The line’s president and CEO gave some insight into the upcoming class at a media briefing held onboard Legend of the Seas during the ship’s exclusive preview sailing

Royal Caribbean International president and CEO Michael Bayley gave the most detailed picture yet of the line’s next new-build programme, Discovery Class, discussing deployment strategy, Panama Canal capabilities and the go-to-market timeline.

Bayley said: “The amount of energy, time, creativity, innovation that goes into designing a new class is extraordinary.

“It’s kind of a crazy experience, and we’ve just been through that with Discovery, and it does kind of do you in at the end of the day, because it’s just a lot of work that goes in, a lot of people are engaged in this process.”

Built for wider itineraries

Discovery Class has been designed with a specific deployment brief in mind, according to Bayley: reaching destinations that the line’s larger ships cannot currently serve efficiently.

“Discovery is a class, by its name, that will go to Asia, it will go to Alaska, it will go to European itineraries,” he said. “That ship will be specifically designed for those types of more exotic experiences.”

Bayley highlighted the importance of Discovery Class ships transiting the Panama Canal – something the line’s larger Icon and Oasis Class vessels cannot do.

“It’s quite an achievement, because it’s a beautiful, stunning ship, and it will be able to traverse through the canal, which changes access to more exotic destinations,” he said.

“If you can’t go through the canal, it’s literally 60 days to come from Alaska back into the Caribbean. When you go through the canal, it’s two weeks, which changes that dynamic quite a lot. It allows those ships to move around more efficiently.”

Past learnings

Bayley made it clear that Discovery Class is not a standalone project but a consolidation of lessons drawn from across the fleet, including from Legend of the Seas itself, the Icon Class ship on which the briefing took place.

“There are elements that we’ve placed into this ship that we’ve literally taken everything we’ve learned from all of the classes that have preceded Discovery, including this class [the Icon Class], which we think is phenomenal.

“We’ve taken many of the things we’ve learned from this class, and we’ve moved them across into Discovery, along with what we learned in Oasis Class and Freedom Class and Voyager Class, and all the classes we’ve built over time.”

Timeline for launch

Bayley set out roughly when Royal Caribbean will start actively marketing the class. “We’ll be super happy to talk about Discovery typically 18 to 24 months before the ship goes to its first sail, because then we attach it to all of our marketing communications,” he said. “The first ship is due in 2029, and our first real go-to-market will be sometime in 2027.”