over me as if I don’t exist. This brings to mind the travails of David Foster Wallace , who felt so ostracized by his fellow passengers that he retreated to his cabin for much of his voyage. And Wallace was raised primarily in the Midwest and was a much larger, more American-looking meatball than I am. If he couldn’t talk to these people, how will I? What if I leave this ship without making any friends at all, despite my T-shirt? I am a social creature, and the prospect of seven days alone and apart is saddening. Wallace’s stateroom, at least, had a view of the ocean, a kind of cheap eternity.

Worse awaits me in the dining room. This is a large, multichandeliered room where I attended my safety training (I was shown how to put on a flotation vest; it is a very simple procedure). But the maître d’ politely refuses me entry in an English that seems to verge on another language. “I’m sorry, this is only for pendejos ,” he seems to be saying. I push back politely and he repeats himself. Pendejos ? Piranhas? There’s some kind of P-word to which I am not attuned. Meanwhile elderly passengers stream right past, powered by their limbs, walkers, and electric wheelchairs. “It is only pendejo dining today, sir.” “But I have a suite!” I say, already starting to catch on to the ship’s class system. He examines my card again. “But you are not a pendejo ,” he confirms. I am wearing a DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL T-shirt, I want to say to him. I am the essence of pendejo .

Eventually, I give up and head to the plebeian buffet on Deck 15, which has an aquatic-styled name I have now forgotten. Before gaining entry to this endless cornucopia of reheated food, one passes a washing station of many sinks and soap dispensers, and perhaps the most intriguing character on the entire ship. He is Mr. Washy Washy—or, according to his name tag, Nielbert of the Philippines—and he is dressed as a taco (on other occasions, I’ll see him dressed as a burger). Mr. Washy Washy performs an eponymous song in spirited, indeed flamboyant English: “Washy, washy, wash your hands, WASHY WASHY!” The dangers of norovirus and COVID on a cruise ship this size (a giant fellow ship was stricken with the former right after my voyage) makes Mr. Washy Washy an essential member of the crew. The problem lies with the food at the end of Washy’s rainbow. The buffet is groaning with what sounds like sophisticated dishes—marinated octopus, boiled egg with anchovy, chorizo, lobster claws—but every animal tastes tragically the same, as if there was only one creature available at the market, a “cruisipus” bred specifically for Royal Caribbean dining. The “vegetables” are no better. I pick up a tomato slice and look right through it. It tastes like cellophane. I sit alone, apart from the couples and parents with gaggles of children, as “We Are Family” echoes across the buffet space.

I may have failed to mention that all this time, the Icon of the Seas has not left port. As the fiery mango of the subtropical setting sun makes Miami’s condo skyline even more apocalyptic, the ship shoves off beneath a perfunctory display of fireworks. After the sun sets, in the far, dark distance, another circus-lit cruise ship ruptures the waves before us. We glance at it with pity, because it is by definition a smaller ship than our own. I am on Deck 15, outside the buffet and overlooking a bunch of pools (the Icon has seven of them), drinking a frilly drink that I got from one of the bars (the Icon has 15 of them), still too shy to speak to anyone, despite Sister Sledge’s assertion that all on the ship are somehow related.

Kim Brooks: On failing the family vacation

The ship’s passage away from Ron DeSantis’s Florida provides no frisson, no sense of developing “sea legs,” as the ship is too large to register the presence of waves unless a mighty wind adds significant chop. It is time for me to register the presence of the 5,000 passengers around me, even if they refuse to register mine. My fellow travelers have prepared for this trip with personally decorated T-shirts celebrating the importance of this voyage. The simplest ones say ICON INAUGURAL ’24 on the back and the family name on the front. Others attest to an over-the-top love of cruise ships: WARNING! MAY START TALKING ABOUT CRUISING . Still others are artisanally designed and celebrate lifetimes spent married while cruising (on ships, of course). A couple possibly in their 90s are wearing shirts whose backs feature a drawing of a cruise liner, two flamingos with ostensibly male and female characteristics, and the legend “ HUSBAND AND WIFE Cruising Partners FOR LIFE WE MAY NOT HAVE IT All Together BUT TOGETHER WE HAVE IT ALL .” (The words not in all caps have been written in cursive.) A real journalist or a more intrepid conversationalist would have gone up to the couple and asked them to explain the longevity of their marriage vis-à-vis their love of cruising. But instead I head to my mall suite, take off my meatball T-shirt, and allow the first tears of the cruise to roll down my cheeks slowly enough that I briefly fall asleep amid the moisture and salt.

I WAKE UP with a hangover. Oh God. Right. I cannot believe all of that happened last night. A name floats into my cobwebbed, nauseated brain: “Ayn Rand.” Jesus Christ.

I breakfast alone at the Coastal Kitchen. The coffee tastes fine and the eggs came out of a bird. The ship rolls slightly this morning; I can feel it in my thighs and my schlong, the parts of me that are most receptive to danger.

