Luxury Cruise Fleet Average Age: 12-Year-Old Ships

Luxury Cruise Fleet Average Age: 12-Year-Old Ships

Regent Seven Seas Grandeur photo credit Spacejunkie2 Flickr Account 

Data from the latest edition of the Luxury Market Report by Cruise Industry News shows that a luxury cruise ship has an average age of roughly 12 years in 2025.

After undergoing significant expansion in the past ten years, the luxury market saw newbuild after newbuild enter service over the last decade, led by aggressive growth from Viking, Ponant and others.

Ritz-Carlton, Swan Hellenic, Emerald and Explora are among the brands with the youngest fleets in 2025.

They also represent the newest brands, having all launched service with new vessels after 2020.

Brands such as Ponant, Silversea, Regent, Viking and Hapag-Lloyd have average fleet ages falling between ten and 15 years.

Among the brands owned by major public cruise corporations, Seabourn has the youngest fleet, with ships that are nine years old on average in 2025.

Silversea comes in second with an 11-year average fleet age, followed by Hapag-Lloyd with a 13-year average and Regent Seven Seas with a 14-year average.

Brands including SeaDream, Crystal, Paul Gauguin and Windstar have some of the oldest fleets in the market.

While extensively refurbished over the years, SeaDream’s yachts are among the oldest ships in the market, with a median age of 40 years in 2025.

Fresh from a major drydock in Singapore, Paul Gauguin’s sole ship, the Paul Gauguin, is another industry veteran with a nearly 30-year sailing career.

Amidst a rejuvenation project that includes the debut of two newer ships through 2026, as well as major refurbishment projects, the Windstar fleet had an average age of 28 years in 2025.

With a series of newbuilds scheduled to arrive starting in 2028, Crystal’s fleet currently has an average age of 26 years.

The Cruise Industry News’ report also shows that, with eight newbuilds scheduled to enter service for luxury brands, the market’s fleet median age is set to grow by nearly six months next year.

Fincantieri: ‘Covering All Brands’ with Eye on Future Fuels

Fincantieri: ‘Covering All Brands’ with Eye on Future Fuels

Coming off a big newbuild order from Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Daniele Fanara, director of new building and after-sales at Fincantieri, is positive about the future.

“We are serving all segments of the market, from small luxury vessels to mega-size vessels to upper premium,” said Fanara, speaking to Cruise Industry News. “This covers all the brands in the cruise industry.”

Fanara said Fincantieri was very proud to be working with a variety of operators and being able to serve each of them in a tailored customized way.

“We have cross-fertilization with our technology, including the capacity to design the vessel,” he added.

NCLH Order

The new Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings order for eight ships includes orders for all three company brands, with new classes of ships for each of them. Norwegian, Oceania and Regent will all get new bigger ships, with orders for the Norwegian brand stretching to 2036.

“We are proud of the trust that Norwegian gave us to develop such an important program,” said Fanara.

Looking at future technologies, Fanara said the ships were being developed.

“Our attention is focused on three main fuels,” he said. “One is LNG, one is methanol, and one is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most innovative one. We are developing new ideas on how and when we can implement hydrogen onboard the vessels.”

New ships for Oceania and Regent are being developed to be methanol-ready.

“Today there is no real answer on the fuel of the future,” Fanara continued. “It’s a matter of availability. What’s important from our side is that we are always studying the latest technology available. We are also exploring CO2 capture technology.”

Fanara said among the alternative fuels, LNG was notable in the fact it was being used today.

“Ships are sailing on LNG. The other technology is in a different phase of development. We need to monitor them so we are ready to implement them if necessary,” he explained.

Questions are coming in from cruise lines on alternative fuel practicalities, Fanara said, but with the most questions on hydrogen.

“It is the most innovative, it is the most unknown.”

Industry

Fanara called the cruise industry resilient.

“Soon after Covid, the speed at which the industry recovered and came back to strong booking and revenue levels is incredible,” he said.

Fanara expects other orders to follow, citing market demand and the value gap between cruise- and land-based vacations.

Shipbuilding Costs

Costs are up to build ships.

“A greener vessel is for sure more expensive to build,” Fanara noted. “But is the value of this additional cost worth it for the industry?

“The owners can say the ships are more expensive. We had Covid, we had wars and the result of this has been inflation. If you mix inflation and the technology transition, the result is not less expensive ships.”

Regent Announces 2027 World Cruise with 71 Ports

Regent Announces 2027 World Cruise with 71 Ports

Regent Seven Seas Cruises announced its 2027 World Cruise, sailing from January 11, 2027, onboard the Seven Seas Splendor, according to a press release.

Sailing from Miami, Florida to New York, the 2027 World of Splendor adventure travels to 71 ports of call in the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Africa and Europe. Guests will travel 35,668 nautical miles across three oceans, exploring 40 countries on six continents.

Also included are over 480 shore excursions and 14 overnight stays,  as well as a chance to visit 73 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Prices for the 140-night world tour start at $91,499 per guest for a Veranda Suite and up to $839,999 per guest for the Regent Suite.

