On the more extreme end is Silversea Cruises, which sawed its nine-year-old Silver Spirit right down the middle back in March. The goal? To add a 49-foot section to the center of the ship, accommodating an expanded pool area and more restaurants.
Tough new regulations requiring cruise lines to lower sulfur emissions by 2020 may curb the trend toward cruise ship renovation; executives will have to decide whether it’s worth it to pay millions on retrofitted “scrubbers” that meet the updated environmental criteria.
Hanging in Havana
In addition to the Bahamas, one destination has emerged as a particularly attractive market for old and renovated vessels: Cuba. Current facilities in Havana can’t handle today’s mega-ships, but they can handle the smaller, 1990s version of a mega-ship, such as Royal Caribbean’s 28-year-old, 1,602-passenger Empress of the Seas, christened by Gloria Estefan.
Empress is the oldest ship in the company’s fleet; it sailed with the Spanish subsidiary Pullmantur for eight years before being brought back in 2016, just as the Cuba cruise market was opening up. Similarly, Carnival is now sailing to the destination with its 25-year-old, 2,056-passenger Carnival Sensation; in the fall, its 3,000-passenger Carnival Sunshine, a remake of the 22-year-old Carnival Destiny, will become the largest ship to anchor in Havana. Peter Knego, a cruise historian and classic-ship memorabilia dealer, even talks about some of these ships the way some people talk about Cuba’s antique cars, delighting in such “vintage” design features as expansive Lido decks with multiple pools.
American demand for Cuba cruises is hot—possibly because of newly tightened rules for land visits on the island. As a result, these sailings are selling at premium prices: a balcony cabin on a five-day cruise on the 20-year-old, 2,154-passenger Carnival Paradise in early July starts at $1,259 per person, almost 10 percent more than a comparable cruise that skips Havana.
That might explain why Norwegian Cruise Line has invested $400 million to refurbish nine of its 16 vessels, including its two Havana-bound ships. “You get to that middle-aged period in a 30-year life, and the ships need a substantial investment,” says Andy Stuart, president and CEO of the line. “That’s exactly what we’ve done,” he adds. “We don’t see any reason to retire ships.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.