- Royal Caribbean Group’s premium brand, Celebrity Cruises, is launching river cruises in 2027.
- Celebrity River Cruises’ first 10 ships would sail in Europe.
- River cruising has exploded in popularity and the smaller ships are faster and cheaper to build.
Forget the Atlantic or Caribbean oceans — Celebrity Cruises hopes you’ll consider cruising European rivers instead, helping its big bet on a growing and lucrative market segment.
The premium Royal Caribbean Group subsidiary plans to launch 10 river cruise ships starting in 2027, adding significant real estate and further diversity to its vacation portfolio.
The move isn’t only to capitalize on the growing river cruise trend or to capture more of the European market, though that certainly won’t hurt. Smaller ships — with their shorter, cheaper build times and faster deployments — can help the cruise giant keep up with skyrocketing demand for all types of cruises, from affordable to luxury and ocean to river.
“We could probably be the second-largest operator and it would be significantly less money than the Xcel 2 ship we just bought,” Jason Liberty, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, told analysts on Tuesday. (The first Celebrity Xcel ship, launching in November, cost $1 billion.) “It’s not something that has a high barrier of entry on cost, but there is a higher barrier in terms of execution.”
River cruises have been gaining popularity as travelers increasingly crave more intimate and upscale floating resorts. Demand has been so high that Viking — which operates more than 90 ships, mostly on rivers — started seeing low capacity for 2025 before the turn of the year.
Royal Caribbean has yet to release specific details about the coming 10-ship fleet, although it noted they would be designed similarly to Celebrity’s contemporary Edge Class ocean vessels.
The cruise giant’s CEO called river cruising a “fragmented market,” which provides the company an opportunity to dominate with its established brand recognition and loyalty program.
Two of its most prominent competitors, Carnival Corp and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, do not oversee large brands in the industry. Instead, Celebrity’s biggest rivals would be established and popular river cruise companies like Viking and Avalon Waterways.
2027 would be a defining year for Royal Caribbean. In addition to launching Celebrity River Cruises, it would also be the year the company inaugurates its Perfect Day Mexico private resort and a fourth Icon Class mega-ship.
