The first Discovery Class ship will launch in summer 2029 and will be able to pass through the Panama Canal in a matter of hours rather than the 55 days it takes for larger cruise vessels to sail around South America.
Speaking on Royal's third Icon Class ship – Legend of the Seas – on Wednesday (1 July), Bayley said the Discovery Class ships would operate in Alaska, Asia and Europe.
Bayley said “elements” of all of Royal Caribbean’s existing ship classes would be built into Discovery Class which will be smaller than Icon Class.
“We’re going to build them into Discovery,” he said. “We’ll be super happy to talk about Discovery about 18 to 24 months before the ship sails because that’s when we attach it to all of our marketing and communications.
“That ship class will be designed to offer a more exotic itineraries. The first ship is June 2029 and it will go to market late next year.”
Jason Liberty, Royal Caribbean Group President and Chief Executive, hailed Europe as an "incredibly important" source market when asked whether Legend would remain in the Mediterranean beyond 2027.
“Europe is an incredibly important source market – we source all through Europe. Europe is a travel playground,” he explained.
“There’s a real thirst from our guests to come and sail here. So, to bring an Icon-class ship has created a tremendous amount of interest and demand.”
Bayley echoed Liberty’s comments around the importance of Europe to Royal Caribbean. “Europe is a very popular market for us,” he said.
Their comments came after Royal’s EMEA chief Gerard Nolan told media onboard that having Legend in the Med was “a real statement” move which had lifted the entire cruise sector.
When asked about rising fuel prices caused by the US war on Iran, Liberty said: “We have seen elevated fuel costs globally. Hopefully that has stopped now that conflict has stopped.
“We’re always dealing with an inflationary environment. As we get larger, we always scale up operations in the supply chain and that helps moderate the cost. We won't let it affect the guest experience.”
Liberty also revealed new-to-cruise guests are “five times more likely” to keep sailing with one of the three Royal brands – Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea – once they had experienced them for the first time.
“One of the benefits of social media, and other forms of media, is the ability for people to understand what they are going to get from one of our products,” he explained.
“There are a lot of people that will sometimes say cruising isn’t for me. They may look at the number of people that might be on a ship and they might think that’s not what they want to do.
“We love the opportunity for those guests to come on the ship because they’re five times more likely to stay with us once they’ve experienced all the things that we do across any of our brands.”
