New Florida mega ship follows trend of shorter cruises

A new Royal Caribbean mega ship that just started sailing out of Port Canaveral this month is offering small things in a big package.

Utopia of the Seas is the second-largest cruise ship in the world. But unlike Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest that offers seven-day trips out of Miami, this one has short three- and four-day jaunts to the Bahamas on an 18-deck behemoth. A traveler would be hard-pressed to check out all its features, including 40 places to eat and drink, five pools, two casinos, a zip line, water slides, a surf simulator and an ice skating rink.

Royal Caribbean says there is demand for cruises at a lower price and for shorter timeframes that don’t cut deeply into vacation time. They’re also popular with younger travelers with flexible schedules who can work from anywhere.

“One of the reasons we put this brand-new Oasis class into this market is that we really expect to see a certain amount of demand coming from tourists who are going in for some kind of combo,” said Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley. “They’re doing Disney or Universal or doing something in Orlando, and then they can tag on.”

Typically, cruise lines devote their biggest and newest ships to weeklong journeys, leaving older and smaller ships for the shorter trips.

“The cruise line flipped the script with Utopia of the Seas,” said Aaron Saunders, senior editor of Cruise Critic, who went on one of its first voyages. “Make no mistake: This is not a ship for relaxation. In fact, you may find all the in-your-face fun becomes tiresome after a while.”

Utopia has 18 decks and a 5,668-passenger capacity based on double occupancy. Similar to its Oasis-class sister ships, it has themed “neighborhoods” in different areas of the ship. These include a boardwalk with outdoor activities like rock climbing and a carousel. There’s also Central Park, an open-air garden neighborhood in the center of the ship with live trees and plants growing in a plaza setting with shops, bars and venues.

In addition to its short itinerary, another small package aboard the giant ship is a new experience called Royal Railway. It borrows from the theme parks in creating an immersive setting that looks like an old-fashioned dining car on a Pullman-style train for dinner and a show, complete with digital screen projections of passing Old West landscapes out the windows.

Guests get a high-end menu of cowboy-themed food for the Wild West trip while actors play out a train heist. But only 48 people get to enjoy Royal Railway at each time slot. It costs $119.99 per adult and $59.99 per child. Posts on the fan site CruiseCritic.com said the Royal Railway seating sold out within 15 minutes when reservations went live for a recent cruise.

“We’ve taken longer cruises, and by the end, it sometimes felt as if we’d experienced everything we wanted to do on the ship. On this trip, we didn’t even come close to checking all the items off our to-do list. This can be a positive or negative,” said Matt Frankel, an investment advisor who writes for the investment site the Motley Fool.

Out of Port Tampa Bay, the majority of cruises are longer voyages to Mexico and the Caribbean, but there are four-night trips on the Margaritaville at Sea Islander, Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas, Norwegian’s Jade, Carnival’s Paradise and Carnival Pride.

According to the industry organization Cruise Lines International Association, the recent increase in cruise ships and itineraries is well-timed to meet the strong demand for cruise travel. A recent report found that cruise travel reached 107% of 2019 levels in 2023. Forecasts are predicting that by 2027, cruising will grow to welcome nearly 40 million passengers from its current high of more than 31 million.