Viking Ocean Cruises, the deep-sea sibling of Viking River Cruises, has just doubled its order for new ships from 6 to 12 at Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri. The new ships are to arrive between 2024 and 2027.
Fincantieri was already building six new ships for the rapidly-expanding company, which has only been doing ocean cruises since 2015. Those ships, numbers 5 through 10 in the fleet, will be delivered over the next four years.
Viking’s fourth ship, Viking Sun, is on an inaugural world cruise, and was christened last week while in port in Shanghai.
All of the Viking ships follow the same pattern, with 930 passengers in 465 double-occupancy cabins with balconies and relatively large floor space. Viking’s River Cruise division also uses the same plan of having nearly identical ships in its fleet. And the river is getting bigger, too: there are seven more of its ‘Viking Longships’ on order for 2019.