I had a dangerous conversation last night. After the sun set and we were at least 50 miles from shore (most modern cruise ships sail at about 23 miles an hour), I lay in bed softly hiccupping, my arms stretched out exactly like Jesus on the cross, the sound of the distant waves missing from my mall-facing suite, replaced by the hum of air-conditioning and children shouting in Spanish through the vents of my two bathrooms. I decided this passivity was unacceptable. As an immigrant, I feel duty-bound to complete the tasks I am paid for, which means reaching out and trying to understand my fellow cruisers. So I put on a normal James Perse T-shirt and headed for one of the bars on the Royal Promenade—the Schooner Bar, it was called, if memory serves correctly.

I sat at the bar for a martini and two Negronis. An old man with thick, hairy forearms drank next to me, very silent and Hemingwaylike, while a dreadlocked piano player tinkled out a series of excellent Elton John covers. To my right, a young white couple—he in floral shorts, she in a light, summery miniskirt with a fearsome diamond ring, neither of them in football regalia—chatted with an elderly couple. Do it , I commanded myself. Open your mouth. Speak! Speak without being spoken to. Initiate. A sentence fragment caught my ear from the young woman, “Cherry Hill.” This is a suburb of Philadelphia in New Jersey, and I had once been there for a reading at a synagogue. “Excuse me,” I said gently to her. “Did you just mention Cherry Hill? It’s a lovely place.”

As it turned out, the couple now lived in Fort Lauderdale (the number of Floridians on the cruise surprised me, given that Southern Florida is itself a kind of cruise ship, albeit one slowly sinking), but soon they were talking with me exclusively—the man potbellied, with a chin like a hard-boiled egg; the woman as svelte as if she were one of the many Ukrainian members of the crew—the elderly couple next to them forgotten. This felt as groundbreaking as the first time I dared to address an American in his native tongue, as a child on a bus in Queens (“On my foot you are standing, Mister”).

“I don’t want to talk politics,” the man said. “But they’re going to eighty-six Biden and put Michelle in.”

I considered the contradictions of his opening conversational gambit, but decided to play along. “People like Michelle,” I said, testing the waters. The husband sneered, but the wife charitably put forward that the former first lady was “more personable” than Joe Biden. “They’re gonna eighty-six Biden,” the husband repeated. “He can’t put a sentence together.”

After I mentioned that I was a writer—though I presented myself as a writer of teleplays instead of novels and articles such as this one—the husband told me his favorite writer was Ayn Rand. “Ayn Rand, she came here with nothing,” the husband said. “I work with a lot of Cubans, so …” I wondered if I should mention what I usually do to ingratiate myself with Republicans or libertarians: the fact that my finances improved after pass-through corporations were taxed differently under Donald Trump. Instead, I ordered another drink and the couple did the same, and I told him that Rand and I were born in the same city, St. Petersburg/Leningrad, and that my family also came here with nothing. Now the bonding and drinking began in earnest, and several more rounds appeared. Until it all fell apart.

Read: Gary Shteyngart on watching Russian television for five days straight

My new friend, whom I will refer to as Ayn, called out to a buddy of his across the bar, and suddenly a young couple, both covered in tattoos, appeared next to us. “He fucking punked me,” Ayn’s frat-boy-like friend called out as he put his arm around Ayn, while his sizable partner sizzled up to Mrs. Rand. Both of them had a look I have never seen on land—their eyes projecting absence and enmity in equal measure. In the ’90s, I drank with Russian soldiers fresh from Chechnya and wandered the streets of wartime Zagreb, but I have never seen such undisguised hostility toward both me and perhaps the universe at large. I was briefly introduced to this psychopathic pair, but neither of them wanted to have anything to do with me, and the tattooed woman would not even reveal her Christian name to me (she pretended to have the same first name as Mrs. Rand). To impress his tattooed friends, Ayn made fun of the fact that as a television writer, I’d worked on the series Succession (which, it would turn out, practically nobody on the ship had watched), instead of the far more palatable, in his eyes, zombie drama of last year. And then my new friends drifted away from me into an angry private conversation—“He punked me!”—as I ordered another drink for myself, scared of the dead-eyed arrivals whose gaze never registered in the dim wattage of the Schooner Bar, whose terrifying voices and hollow laughs grated like unoiled gears against the crooning of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

But today is a new day for me and my hangover. After breakfast, I explore the ship’s so-called neighborhoods . There’s the AquaDome, where one can find a food hall and an acrobatic sound-and-light aquatic show. Central Park has a premium steak house, a sushi joint, and a used Rolex that can be bought for $8,000 on land here proudly offered at $17,000. There’s the aforementioned Royal Promenade, where I had drunk with the Rands, and where a pair of dueling pianos duel well into the night. There’s Surfside, a kids’ neighborhood full of sugary garbage, which looks out onto the frothy trail that the behemoth leaves behind itself. Thrill Island refers to the collection of tubes that clutter the ass of the ship and offer passengers six waterslides and a surfing simulation. There’s the Hideaway, an adult zone that plays music from a vomit-slathered, Brit-filled Alicante nightclub circa 1996 and proves a big favorite with groups of young Latin American customers. And, most hurtfully, there’s the Suite Neighborhood.

