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World’s Largest Luxury Cruise Lines

To the right is a list of the world’s largest luxury cruise lines, according to the 2022 Luxury Market Report from the folks over at Cruise Industry News.

As you can see in the chart, we are stepping into 2022 with market capacity (the number of staterooms available for booking in a given year) up 175% from last year.

And further, the number of ships has grown 38% year-over-year.

The standout in the group is Viking. In 2022, Viking has grown from 7 to 12 ships putting them in command of 31.6% market share. And with ambition unbound, Viking plans to expand its fleet with seven more ocean-going vessels through the end of 2027.

“Behind MSC Cruises, Viking is the largest privately held operator and one of the most diverse cruise operators with options on rivers in Europe, the U.S., an ocean-going product, and expedition voyages,” says the Cruise Industry News report.

Rendering of the Silversea Silver Nova coming in 2023

However, the growth in new ships doesn’t end there. Silversea and Regent have new ships in the water with more coming. Seabourn has new expedition ships coming; Windstar cut its motor yachts in half and extended them, and the number of new ships arriving in the next decade is somewhat mind-boggling.

Sadly, however, Crystal Cruises did not make it through the pandemic as they are currently in bankruptcy.

We have kept a close eye on all of this.

Our clients prefer these smaller luxury ships, so we have abandoned booking the large-ship cruise lines altogether. And there are a couple of other cruise lines farther down the list that we are not currently booking until we are convinced that they have the financial stability to come out of the pandemic financially sound.

All in all, these are exciting times for the cruise industry. It appears that Covid-19 will soon be in the rearview mirror, there is a plethora of new ocean and expedition ships on the way, and 80,000,000 baby boomers are standing in line to get back out there and explore the world.

We’re happy to be riding this wave of excitement and stand ready to serve your future travel planning needs.

Further Reading: Our Favorite Ocean Cruise Brands

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Roaming Boomers Travel Services is an Independent Affiliate of Cadence, a Virtuoso® member. CST#201120-40