Record bookings show travelers are hooked on giant cruise ships, even as ports, itineraries and crowd size pose real trade-offs.
See inside Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas
Explore Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas, featuring one of the largest waterparks and swim-up bars at sea.
- Mega-ships attract passengers with a wide array of amenities like water parks, theaters and ice rinks.
- Cruise lines are investing heavily in larger vessels, with record bookings for ships like Royal Caribbean’s Icon class.
- Drawbacks of mega-ships include potential crowding, limited itineraries and the challenge of experiencing everything onboard.
Amy Valderrama Amaya went big on her first cruise.
The 23-year-old sailed with her boyfriend and his family on Royal Caribbean International’s Star of the Seas in January, one of the largest cruise ships in the world. Valderrama Amaya spent a week exploring the nearly 250,000-gross-ton ship, from watching the “Torque” show in the AquaTheater to skating at the onboard ice rink.
“It was a lot of fun going on the rink, especially on a cruise ship in the middle of the water,” the Seattle resident told USA TODAY. “Like, [who] can say that?”
Valderrama Amaya researched the ship before embarking on the cruise to the Bahamas, Mexico and Honduras, but admitted it was “a little overwhelming” in person. “Even on the last day I was honestly getting lost, because it was just massive, but it was a lot of fun,” she said. “I definitely feel almost spoiled in a way that I got to experience such a big ship for my first cruise ship.”
That stacked lineup of amenities has helped vessels like Star become a major hit for Royal Caribbean, sparking online chatter and driving record bookings. They’re not the only ones: Mega-ships can often feel like the new normal across the industry.
Here’s why guests keep coming back – and why those large vessels aren’t as ubiquitous as they may seem.
Why are passengers drawn to mega-ships?
“I think the draw for most people is, kind of, the theory behind bigger is better,” said RacQuelle Major-Holland, owner of Major Adventures Travel Agency. “And so, especially new cruisers, they just make the assumption that the bigger ships are better than the smaller ships, because they’re going to have more amenities – which they do.”
Those can include some combination of water parks, roller coasters, rock climbing walls, surf simulators and theaters – not to mention restaurants, bars, pools and sun decks. “There’s something on board for everyone,” she said, noting that the ships often feature entire areas geared toward kids or families, and others designed exclusively for passengers 18 and up.
Mega-ships are so big that guests may not even feel like they’re on a cruise – a potential perk for those wary of being on open water. “What I’ve learned is a lot of my clients like the bigger ships because they are almost like floating cities,” Major-Holland said. “There’s a lot to see and do, and [on] a lot of them you don’t really get a lot of ocean views, especially when you’re in the inside, the promenade areas.”
However, there are drawbacks as well. While many of the vessels are designed to “spread people out,” Major-Holland has found they can feel crowded, especially in popular venues like buffets. “Sometimes it can be a challenge getting some of those reservations for some of the aqua shows and the comedy shows and things, because there’s so many people on board trying to get to those,” she said.
Some ports can’t accommodate ships of that size, so itineraries may be more limited than on smaller vessels. And while the mega-ship is a destination in itself for many guests booking those cruises, Major-Holland noted it can be challenging to see and do everything, even on a seven-night itinerary.
Still, the appetite for those vessels remains strong. She’s booking many for clients and has noticed that when she uploads videos about an older, smaller ship to her social platforms, they don’t get as many views. “I feel like the mega ships are in high demand,” Major-Holland said.
The cruise industry is leaning in
Cruise companies seem to have gotten the memo.
Construction recently began on Royal Caribbean’s fifth Icon Class ship, set to launch in 2028, the company said in January. The vessel’s existing sister ships, Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas – which are the largest cruise ships in the world – can each accommodate 5,610 guests at double occupancy.
Jason Liberty, chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, said in a January earnings call that Star of the Seas and Celebrity Xcel, a new (and smaller) ship from Celebrity Cruises, were exceeding expectations, while the upcoming Icon Class ship Legend of the Seas was “experiencing very strong booking trends.”
Norwegian Cruise Line will also launch the biggest ship in its fleet, Norwegian Aura, in 2027, and Carnival Cruise Line will begin welcoming the largest vessels in its history – and that of parent company Carnival Corp. – in 2029.
Marilyn Macallair, a cruise travel analyst for Phocuswright, traced the early days of mega-ships to the launch of Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas in 2009. “Everything exploded in the late 2000s when Oasis came out, and it was so much bigger than all the rest,” she said. “And it had such incredible creativity.”
The cruise line introduced the neighborhood concept, for example, dividing the ship into distinct areas. After that, vessels continued to get “bigger and more creative.”
There are numerous upsides for the companies.
Macallair noted that large ships of that kind – with striking visuals well-suited to the current social media environment – have been particularly popular among millennials and other young travelers the industry has worked to court. Cruise Lines International Association’s 2025 State of the Cruise Industry Report found that millennials and Gen Xers were the “most enthusiastic” about cruising, with 83% and 84% planning to sail again, respectively.
“And the thing about the ships also, you know, looking ahead, there’s always going to be global turmoil … and they made the ships destinations, so you don’t have to leave them,” Macallair added.
From a sustainability standpoint, large ships may also seem like they’d be less efficient – but it’s not so straightforward.
“A ship that, say, holds 4,000 passengers is not going to require four times the power to go through the water that four ships that hold 1,000 passengers are going to require,” Matthew Collette, a professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the University of Michigan, previously told USA TODAY. He noted, however, that the comparison gets complicated depending on the kinds of itineraries ships are sailing and the technology ports have.
Various factors like whether a ship is plugging into shore power in port or using a cleaner-burning fuel like liquefied natural gas, aka LNG, play a role in their environmental footprint as well. “So that’s another kind of wrinkle here, that a more modern, larger ship may be better if it’s using a better fuel,” Collette said at the time.
Not all ships are getting bigger
While mega-ships got a lot of attention, there are still plenty of other vessels operating, too. Among CLIA-member line ships sailing between 2023 and 2028, 34% are small with less than 1,000 lower berths (the standard fixed beds in a cabin) while 39% are midsize with between 1,000 and 3,000 lower berths, according to the State of the Cruise Industry report. A further 28% are large ships with 3,000 or more lower berths.
“That balance in the fleet underscores the range of options available to travelers – from expedition and luxury experiences on smaller ships to large-scale vessels with extensive amenities and entertainment offerings,” CLIA, the industry’s leading trade group, told USA TODAY by email. “There is a ship to meet the needs of just about every kind of traveler.”
The organization and its member lines also work with destinations and ports “to support tourism management needs while also protecting the economic benefits that cruise tourism brings to communities.”
While there is a range of mega-ships set to launch in the coming years, Macallair said their long-term future is an open question – especially given that there has been significant growth in the luxury cruise market, which tends to be on the smaller side.
“I mean, there’s just so many destinations,” she said. “There are destinations that are pulling back from allowing these huge cruise ships to pull into port. You can’t sustain 7,000 people disembarking at the same time, and so I don’t think they can go any bigger.”
Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.