I say hurtfully because as a Suite passenger I should be here, though my particular suite is far from the others. Whereas I am stuck amid the riffraff of Deck 11, this section is on the highborn Decks 16 and 17, and in passing, I peek into the spacious, tall-ceilinged staterooms from the hallway, dazzled by the glint of the waves and sun. For $75,000, one multifloor suite even comes with its own slide between floors, so that a family may enjoy this particular terror in private. There is a quiet splendor to the Suite Neighborhood. I see fewer stickers and signs and drawings than in my own neighborhood—for example, MIKE AND DIANA PROUDLY SERVED U.S. MARINE CORPS RETIRED . No one here needs to announce their branch of service or rank; they are simply Suites, and this is where they belong. Once again, despite my hard work and perseverance, I have been disallowed from the true American elite. Once again, I am “Not our class, dear.” I am reminded of watching The Love Boat on my grandmother’s Zenith, which either was given to her or we found in the trash (I get our many malfunctioning Zeniths confused) and whose tube got so hot, I would put little chunks of government cheese on a thin tissue atop it to give our welfare treat a pleasant, Reagan-era gooeyness. I could not understand English well enough then to catch the nuances of that seafaring program, but I knew that there were differences in the status of the passengers, and that sometimes those differences made them sad. Still, this ship, this plenty—every few steps, there are complimentary nachos or milkshakes or gyros on offer—was the fatty fuel of my childhood dreams. If only I had remained a child.

I walk around the outdoor decks looking for company. There is a middle-aged African American couple who always seem to be asleep in each other’s arms, probably exhausted from the late capitalism they regularly encounter on land. There is far more diversity on this ship than I expected. Many couples are a testament to Loving v. Virginia , and there is a large group of folks whose T-shirts read MELANIN AT SEA / IT’S THE MELANIN FOR ME . I smile when I see them, but then some young kids from the group makes Mr. Washy Washy do a cruel, caricatured “Burger Dance” (today he is in his burger getup), and I think, Well, so much for intersectionality .

At the infinity pool on Deck 17, I spot some elderly women who could be ethnic and from my part of the world, and so I jump in. I am proved correct! Many of them seem to be originally from Queens (“Corona was still great when it was all Italian”), though they are now spread across the tristate area. We bond over the way “Ron-kon-koma” sounds when announced in Penn Station.

“Everyone is here for a different reason,” one of them tells me. She and her ex-husband last sailed together four years ago to prove to themselves that their marriage was truly over. Her 15-year-old son lost his virginity to “an Irish young lady” while their ship was moored in Ravenna, Italy. The gaggle of old-timers competes to tell me their favorite cruising stories and tips. “A guy proposed in Central Park a couple of years ago”—many Royal Caribbean ships apparently have this ridiculous communal area—“and she ran away screaming!” “If you’re diamond-class, you get four drinks for free.” “A different kind of passenger sails out of Bayonne.” (This, perhaps, is racially coded.) “Sometimes, if you tip the bartender $5, your next drink will be free.”

“Everyone’s here for a different reason,” the woman whose marriage ended on a cruise tells me again. “Some people are here for bad reasons—the drinkers and the gamblers. Some people are here for medical reasons.” I have seen more than a few oxygen tanks and at least one woman clearly undergoing very serious chemo. Some T-shirts celebrate good news about a cancer diagnosis. This might be someone’s last cruise or week on Earth. For these women, who have spent months, if not years, at sea, cruising is a ritual as well as a life cycle: first love, last love, marriage, divorce, death.

Read: The last place on Earth any tourist should go

I have talked with these women for so long, tonight I promise myself that after a sad solitary dinner I will not try to seek out company at the bars in the mall or the adult-themed Hideaway. I have enough material to fulfill my duties to this publication. As I approach my orphaned suite, I run into the aggro young people who stole Mr. and Mrs. Rand away from me the night before. The tattooed apparitions pass me without a glance. She is singing something violent about “Stuttering Stanley” (a character in a popular horror movie, as I discover with my complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream Internet at Sea) and he’s loudly shouting about “all the money I’ve lost,” presumably at the casino in the bowels of the ship.

So these bent psychos out of a Cormac McCarthy novel are angrily inhabiting my deck. As I mewl myself to sleep, I envision a limited series for HBO or some other streamer, a kind of low-rent White Lotus , where several aggressive couples conspire to throw a shy intellectual interloper overboard. I type the scenario into my phone. As I fall asleep, I think of what the woman who recently divorced her husband and whose son became a man through the good offices of the Irish Republic told me while I was hoisting myself out of the infinity pool. “I’m here because I’m an explorer. I’m here because I’m trying something new.” What if I allowed myself to believe in her fantasy?

