Australia is one of the fastest growing cruise destinations and cruise lines are keen to fit more Australians in their cabins.

Over the past month, two mass-market lines – Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises – announced they would increase capacity in Australia by moving larger ships to the region in 2015.

This means, Australia will have at least 14 mass-market ships based here during the five-month 2015/16-wave season.

Among the ships will be Royal Caribbean’s Explorer, Voyager and Radiance; Carnival’s Legend and Spirit; Princess’ Sun, Dawn, Diamond, Golden and Sea; and Celebrity Solstice.

There will be 36,966 beds to fill every night or 5.5 million every night over the five months.

The battle of the big ships in Australia is well and truly on and according to Cruise Lines International Association’s general manager Brett Jardine, this is great news for Australian cruisers.  He says it will create opportunities for new itineraries.

“This the largest increase in capacity for this market in recent years which represents a great opportunity for the many Aussies and Kiwis that are yet to experience their first cruise holiday,” he told Cruise Passenger.

“As we’ve seen with the Princess announcement, more capacity also opens up opportunities to create new itineraries, such as Princess’ first summer Fremantle season, so it really helps spread the word about cruising across the country.”