Disney Delays Launch Dates of 2 Ships by 2 Years

Disney Wish postponed.

Disney Cruise Line will be postponing the launch of its sixth and seventh ships from 2022 and 2023 to 2024 and 2025, respectively.

This was announced by CEO Bob Chapek during the question and answer part of the Nov. 12 financial results conference call.

Chapek blamed the delay on having to go through and adapt to “quite thorough” latest CDC guidelines.

“They really entail some really high hurdles in terms of not only testing by the potential guests that we host on the ships but also a process that has to happen in order to certify our first sailings,” he said. “Those will necessarily result in delays beyond what we had hoped in terms of getting our ships back in service and making magic for our guests.”

Chapek also reminded that the launch of the Disney Wish, the cruise line’s fifth ship, was postponed from the end of 2021 to summer 2022.

Pandemic-related issues at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany were cited as the reason for the six-month delay back in mid-October when it was first announced.

Chapek added that the cruise line sees a “very, very strong demand” for its new cruise ships.

“We hope and expect that the world will back to normal by then, and anticipate having a fine time trying to fill up the demand of those ships. And we think there's going to be so much pent-up demand that we don't expect to have many issues given the love that our guests have for Disney Cruise Lines,” Chapek said.