New Ships - They Just Keep Coming

Over the past thirty days, three new ships have entered cruise service, one each with Royal Caribbean International (RCI), Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) for its Norwegian America division and Princess Cruises.

Anyone who has any interest in travel should be aware of RCI’s Freedom of the Seas. The largest cruise ship ever built, Freedom received broad publicity throughout the country, including live broadcasts on the Today show from her decks. We’ve heard that several winter sailings are already sold out.

While Freedom of the Seas attracted the most attention, NCL’s Norwegian America Line took delivery of the Pride of Hawaii. With its all U.S. crew, the Pride will cruise among the Hawaiian Islands. While cruise ships are usually christened by a “godmother,” Pride of Hawaii was christened by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the first man ever to christen a cruise ship. Senator Inouye’s efforts were central to the legislation required to allow NCL to develop U.S-crewed ships for the Hawaii market.

Rounding out the month’s new ships, the Crown Princess features 900 staterooms with private balconies, second in number of balconies only to the Queen Mary II. While no new ships will enter service during the rest of this year, seven new ships are scheduled to start cruising in 2007.

New ships provide more choices for floating vacations. The additional 30,000+ berths on these ten ships (the most recent three plus seven in 2007) will keep competition high among major cruise lines and should help keep prices very affordable. Cruising, especially in the Caribbean, is, by far, the best vacation value right now.