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Cruise Line News
---- THE LATEST INDUSTRY NEWS ----
(9/2/2026) A New Look Inside Norwegian's Great Tides Waterpark
(8/9/2026) A Look inside Norwegian Cruise Lines's New Great Tides Waterpark
(7/18/2026) Port Canaveral Working To Finish Huge Cruise Terminal Expansion
(5/28/2026) Norwegian Cruise Line Sets Opening Date for Great Tides Waterpark
(5/24/2026) Mexico Officially Denies Royal Caribbean’s Perfect Day Mexico Project Plans
(4/14/2026) Cruise Ship Entertainment Is Evolving Into All New Concepts
General Industry News - (7/18/2026) Port Canaveral, the ultra busy cruise ship terminal located within view of the world NASA’s world famous Cape Canaveral launch facility, as well as being the closest cruise ship terminal to Orlando, has announced plans to double the size of Cruise Terminal 5 facility. Currently the Cruise Terminal 5 building takes up 90,000 sqft and the plan is to expand it to approximately 170,000 sqft going forward, as well as build a new 13-story parking structure next to Cruise Terminal 6. Port Canaveral claims that they have been seeing a huge surge in demand from cruise ship guests at the port that has seen usage levels increase more than 80% over the past several years.
The expansion of the Cruise Terminal 5 will also ensure that the facility will be able to accommodate “the world’s largest cruise ships” going forward. It was originally built to service the typical size ships that were at sea at the time, but the rise of the newer giant sizes vessels that are up to 2 to 3 times larger on average than they were before, requires that the port keep pace.
(4/14/2026) If you’ve been on a cruise over the past few years, especially on a newer class ship, you may have noticed that how entertainment is packaged and delivered to guests has been changing. On older ships your evening’s events was fairly scheduled and predictable… dinner reservations, then off to the main theater for that evenings live show performance, and then later, maybe off to a smaller bar for some music or a comedy venue for some late night laughs.
These days however, the concept of entertainment on the high seas has been changing and evolving, with each cruise line taking the concept in new directions. From Royal Caribbean’s AquaTheater concepts to adding live entertainment to the dining experience on the Disney Cruise Lines to the ever evolving venues and living entertainment concepts spread throughout the Virgin Voyages vessels… the concept of live entertainment on cruise ships has been evolving into all new forms, taking place in new venue concepts, and in many cases, creating an experience that guests can interact with and sometimes even travel through the ship itself with as the performance goes on.
Follow the link to see more about how each cruise line has been upping the game and trying out new concepts.
CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE - (12/29/2025) Screamscape has been covering more and more Cruise Ship news over the past few years because, quite honestly, many of them really are starting to take on the role of being a floating theme park, each trying to out-do the competition by innovating and adding new and unique thrilling attractions of their own.
So with that in mind, it was fun to see that CruiseHive had their readers vote about what they felt was the best Cruise Ship Feature of 2025, and the winner with 22.9% of the votes was the BOLT roller coaster currently found on all three of Carnival’s Excel-class ships (Mardi Gras, Celebration and Jubilee). This is the 5th year in a row that the Bolt coaster has won this award, going back to the launch of the first version of the attraction on the Carnival Mardi Gras in 2021.
It’s worth mentioning that a similar sea-coaster from the same manufacturer will also be presented as a highlight experience on the new Disney Adventure cruise ship when it launches from Singapore in March 2026 with an Iron Man theme called the Ironcycle Test Run.
For the record, the follow-up attractions on other ships include:
2) the Magic Carpet on Celebrity Cruises at #2 (a platform mounted to the side of the ship able to rise from the top and lower down to the water) with 18.6% of the vote.
3) Cliffhanger on MSC Cruises with 18.2%
4) the new Aqua Slidecoaster on Norwegian Crusie Line with 16.7%
5) Crown’s Edge on Royal Caribbean with 16.5%
6) Disney’s AquaMouse with the final 7% of the votes.
So with all that in mind, I do find it interesting that Carnival has already confirmed that on the next two Excel-class ships that are in production (Festivale and Tropical), they have opted to not include a Bolt coaster and will instead create a bigger area for waterpark attractions.
CELEBRITY CRUISES - (2/1/2026) Celebrity Cruises (owned by Royal Caribbean) has announced that the first steel has been cut for the new Celebrity Compass, a new River Cruise vessel that will launch in 2027, to be followed by the Celebrity Seeker later that year, then in 2028 by three more… the Celebrity Wanderer, Roamer, and Boundless.
MSC Cruises - (2/1/2026) MSC Cruises has announced plans to upgrade their Ocean Cay private island stop-over in the Bahamas. The planned upgrades will include new Food and Beverage stations, an adults-only beach area, a dedicated beach lagoon for families, along with plans to extend the ocean pier to allow for a second ship to dock at the same time.
In terms of the various private beach stops for the various cruise lines, Ocean Cay isn’t that old. It actually just opened in late 2019, and the new upgrades are expected to be complete by late 2027 along with a new “Marine Conservation Experience”.
