For those of us who have wondered why cruise companies seem to be adding ships at an accelerating pace, the reason is now clear—there are apparently lines of people waiting to book cruises on them.
Royal Caribbean CEO Jason Liberty told financial analysts last week that the company’s three cruise brands have already sold 88% of all available 2024 cabins and are well into sales for 2025. The other biggest cruise operators, Carnival and Norwegian, which also operate multiple brands, have reported similar ‘on-fire’ booking trends.
At that level of demand, fewer discounts are available than in the past, and prices are trending higher. For Royal Caribbean, that has meant that yields for cruises in the first three months of this year were up 19.3% over the same quarter last year, and nearly 4 percentage points higher than the line had predicted.