“YOU REALLY STARTED AT THE TOP,” they tell me. I’m at the Coastal Kitchen for my eggs and corned-beef hash, and the maître d’ has slotted me in between two couples. Fueled by coffee or perhaps intrigued by my relative youth, they strike up a conversation with me. As always, people are shocked that this is my first cruise. They contrast the Icon favorably with all the preceding liners in the Royal Caribbean fleet, usually commenting on the efficiency of the elevators that hurl us from deck to deck (as in many large corporate buildings, the elevators ask you to choose a floor and then direct you to one of many lifts). The couple to my right, from Palo Alto—he refers to his “porn mustache” and calls his wife “my cougar” because she is two years older—tell me they are “Pandemic Pinnacles.”

This is the day that my eyes will be opened. Pinnacles , it is explained to me over translucent cantaloupe, have sailed with Royal Caribbean for 700 ungodly nights. Pandemic Pinnacles took advantage of the two-for-one accrual rate of Pinnacle points during the pandemic, when sailing on a cruise ship was even more ill-advised, to catapult themselves into Pinnacle status.

Because of the importance of the inaugural voyage of the world’s largest cruise liner, more than 200 Pinnacles are on this ship, a startling number, it seems. Mrs. Palo Alto takes out a golden badge that I have seen affixed over many a breast, which reads CROWN AND ANCHOR SOCIETY along with her name. This is the coveted badge of the Pinnacle. “You should hear all the whining in Guest Services,” her husband tells me. Apparently, the Pinnacles who are not also Suites like us are all trying to use their status to get into Coastal Kitchen, our elite restaurant. Even a Pinnacle needs to be a Suite to access this level of corned-beef hash.

“We’re just baby Pinnacles,” Mrs. Palo Alto tells me, describing a kind of internal class struggle among the Pinnacle elite for ever higher status.

And now I understand what the maître d’ was saying to me on the first day of my cruise. He wasn’t saying “ pendejo .” He was saying “Pinnacle.” The dining room was for Pinnacles only, all those older people rolling in like the tide on their motorized scooters.

And now I understand something else: This whole thing is a cult. And like most cults, it can’t help but mirror the endless American fight for status. Like Keith Raniere’s NXIVM, where different-colored sashes were given out to connote rank among Raniere’s branded acolytes, this is an endless competition among Pinnacles, Suites, Diamond-Plusers, and facing-the-mall, no-balcony purple SeaPass Card peasants, not to mention the many distinctions within each category. The more you cruise, the higher your status. No wonder a section of the Royal Promenade is devoted to getting passengers to book their next cruise during the one they should be enjoying now. No wonder desperate Royal Caribbean offers (“FINAL HOURS”) crowded my email account weeks before I set sail. No wonder the ship’s jewelry store, the Royal Bling, is selling a $100,000 golden chalice that will entitle its owner to drink free on Royal Caribbean cruises for life. (One passenger was already gaming out whether her 28-year-old son was young enough to “just about earn out” on the chalice or if that ship had sailed.) No wonder this ship was sold out months before departure , and we had to pay $19,000 for a horrid suite away from the Suite Neighborhood. No wonder the most mythical hero of Royal Caribbean lore is someone named Super Mario, who has cruised so often, he now has his own working desk on many ships. This whole experience is part cult, part nautical pyramid scheme.

From the June 2014 issue: Ship of wonks

“The toilets are amazing,” the Palo Altos are telling me. “One flush and you’re done.” “They don’t understand how energy-efficient these ships are,” the husband of the other couple is telling me. “They got the LNG”—liquefied natural gas, which is supposed to make the Icon a boon to the environment (a concept widely disputed and sometimes ridiculed by environmentalists).

But I’m thinking along a different line of attack as I spear my last pallid slice of melon. For my streaming limited series, a Pinnacle would have to get killed by either an outright peasant or a Suite without an ocean view. I tell my breakfast companions my idea.

“Oh, for sure a Pinnacle would have to be killed,” Mr. Palo Alto, the Pandemic Pinnacle, says, touching his porn mustache thoughtfully as his wife nods.

“THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S your time, buddy!” Hubert, my fun-loving Panamanian cabin attendant, shouts as I step out of my suite in a robe. “Take it easy, buddy!”

I have come up with a new dressing strategy. Instead of trying to impress with my choice of T-shirts, I have decided to start wearing a robe, as one does at a resort property on land, with a proper spa and hammam. The response among my fellow cruisers has been ecstatic. “Look at you in the robe!” Mr. Rand cries out as we pass each other by the Thrill Island aqua park. “You’re living the cruise life! You know, you really drank me under the table that night.” I laugh as we part ways, but my soul cries out, Please spend more time with me, Mr. and Mrs. Rand; I so need the company .

