Over the past couple decades, cruise lines have developed and created larger and more technologically advance cruise ships than ever before. However, not every cruise ship project has succeeded.
While some of the following projects did get off the ground, all of them ended up failing. Here is a look at several cruise ship projects that have failed over the past few years.
Titanic II
First announced in 2013, Titanic II was supposed to set sail for the first time in 2016. The world’s most infamous ship would be recreated but with modern safety standards. Everything from the dining rooms to staterooms would be recreated like the original.
The ship’s maiden voyage would take the same course as the original ship from Southampton, England to New York City.
In 2016, it was announced that the ship would now debut in 2018. After two more years of silence, Blue Star Line posted on their website that work would now continue on the project. The website’s last update was in December 2018 leaving the project dead.
Many industry experts have wondered from the start if the project was nothing more than a publicity stunt and was never intended on being completed.
MS Satoshi, the Bitcoin Ship
Ocean Builders bought one of Princess/P&O’s older cruise ships that they sold during the pandemic. Their plan was to turn the cruise ship into a floating village with Bitcoin being the currency used on board. They even named the ship MS Satoshi after the Bitcoin founder.
Satoshi was going to be a place you could rent a cabin by the day, week, month, or year. The cruise ship was going to remain offshore near Panama with a business focused environment on board.
Everyone from digital nomads to YouTube influencers, startup teams, and established businesses were going to be welcomed with office space to accommodate them.
Shortly after buying the ship, the project had to be canceled because Ocean Builders could not get the proper insurance required to operate a cruise ship that you could live on. The vessel was once again sold for scrap.
Freedom Ship
Freedom Ship is a nearly one mile long cruise ship that would house 60,000 passengers and up to 100,000 people at a time. It would act as a floating city as it sailed around the world every two years.
The ship would cost $11 billion to build and would be the largest ship in maritime history. Due to the enormous cost and size of the ship, the project never got off the ground. Freedom Cruise Line International last tried to raise money to build the ship in early 2019.
The commercial district aboard Freedom Ship would have sustained a population of 100,000 people comprised of 40,000 residents, 20,000 full time crew, 30,000 daily visitors, and 10,000 overnight guests to the hotel and casino.
The top of the ship was proposed to have a landing strip for aircraft that will be able to support turboprop aircraft in the 38 to 40-passenger range.
Project Pinnacle
While this wasn’t necessarily a project that failed, it was a project that Carnival Cruise Line started working on in 2004 that they ultimately decided not to go forward with. It was a cruise ship project ahead of its time and would have been the world’s first mega ship if it was built.
The ship would have been the first cruise ship in the world over 200,000 gross tons in size. It had an interesting people mover monorail system to move passengers from one part of the ship to another.
The promenade deck was extra wide, and would have everything from loungers to a lazy river. Yes, the cruise ship would have a lazy river.
The aft section of the ship would be split, similar to the what the Oasis class debuted with several years later. There would be two massive waterslides located here that fed into an infinity pool.
Carnival Cruise Line decided to not go forward with the project after the Euro soared 50% against the USD in two years making the ships too expensive to build.
Fathom
Carnival Corporation created a 10th cruise line that sailed its first cruise in the spring of 2016. The cruise line had one ship and the focus was social impact travel. The week long cruises from Miami would visit the Dominican Republic for three days where passengers would give back to the local community through different projects.
The projects including creating clean water filters, teaching English in schools, planting trees, creating recycled paper, and building concrete floors to houses.
The ship also was the first cruise ship to visit Cuba from the U.S. in decades. However, cruise line had trouble selling cabins from day one. Within a couple months, the seven night cruises were selling as low as $199 per person.
Once other cruise lines received approval to sail to Cuba, it pretty much sealed Fathom’s fate. A little over a year after sailing it’s maiden cruise, the project was shut down. The cruise ship went back to sister cruise line P&O Cruises.
Carnival Corporation did keep some of the social impact shore excursions and offered them on cruises on Princess to the Dominican Republic for a bit before completely shutting down the brand.
The cruise ship from Fathom is still in operation today, but now sails with Azamara as Azamara Pursuit.
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