  Norwegian Cruise Line - (9/2/2026) The new Great Tides Waterpark at Norwegian’s Cruise Lines’ Great Stirrup Cay private resort will officially open on Sept. 4th, but the waterpark is already soft-open to guests visiting now it seems. Check out the video below to take a look at the attractions and decide if this extra-cost upsell experience is worth it.
(8/9/2026) While the new Great Tides Waterpark in the Bahama’s, on the private destination island for Norwegian Cruise Line, isn’t set to open until September, the cruise line has released a few new images showing off a preview look at their new waterpark. Follow the link to check it out.
(5/28/2026) According to the latest updates, Norwegian Cruise Line’s new Great Tides Waterpark is now set to open in the Bahamas on September 4th, 2026. You can find the waterpark at Great Stirrup Cay, the private island stop for Norwegian Cruise Line vessels in the Bahamas. A visit to the waterpark is an upcharge attraction for cruise line guests, so if you are sailing there, check with Norwegian as to how you can get advanced reservations.
(2/7/2026) According to a post by blooloop, wiegand.waterrides will be providing the slides for the new Norwegian Aura, set to debut in May 2027. This latest addition to the Norwegian Cruise Line fleet will feature the most waterslides to date on an NCL ship, including the Eclipse Racers (dueling mat racers), The Wave and The Drop, a dry slide.
(1/20/2026) Norwegian Cruise Line has offered up some preview images of their newest vessel, the Norwegian Aura, that isn’t set to launch until May 2027 in Europe before relocating to a Miami port in June 2027. When it is ready the Norwegian Aura will be the “longest and largest” vessel in the Norwegian fleet, able to accommodate 3,840 guests, and ranks about 10% larger than the Norwegian Aqua (Launched 2025) and Luna (Launching March 2026).
On the leisure side the Aura will be home to the first Ocean Heights activity complex, the Eclipse Racers (their first dueling mat racer waterslides), the Aura Free Fall slide, The Wave pendulum-style raft ride and The Drop dry slide. Other dry activities also include an 82-foot tall ropes course, a 25 foot tall rock climbing wall and an amusement park-style area called Aura Midway.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line - (5/24/2026) The Government of Mexico has formally denied environmental and construction permits to Royal Caribbean International for its proposed large-scale water and theme park project on the Yucatán Peninsula. The decision follows sustained protests from local residents and environmental advocacy groups who voiced serious concerns about the threat of overtourism and ecological disruption to a delicate, critical system of coastal mangroves and marine coral reefs. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that the country's environmental authority conducted a detailed analysis confirming the site's high ecological sensitivity, and have now suggested that Royal Caribbean look into relocating the project to a less vulnerable region.
It isn’t clear yet how Royal Caribbean will react, as the plans for the Perfect Day Mexico resort were linked to their 2025 purchase of the Costa Maya Cruise Port, with plans to update and expand from current levels of about 2 million passengers a year up to 6.5 million, with the private attraction on the land nearby serving as a major attraction. The 200 acre Perfect Day Mexico site was to include a huge waterpark and a beach club with 24 bars, 12 eateries and more, with the first phase to open by the end of 2027.
In a statement, the cruise line did say they were disappointed in the decision, but respect the role of Mexico’s environmental authorities and confirmed that, “We continue to believe in Mexico, and are optimistic in the potential to advance our investment responsibly.” As for the future, they only said that they would “re-engage stakeholders to move forward in a way that delivers shared prosperity through the development of essential environmental infrastructure, the creation of thousands of local jobs, and community programs that support the people of Mexico.”
(4/5/2026) Royal Caribbean has announced the details about their fourth Icon Class ship now under construction, to be called the Hero of the Seas. Hero of the Seas is currently set to premier in Miami in August 2027 (barring any construction delays), and it will feature a number of record-breaking items, such as having the most pools at sea (9) and a record-breaking 28 different dining venues.
There will be a lot of water fun on the Hero as well, including the new Coconut Cove VIP pool, a swim up bar for adults, and an expanded Category 6 waterpark area that willf feature two new family raft slides (including the first tunnel raft slide at sea), a Flow Rider stationary surf wave, and some non-water fun like the Crown’s Edge Skywalk/Zipline, Adrenaline Peak rock climbing, Lost Dunes mini-golf and much more.
On a related note, look for sister ship, Legend of the Seas to launch in July 2026, and Hero will be followed by a still unnamed 5th Icon Class ship expected to launch sometime in 2028.
(1/31/2026) Royal Caribbean has announced that they’ve signed a deal to build a new ship class called the “Discovery Class” that is expected to first launch in 2029, with a second ship also on order that should launch in 2032. No details have leaked out about what we can expect from Royal Caribbean’s latest design and how it will compare to the current Oasis and Icon Class ships.
The new Discovery Class will come from the Chantiers del’Atlantique shipyard in France, who was also responsible for the past couple of Oasis class ships, including Utopia of the Seas in 2024 and Wonder of the Seas in 2021.
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