In my white robe, I am a stately presence, a refugee from a better limited series, a one-man crossover episode. (Only Suites are granted these robes to begin with.) Today, I will try many of the activities these ships have on offer to provide their clientele with a sense of never-ceasing motion. Because I am already at Thrill Island, I decide to climb the staircase to what looks like a mast on an old-fashioned ship (terrified, because I am afraid of heights) to try a ride called “Storm Chasers,” which is part of the “Category 6” water park, named in honor of one of the storms that may someday do away with the Port of Miami entirely. Storm Chasers consists of falling from the “mast” down a long, twisting neon tube filled with water, like being the camera inside your own colonoscopy, as you hold on to the handles of a mat, hoping not to die. The tube then flops you down headfirst into a trough of water, a Royal Caribbean baptism. It both knocks my breath out and makes me sad.

In keeping with the aquatic theme, I attend a show at the AquaDome. To the sound of “Live and Let Die,” a man in a harness gyrates to and fro in the sultry air. I saw something very similar in the back rooms of the famed Berghain club in early-aughts Berlin. Soon another harnessed man is gyrating next to the first. Ja , I think to myself, I know how this ends. Now will come the fisting , natürlich . But the show soon devolves into the usual Marvel-film-grade nonsense, with too much light and sound signifying nichts . If any fisting is happening, it is probably in the Suite Neighborhood, inside a cabin marked with an upside-down pineapple, which I understand means a couple are ready to swing, and I will see none of it.

I go to the ice show, which is a kind of homage—if that’s possible—to the periodic table, done with the style and pomp and masterful precision that would please the likes of Kim Jong Un, if only he could afford Royal Caribbean talent. At one point, the dancers skate to the theme song of Succession . “See that!” I want to say to my fellow Suites—at “cultural” events, we have a special section reserved for us away from the commoners—“ Succession ! It’s even better than the zombie show! Open your minds!”

Finally, I visit a comedy revue in an enormous and too brightly lit version of an “intimate,” per Royal Caribbean literature, “Manhattan comedy club.” Many of the jokes are about the cruising life. “I’ve lived on ships for 20 years,” one of the middle-aged comedians says. “I can only see so many Filipino homosexuals dressed as a taco.” He pauses while the audience laughs. “I am so fired tonight,” he says. He segues into a Trump impression and then Biden falling asleep at the microphone, which gets the most laughs. “Anyone here from Fort Leonard Wood?” another comedian asks. Half the crowd seems to cheer. As I fall asleep that night, I realize another connection I have failed to make, and one that may explain some of the diversity on this vessel—many of its passengers have served in the military.

As a coddled passenger with a suite, I feel like I am starting to understand what it means to have a rank and be constantly reminded of it. There are many espresso makers , I think as I look across the expanse of my officer-grade quarters before closing my eyes, but this one is mine .

A shocking sight greets me beyond the pools of Deck 17 as I saunter over to the Coastal Kitchen for my morning intake of slightly sour Americanos. A tiny city beneath a series of perfectly pressed green mountains. Land! We have docked for a brief respite in Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis. I wolf down my egg scramble to be one of the first passengers off the ship. Once past the gangway, I barely refrain from kissing the ground. I rush into the sights and sounds of this scruffy island city, sampling incredible conch curry and buckets of non-Starbucks coffee. How wonderful it is to be where God intended humans to be: on land. After all, I am neither a fish nor a mall rat. This is my natural environment. Basseterre may not be Havana, but there are signs of human ingenuity and desire everywhere you look. The Black Table Grill Has been Relocated to Soho Village, Market Street, Directly Behind of, Gary’s Fruits and Flower Shop. Signed. THE PORK MAN reads a sign stuck to a wall. Now, that is how you write a sign. A real sign, not the come-ons for overpriced Rolexes that blink across the screens of the Royal Promenade.

“Hey, tie your shoestring!” a pair of laughing ladies shout to me across the street.

“Thank you!” I shout back. Shoestring! “Thank you very much.”

A man in Independence Square Park comes by and asks if I want to play with his monkey. I haven’t heard that pickup line since the Penn Station of the 1980s. But then he pulls a real monkey out of a bag. The monkey is wearing a diaper and looks insane. Wonderful , I think, just wonderful! There is so much life here. I email my editor asking if I can remain on St. Kitts and allow the Icon to sail off into the horizon without me. I have even priced a flight home at less than $300, and I have enough material from the first four days on the cruise to write the entire story. “It would be funny …” my editor replies. “Now get on the boat.”

As I slink back to the ship after my brief jailbreak, the locals stand under umbrellas to gaze at and photograph the boat that towers over their small capital city. The limousines of the prime minister and his lackeys are parked beside the gangway. St. Kitts, I’ve been told, is one of the few islands that would allow a ship of this size to dock.

“We hear about all the waterslides,” a sweet young server in one of the cafés told me. “We wish we could go on the ship, but we have to work.”

“I want to stay on your island,” I replied. “I love it here.”

But she didn’t understand how I could possibly mean that.

“WASHY, WASHY, so you don’t get stinky, stinky!” kids are singing outside the AquaDome, while their adult minders look on in disapproval, perhaps worried that Mr. Washy Washy is grooming them into a life of gayness. I heard a southern couple skip the buffet entirely out of fear of Mr. Washy Washy.

