Royal Caribbean starts building another ‘worlds biggest ship’ – but competition is coming

• Royal Caribbean has started construction on another Icon Class ship.
• This will mark the fifth ship to be built for Royal’s Icon class.
• A steel cutting ceremony was held in Turku, Finland.

Royal Caribbean has cut steel on its latest ship, the fifth ship from its Icon class.

The vessel is yet to be named but will join Icon of the Seas, Star of the Seas, Legend of the Seas and another unnamed ship to form part of Royal Caribbean’s Icon class, which make up the biggest ships in the world.

Icon and Star are already sailing with Legend of the Seas set to follow this year. Then the two unnamed vessels are set to hit the seas in 2027 and 2028 respectively.

There is something of an ‘arms race’ between major cruise lines at the moment to keep building bigger and bigger ships.

Carnival’s Project Ace will bring four new megaships, MSC’s new Constellation class will do the same, and NCL has another four on the way. as well. Adding that to Royal Caribbean’s upcoming ships, we’ll see at least 16 new megaships over the next 10 years or so, and likely more as new plans advance.

Royal Caribbean’s gigantic new ships are clearly a big hit and selling well, and their model of sailing as much as possible to their own private destinations is being closely followed by NCL and Carnival, who also have private destinations in the Caribbean.

At the the moment Royal Caribbean’s ships stand alone as the largest, and by 2028, the largest five ships in the world will be all be Royal Caribbean Icon class ships. However, MSC’s new ships, which will start rolling out from the 2030s, should be set to overtake Royal Caribbean’s ships by gross tonnage, and Carnival’s new ships, which will start rolling out in 2029, look set to overtake Royal Caribbean by capacity.

Royal Caribbean previously revealed to journalists during the construction of Icon of the Seas that they did have aims to keep building bigger and bigger, but nothing has been officially confirmed or suggested to say they have plans to build ships bigger than the Icon class.