Where will all the passengers come from?

So 2015 is an exciting year in the cruising world – with the launch of P&O Britannia and Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the seas, and also the celebration of the 175th Anniversary for Cunard. Royal Caribbean will also have the Allure of the Seas sailing out of Barcelona/Rome.

Celebrity have also announced the Eclipse will remain to cruise out of Southampton as is Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas.  P&O will also continue to maintain their programme out of Southampton (more details to be announced soon) Princess cruises will have the Royal Princess sailing out of Southampton for 2015 and NCL have announced they will have the NCL Epic sailing out of Europe.

So how many passengers do these ships hold:

Britannia: 3,600 passengers.   Anthem of the Seas: 4,180 passengers,  Allure of the Seas: 5,400 passengers,  NCL Epic: 4,100 passengers, Royal Princess: 3,600 passengers,  Celebrity Eclipse: 2,850 passengers,   Adventure of the Seas: 3,114 passengers

And then there is all the other ships that sail from Southampton in the P&O, Cunard, Princess and Fred Olsen fleet, and the other ships based in Europe.

So just where are all these cruise passengers going to come from to fill these ships? Obviously the new ships Britannia and Anthem will fill majority of their capacity easily due to the hype that has been built up around them launching and their new facilities. But will the other ships struggle? Will we see some good deals in the cruise industry next year?  I am predicting that due to the size and amount of too many big ships in the European market are going struggling to fill in the quieter months in May, September and October so will see some fabulous offers released.

Already this year has seen P&O release their saver fares on quite a few sailings despite them saying this fare would very rarely been released into the market. Royal Caribbean are also struggling to fill and has seen them bring out their guarantee fares on selected sailings.  So surely 2014 will be harder with bigger ships to fill – the cruise lines will have to work on attracting new to cruise customers, and offering good customer deals to compete with each other.

My advice as always is if there is a particular cruise you are interested in then book it so you don’t miss out and be disappointed, and Anthem and Britannia will sell out quickly being new.