Anytime Richard Branson announces something new, a number of us pay attention.
This is simply because he has a track-record of redefining industries. There is no doubt that some of his ventures have turned out to be more successful than others, but if anyone has ever flown on Virgin-Atlantic, you will know it’s a very different experience than any of the North American carriers offer.
So what does this mean for cruise?
We don’t really know yet, because even though the first sailing is in just 3 years, very few details have been released.
There’s all the normal marketing talk that they have started with “a blank sheet of paper”, and that it won’t be like any other cruise experience, but the actual details are a bit sparse.
Here’s what we do know:
- It will be for adults of 18 years or older. This is a bit of trend reversal, but their target market is clearly not families.
- The first generation of ship will be about 110,000 tons, and will carry about 2800 customers. This puts it at about the same size as the Princess Grand Class ships, and slightly larger than the RCCL Radiance Class ships.
- There will be about 1150 crew, making the crew:passenger ratio about 2.43. This makes it about the same as Carnival, Norwegian, Princess or RCCL.
- The ship is being specifically designed for environmental sustainability. They haven’t released any details, but they are claiming they will be the most eco-friendly ships at sea.
- The staterooms will about 86% balconies, with the next 7% being Ocean view (bucking the trend away from OV cabins), and the remainder being inside cabins.
- They refer to their customers as “Sailors”, as opposed to “guests” or “passengers”. What this actually means, is not clear yet.
- Their target market will be those that have not cruised before, and millennials. I think this is really smart. Even though the cruise industry is growing like crazy, MOST of the vacationing population in North America has NOT taken a cruise yet. Virgin might be the one to talk them into it.
- The experience is said to be inspired by yachting. How you do this on a ship over 100,000 tons, with 2800 passengers will truly be a test of Virgin’s innovation.
- Their first sailing is in 2020, and will be out of Florida to the Caribbean.
- It is not clear what price point they will be pursuing. The crew to passenger ratio, and passenger space ratio would put them somewhere in the mass-market space, likely positioned between Royal Caribbean and Princess, but whether they charge a premium for the Virgin Brand we will have to wait to see. With the information available, it would be difficult to see them competing with the luxury ships.
They are also offering people the opportunity get access to the sailing schedule and reservations prior to the general public by placing a $500 deposit (per cabin) now. Although this is 100% refundable for any reason, I’m not sure I’d suggest this unless you are a huge Virgin fan (or you’ve got lots of $500 bills sitting around doing nothing).
It’s my hope that Virgin truly lives up to its brand promise of redefining the industry. It would be really cool to see what innovations they can come up with. So far, it appears that the Virgin marketing machine is in full gear – we’ll have to wait to see if the product lives up to the hype.
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Sue Bradley
Sue Bradley