Meanwhile, I have found a new watering hole for myself, the Swim & Tonic, the biggest swim-up bar on any cruise ship in the world. Drinking next to full-size, nearly naked Americans takes away one’s own self-consciousness. The men have curvaceous mom bodies. The women are equally un-shy about their sprawling physiques.

Today I’ve befriended a bald man with many children who tells me that all of the little trinkets that Royal Caribbean has left us in our staterooms and suites are worth a fortune on eBay. “Eighty dollars for the water bottle, 60 for the lanyard,” the man says. “This is a cult.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. There is, however, a clientele for whom this cruise makes perfect sense. For a large middle-class family (he works in “supply chains”), seven days in a lower-tier cabin—which starts at $1,800 a person—allow the parents to drop off their children in Surfside, where I imagine many young Filipina crew members will take care of them, while the parents are free to get drunk at a swim-up bar and maybe even get intimate in their cabin. Cruise ships have become, for a certain kind of hardworking family, a form of subsidized child care.

There is another man I would like to befriend at the Swim & Tonic, a tall, bald fellow who is perpetually inebriated and who wears a necklace studded with little rubber duckies in sunglasses, which, I am told, is a sort of secret handshake for cruise aficionados. Tomorrow, I will spend more time with him, but first the ship docks at St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Charlotte Amalie, the capital, is more charming in name than in presence, but I still all but jump off the ship to score a juicy oxtail and plantains at the well-known Petite Pump Room, overlooking the harbor. From one of the highest points in the small city, the Icon of the Seas appears bigger than the surrounding hills.

I usually tan very evenly, but something about the discombobulation of life at sea makes me forget the regular application of sunscreen. As I walk down the streets of Charlotte Amalie in my fluorescent Icon of the Seas cap, an old Rastafarian stares me down. “Redneck,” he hisses.

“No,” I want to tell him, as I bring a hand up to my red neck, “that’s not who I am at all. On my island, Mannahatta, as Whitman would have it, I am an interesting person living within an engaging artistic milieu. I do not wish to use the Caribbean as a dumping ground for the cruise-ship industry. I love the work of Derek Walcott. You don’t understand. I am not a redneck. And if I am, they did this to me.” They meaning Royal Caribbean? Its passengers? The Rands?

“They did this to me!”

Back on the Icon, some older matrons are muttering about a run-in with passengers from the Celebrity cruise ship docked next to us, the Celebrity Apex. Although Celebrity Cruises is also owned by Royal Caribbean, I am made to understand that there is a deep fratricidal beef between passengers of the two lines. “We met a woman from the Apex,” one matron says, “and she says it was a small ship and there was nothing to do. Her face was as tight as a 19-year-old’s, she had so much surgery.” With those words, and beneath a cloudy sky, humidity shrouding our weathered faces and red necks, we set sail once again, hopefully in the direction of home.

THERE ARE BARELY 48 HOURS LEFT to the cruise, and the Icon of the Seas’ passengers are salty. They know how to work the elevators. They know the Washy Washy song by heart. They understand that the chicken gyro at “Feta Mediterranean,” in the AquaDome Market, is the least problematic form of chicken on the ship.

The passengers have shed their INAUGURAL CRUISE T-shirts and are now starting to evince political opinions. There are caps pledging to make America great again and T-shirts that celebrate words sometimes attributed to Patrick Henry: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” With their preponderance of FAMILY FLAG FAITH FRIENDS FIREARMS T-shirts, the tables by the crepe station sometimes resemble the Capitol Rotunda on January 6. The Real Anthony Fauci , by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears to be a popular form of literature, especially among young men with very complicated versions of the American flag on their T-shirts. Other opinions blend the personal and the political. “Someone needs to kill Washy guy, right?” a well-dressed man in the elevator tells me, his gray eyes radiating nothing. “Just beat him to death. Am I right?” I overhear the male member of a young couple whisper, “There goes that freak” as I saunter by in my white spa robe, and I decide to retire it for the rest of the cruise.

I visit the Royal Bling to see up close the $100,000 golden chalice that entitles you to free drinks on Royal Caribbean forever. The pleasant Serbian saleslady explains that the chalice is actually gold-plated and covered in white zirconia instead of diamonds, as it would otherwise cost $1 million. “If you already have everything,” she explains, “this is one more thing you can get.”

I believe that anyone who works for Royal Caribbean should be entitled to immediate American citizenship. They already speak English better than most of the passengers and, per the Serbian lady’s sales pitch above, better understand what America is as well. Crew members like my Panamanian cabin attendant seem to work 24 hours a day. A waiter from New Delhi tells me that his contract is six months and three weeks long. After a cruise ends, he says, “in a few hours, we start again for the next cruise.” At the end of the half a year at sea, he is allowed a two-to-three-month stay at home with his family. As of 2019, the median income for crew members was somewhere in the vicinity of $20,000, according to a major business publication. Royal Caribbean would not share the current median salary for its crew members, but I am certain that it amounts to a fraction of the cost of a Royal Bling gold-plated, zirconia-studded chalice.

