This page is provisional, and is labelled as such on purpose. Every other page in this directory describes a ship that exists. This one describes ships that, at the time of writing, exist as contracts, steel and announcements. Orders are delayed, renamed, resized and occasionally cancelled; delivery dates in the cruise industry are aspirations until a ship floats. For that reason the directory's rule is strict: no ship gets her own hull page until she has been launched or floated out with confirmed specifications. What follows is a dated snapshot of the orderbook as it stood in late October 2026. It will date, and when it is revised, the revision will be dated too.
The scale of the orderbook
The counts differ by source and by the month they were taken, which is itself the first lesson of reading an orderbook. CLIA's orderbook collated in July 2024 counted 71 ships on order for delivery between 2024 and 2036. By October 2026 the figure had grown: CLIA Australasia, launching its 2026 Cruise Month campaign on 6 October 2026, put the orderbook at 89 new cruise ships, representing, in its managing director's words, an investment of almost US$100 billion. Both figures describe the same pipeline at different moments — orders placed faster than ships are delivered — and neither should be read as a promise that 89 specific hulls will enter service on schedule.
More of the biggest: Royal Caribbean and MSC
The top of the market is a continuation of the present. Royal Caribbean International's Icon class, already the largest cruise ships in the world in Icon of the Seas and her sisters, is being extended: as reported in September 2026, the fourth ship, Hero of the Seas, had been floated out at Meyer Turku, assembly of a fifth Icon-class ship was under way for delivery in 2028, with further Icon-class ships due in 2029 and 2030 and a seventh Oasis-class ship due in 2028. Names, tonnages and dates for the later hulls remain announcements, not facts, until float-out.
MSC Cruises is doing the same with its World class. MSC World Asia, the third of the class, was floated out at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in November 2025 for delivery in November 2026, and MSC World Atlantic followed her out of the building dock in September 2026 for service from late 2027. In November 2025 MSC announced orders for the seventh and eighth World-class ships, a €3.5 billion investment, for delivery in 2030 and 2031 — which takes the class, as announced, to eight ships, following MSC World Europa and MSC World America already in service.
Disney, Norwegian and Carnival
Disney Cruise Line's expansion, announced at its D23 event in August 2024, is planned to take the fleet to 13 ships. Its elements, as announced in January 2025 and updated since, are a fourth Wish-class ship — named Disney Believe and scheduled, as announced, for late 2027 — a further Wish-class ship to be operated from Japan with the Oriental Land Company, and an entirely new, smaller class: three ships of about 100,000 gross tons for about 3,000 guests, announced for delivery in 2029, 2030 and 2031, sized deliberately between Disney's earliest ships and its Wish class to reach ports the larger ships cannot use.
Norwegian Cruise Line is growing in two steps. The Prima class has been stretched into the Prima Plus ships and then into still larger successors announced for 2027 and 2028; beyond them sits the brand's largest order of all. As announced in April 2024 and firmed up with Fincantieri in February 2025, Norwegian has ordered four ships of about 226,000 gross tons, with over 5,100 berths each, for delivery in 2030, 2032, 2034 and 2036 — the largest ships the line has ever ordered, and a new class in everything but a name, which has not been announced.
Carnival Cruise Line's growth runs through two classes. Two further Excel-class ships were announced for 2027 and 2028, following Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration and Carnival Jubilee. Behind them is the step change: Project Ace, announced in 2024 as three ships of about 230,000 gross tons — Carnival's first ships over 200,000 tons, with more than 3,000 staterooms and capacity for nearly 8,000 guests. Steel was cut for the first Ace-class ship at Fincantieri's Monfalcone yard on 10 July 2026, when she was named Carnival Destiny — a revived name, like Mardi Gras before it — with delivery, as announced at that ceremony, in the summer of 2029 and sisters to follow in 2031 and 2033.
The luxury and expedition tail
The fastest-growing part of the orderbook by number of brands, if not by berths, is the small-ship end. MSC's luxury brand Explora Journeys is building out a fleet of sister ships from Explora I onward through the later 2020s. The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection has completed its first three yachts, Evrima, Ilma and Luminara, the last delivered in 2025. The hotel brands are now arriving in force: Four Seasons Yachts' first ship, Four Seasons I, entered service in 2026, as announced, and the Orient Express brand's first sailing yacht, Orient Express Corinthian — at about 220 metres the largest sailing yacht in the world, as announced — entered service in 2026, with a sister, Orient Express Olympian, announced for 2027. Expedition cruising continues its own quieter expansion, with small ice-class ships for the polar regions and the Galápagos appearing in the orderbook every year. These ships will transform their segments; none will trouble the list of the world's largest cruise ships, and that is rather the point of them.
The rule, restated
Nothing on this page is a hull page, and nothing here should be cited as a ship's specification. Figures are as announced by the lines, the yards and CLIA on the dates given, and announced figures — tonnage above all — have a long history of changing between contract and delivery. When each of these ships is launched or floated out with confirmed specifications, she will get her own page in this directory, keyed by her IMO number, and this page will be revised to remove her from the future and leave her where she belongs: in the fleet.
Sources: https://cruising.org:443/about-cruise-industry/cruise-ships; https://www.cruisemonitor.com.au/clia-launches-ocean-week-with-89-new-ships-on-order/; https://maritime-executive.com/article/construction-is-underway-on-more-giants-for-cruising; https://www.travelmarketreport.com/cruises/articles/msc-cruises-orders-two-more-world-class-ships-floats-out-msc-world-asia; https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2025/02/fincantieri-firms-up-new-ship-order-for-norwegian-cruise-line/; https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2026/08/disney-cruise-line-reveals-first-details-of-new-ship-class/