“We have seen continued interest and demand to venture further afield and for longer durations and so we are thrilled to announce that our 2027 World Cruise will take place on board Seven Seas Splendor, offering more luxury travelers the opportunity to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Andrea DeMarco, president of Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

“This will be the first time a World Cruise will sail on board one of our magnificent Explorer-Class ships, Seven Seas Splendor, which was launched in 2020 and offers the highest standards of unrivaled luxury, and features the one-of-a-kind, 4,443 square foot Regent Suite.”

In addition, for the first time, travelers can embark on this World Cruise in the most exclusive address residence at sea – the Regent Suite. The Regent Suite experience onboard is priced at $1.7 million dollars for two guests.

Del Rio: Full NCLH Fleet to Operate by Late Spring; Adapt to Situation

Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, spoke on Thursday morning along with Dr Scott Gottlieb, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Chairman of the Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings SailSAFE Global Health and Wellness Council.

Del Rio said the company, which operates the Norwegian, Regent and Oceania brands, had spared no expense to operate safely and he still plans to have the company’s full fleet operating by late spring.

“We have made every effort (and) spared no expense to have the most stringent protocols in the hospitality and leisure space,” he said, on a webinar for media and travel partners. “We will simply not take risks with the well-being of our crew and our guests for the sake of profit.”

Commenting on close-in voyage cancellations, Del Rio said that the virus was spreading quickly, but also disappearing quickly.

“With the rapid spread of Omicron across the globe our industry has gotten a lot of press. Most of it negative press,” he continued. “And all of it has been biased to some degree … taking advantage of the fact that our industry offers robust testing, that we track cases and that we diligently report them to the CDC and other public health administrations.”

Del Rio said the different rules for the cruise industry for public safety had hurt the business. 

“The media and even some politicians turn to this hard data that we provide and they take this news and sensationalize it for a cheap headline. We are the only industry they can pick on because of our honesty,” he continued, adding that the industry had survived two years of “this monster” and told travel advisors it was not time to quit.

Dr Gottlieb stressed that he thought the Omicron wave was peaking in parts of the U.S. and some areas of the country would see the same in a few weeks before cases start going down. That, combined with new treatments, should paint a positive picture of the future.

Onboard, Dr Gottlieb said the cruise industry had the ability to tightly control the environment and noted that Norwegian had invested heavily in onboard therapeutics and testing.

“The cruising environment lends itself to being able to introduce those measures.”

Del Rio admitted that the Omicron timing had a dampening effect on wave season.

Dr Gottlieb mentioned that he felt confident there would be a low prevalence of COVID this summer, people would be back to travelling and consumer confidence would be up.

In light of the past two years, Del Rio said: "Continue to expect the unexpected and adapt."

Half of Global Cruise Fleet in Service for Second Consecutive Month

The cruising restart has seen a positive trend over the past few months. Fueled by various countries and markets reopening ports to cruise vessels, the industry saw an unprecedented number of vessels resuming revenue operations around the world over the summer.

As the restart continues, 205 ships are expected to be in guest operations by the end of September. This number means that, for the second month in a row, nearly half of the entire global cruise fleet is in operation.

According to the 2022 Global Cruise Ship Index by Cruise Industry News, the combined fleets of the nearly 90 active cruise lines currently account for approximately 410 cruise ships.

After significant growth over the previous months, 190 cruise ships were sailing with paying guests by Aug. 31. With 15 additional ships entering service through the end of September, the active cruise fleet is growing nearly 8 per cent this month.

More ships resuming service means that more cruise lines are relaunching revenue operations. In September, brands like Regent, Plantours and Star Clippers are welcoming guests back, making it 63 brands back in service.

The aforementioned data is from the Cruise Ships in Service Report by Cruise Industry News.

The restart numbers started growing in May, which saw 55 ships operating revenue sailings. In the preceding eight months – only an average of 20 ships were in service. 

A turning point, however, was reached in July. With the U.S. ports reopening for business, 141 vessels were back in service by the end of that month – an 82 per cent increase over June numbers.

From May to September, the average guest capacity per ship grew significantly, too, going from 994 to 1,454.

Cruise Industry Capacity Growth Concerns Have Been Debunked

With the cruise industry set to grow at between 4 and 6 per cent per year according to the 2021 Cruise Industry News Annual Report, are there concerns about too many ships and weakened pricing? 

No, according to Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings President and CEO Frank Del Rio.

"I think that the narrative of too much capacity coming online pre-pandemic had pretty much been debunked," he said, on the company's first-quarter earnings call. "All the cruise line were taking on the new (ships), digesting that new capacity very nicely and increasing pricing. And so we always – our comeback always was, we only have 28 ships. There are many underserved markets that we simply don't have ships to operate in.

"And so we're eager to get our hands on our new vessels, all nine of them across the three brands. And what we're seeing now within the pandemic is pricing is strong, demand is stronger than ever. I mean, to give you a nugget of data. The Oceania and Regent brands reached their 50 per cent load factor for 2022 over 100 days earlier than they did for the record year of 2019 ... pricing power is there."