And because most of the Icon’s hyper-sanitized spaces are just a frittata away from being a Delta lounge, one forgets that there are actual sailors on this ship, charged with the herculean task of docking it in port. “Having driven 100,000-ton aircraft carriers throughout my career,” retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, writes to me, “I’m not sure I would even know where to begin with trying to control a sea monster like this one nearly three times the size.” (I first met Stavridis while touring Army bases in Germany more than a decade ago.)

Today, I decide to head to the hot tub near Swim & Tonic, where some of the ship’s drunkest reprobates seem to gather (the other tubs are filled with families and couples). The talk here, like everywhere else on the ship, concerns football, a sport about which I know nothing. It is apparent that four teams have recently competed in some kind of finals for the year, and that two of them will now face off in the championship. Often when people on the Icon speak, I will try to repeat the last thing they said with a laugh or a nod of disbelief. “Yes, 20-yard line! Ha!” “Oh my God, of course, scrimmage.”

Soon we are joined in the hot tub by the late-middle-age drunk guy with the duck necklace. He is wearing a bucket hat with the legend HAWKEYES , which, I soon gather, is yet another football team. “All right, who turned me in?” Duck Necklace says as he plops into the tub beside us. “I get a call in the morning,” he says. “It’s security. Can you come down to the dining room by 10 a.m.? You need to stay away from the members of this religious family.” Apparently, the gregarious Duck Necklace had photobombed the wrong people. There are several families who present as evangelical Christians or practicing Muslims on the ship. One man, evidently, was not happy that Duck Necklace had made contact with his relatives. “It’s because of religious stuff; he was offended. I put my arm around 20 people a day.”

Everyone laughs. “They asked me three times if I needed medication,” he says of the security people who apparently interrogated him in full view of others having breakfast.

Another hot-tub denizen suggests that he should have asked for fentanyl. After a few more drinks, Duck Necklace begins to muse about what it would be like to fall off the ship. “I’m 62 and I’m ready to go,” he says. “I just don’t want a shark to eat me. I’m a huge God guy. I’m a Bible guy. There’s some Mayan theory squaring science stuff with religion. There is so much more to life on Earth.” We all nod into our Red Stripes.

“I never get off the ship when we dock,” he says. He tells us he lost $6,000 in the casino the other day. Later, I look him up, and it appears that on land, he’s a financial adviser in a crisp gray suit, probably a pillar of his North Chicago community.

THE OCEAN IS TEEMING with fascinating life, but on the surface it has little to teach us. The waves come and go. The horizon remains ever far away.

I am constantly told by my fellow passengers that “everybody here has a story.” Yes, I want to reply, but everybody everywhere has a story. You, the reader of this essay, have a story, and yet you’re not inclined to jump on a cruise ship and, like Duck Necklace, tell your story to others at great pitch and volume. Maybe what they’re saying is that everybody on this ship wants to have a bigger, more coherent, more interesting story than the one they’ve been given. Maybe that’s why there’s so much signage on the doors around me attesting to marriages spent on the sea. Maybe that’s why the Royal Caribbean newsletter slipped under my door tells me that “this isn’t a vacation day spent—it’s bragging rights earned.” Maybe that’s why I’m so lonely.

Today is a big day for Icon passengers. Today the ship docks at Royal Caribbean’s own Bahamian island, the Perfect Day at CocoCay. (This appears to be the actual name of the island.) A comedian at the nightclub opined on what his perfect day at CocoCay would look like—receiving oral sex while learning that his ex-wife had been killed in a car crash (big laughter). But the reality of the island is far less humorous than that.

One of the ethnic tristate ladies in the infinity pool told me that she loved CocoCay because it had exactly the same things that could be found on the ship itself. This proves to be correct. It is like the Icon, but with sand. The same tired burgers, the same colorful tubes conveying children and water from Point A to B. The same swim-up bar at its Hideaway ($140 for admittance, no children allowed; Royal Caribbean must be printing money off its clientele). “There was almost a fight at The Wizard of Oz ,” I overhear an elderly woman tell her companion on a chaise lounge. Apparently one of the passengers began recording Royal Caribbean’s intellectual property and “three guys came after him.”

I walk down a pathway to the center of the island, where a sign reads DO NOT ENTER: YOU HAVE REACHED THE BOUNDARY OF ADVENTURE . I hear an animal scampering in the bushes. A Royal Caribbean worker in an enormous golf cart soon chases me down and takes me back to the Hideaway, where I run into Mrs. Rand in a bikini. She becomes livid telling me about an altercation she had the other day with a woman over a towel and a deck chair. We Suites have special towel privileges; we do not have to hand over our SeaPass Card to score a towel. But the Rands are not Suites. “People are so entitled here,” Mrs. Rand says. “It’s like the airport with all its classes.” “You see,” I want to say, “this is where your husband’s love of Ayn Rand runs into the cruelties and arbitrary indignities of unbridled capitalism.” Instead we make plans to meet for a final drink in the Schooner Bar tonight (the Rands will stand me up).

Back on the ship, I try to do laps, but the pool (the largest on any cruise ship, naturally) is fully trashed with the detritus of American life: candy wrappers, a slowly dissolving tortilla chip, napkins. I take an extra-long shower in my suite, then walk around the perimeter of the ship on a kind of exercise track, past all the alluring lifeboats in their yellow-and-white livery. Maybe there is a dystopian angle to the HBO series that I will surely end up pitching, one with shades of WALL-E or Snowpiercer . In a collapsed world, a Royal Caribbean–like cruise liner sails from port to port, collecting new shipmates and supplies in exchange for the precious energy it has on board. (The actual Icon features a new technology that converts passengers’ poop into enough energy to power the waterslides . In the series, this shitty technology would be greatly expanded.) A very young woman (18? 19?), smart and lonely, who has only known life on the ship, walks along the same track as I do now, contemplating jumping off into the surf left by its wake. I picture reusing Duck Necklace’s words in the opening shot of the pilot. The girl is walking around the track, her eyes on the horizon; maybe she’s highborn—a Suite—and we hear the voice-over: “I’m 19 and I’m ready to go. I just don’t want a shark to eat me.”

Before the cruise is finished, I talk to Mr. Washy Washy, or Nielbert of the Philippines. He is a sweet, gentle man, and I thank him for the earworm of a song he has given me and for keeping us safe from the dreaded norovirus. “This is very important to me, getting people to wash their hands,” he tells me in his burger getup. He has dreams, as an artist and a performer, but they are limited in scope. One day he wants to dress up as a piece of bacon for the morning shift.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE TITANIC (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise, but when I wake up on the eighth day, all I see are the gray ghosts that populate Miami’s condo skyline. Throughout my voyage, my writer friends wrote in to commiserate with me. Sloane Crosley, who once covered a three-day spa mini-cruise for Vogue , tells me she felt “so very alone … I found it very untethering.” Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes in an Instagram comment: “When Gary is done I think it’s time this genre was taken out back and shot.” And he is right. To badly paraphrase Adorno: After this, no more cruise stories. It is unfair to put a thinking person on a cruise ship. Writers typically have difficult childhoods, and it is cruel to remind them of the inherent loneliness that drove them to writing in the first place. It is also unseemly to write about the kind of people who go on cruises. Our country does not provide the education and upbringing that allow its citizens an interior life. For the creative class to point fingers at the large, breasty gentlemen adrift in tortilla-chip-laden pools of water is to gather a sour harvest of low-hanging fruit.

A day or two before I got off the ship, I decided to make use of my balcony, which I had avoided because I thought the view would only depress me further. What I found shocked me. My suite did not look out on Central Park after all. This entire time, I had been living in the ship’s Disneyland, Surfside, the neighborhood full of screaming toddlers consuming milkshakes and candy. And as I leaned out over my balcony, I beheld a slight vista of the sea and surf that I thought I had been missing. It had been there all along. The sea was frothy and infinite and blue-green beneath the span of a seagull’s wing. And though it had been trod hard by the world’s largest cruise ship, it remained.

This article appears in the May 2024 print edition with the headline “A Meatball at Sea.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

A Carnival cruise that left Baltimore last week will return to a different port and bus passengers home

• Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed Tuesday morning after a container ship crashed into it.
• Carnival Cruise Line  is temporarily relocating the Carnival Legend's homeport from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia.
• The company is providing guests on the ship, returning on Sunday, with a bus back to Baltimore.

On Sunday, travelers on Carnival Cruise Line's Legend ship will return home after a relaxing weeklong vacation in the Caribbean.

But instead of disembarking at the ship's homeport as planned, these cruisers will soon find themselves a four-hour bus ride away in Norfolk, Virginia, as the Port of Baltimore remains closed following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Related stories

Amid the disruption, Carnival said it had moved the Carnival Legend's March 31 disembarkation from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, where it will temporarily remain homeported. The company will provide guests on the ship's Caribbean voyage a free bus back to Baltimore.

The Carnival Legend's next weeklong cruise, embarking the same day it returns, will sail roundtrip from Norfolk, about a four-hour drive from Baltimore. The cruise line said it will update future guests on its plans to return to Maryland.

Carnival's Carnival Pride and Legend, Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Sea, and American Cruise Line's American Glory are all scheduled to sail from the Port of Baltimore in April. The companies did not immediately respond to Business Insider's inquiry about potential itinerary changes.

Experts told Business Insider that the Port of Baltimore's ongoing closure could amount to a daily $15 million loss in economic activity .

While the port is vitally important for certain imports and exports, it represents a relatively small portion of US cruise departures, with smaller ships compared to hubs like Florida. More than 444,000 people embarked on cruises there in 2023, according to state officials.

Watch: The container ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge has crashed before

• Main content