Your Pranking Pixies Thoughts On D23 Expo DCL 2029 Release of 3 New Ships
As stated during the 2026 D23 Expo and before there are
going to be three ships joining the Disney fleet in 2029. Two of the ships will
be of a new class of ships. They will be the 5th class of ship built
for Disney. They will be slightly larger than the Magic
-Class and 20% smaller
than the Dream-Class ships. Magic-Class ships carry between 2,400 and 2,700
guests. The Dream-Class ships carry 4,000 guests. The 5th-Class of
ships will carry 3,000 guests. The size of the ships does matter. There are
many ports that are not equipped to handle a ship with more than 3,000 guests.
The Port of San Diego, Ca is a good example of this.
Knowing the size of the ships and the fact that DCL, San
Diego & Avalon, Catalina Island have agreed to year-round homeport (San
Diego) and visits with preferred mooring (Avalon, Catalina Island) we have a
good idea of the need for these ships. These agreements start Mid-September
2027. This will require two ships in California Mid-September to Mid-May. And one
ship in California Mid-May to Mid-September until the contract ends.
Interesting side note here is the contract with San Diego expires in 2031.
Maybe DCL is considering moving their ships to the Port of Los Angeles or Long
Beach for a new home port at that time? Only time will tell. That move would enable
the larger ships to come to California.
Mid-May to Mid-September 2028 is a huge question mark. With
the Port of San Diego limited on the size of a ship DCL can’t bring a Dream or
Wish-Class ship there. DCL will have to make other arrangements while still
maintaining the contracts. They could bring a Dream or Wish-Class through the
Panama Canal and make a stop at either the Port of LA or Long Beach. Then the
ship could continue to Vancouver Canada and do Alaskan cruises with one of the
Magic-Class ships. One of the Magic-Class ships would stay at San Diego to
fulfill the contract there for year-round usage of the port. They would reverse
this process at the end of the Alaskan season with the larger ship stopping at
Port of LA or Long Beach not San Diego before going back to the East Coast.
If the first of the 5th-Class of ships joined the
fleet in April or early May 2029 that ship could do the Panama Canal and go the
San Diego for the summer season. It could either stay in San Diego while the
two Magic-Class ships go to Alaska, or it could go to Alaska with one of the
Magic-Class ships while the second Magic-Class ship stayed in San Diego. Either
way works. At the end of the summer the ship would do an East Bound Panama
Canal cruise to go back to the East Coast.
The Wish-Class ship scheduled for the OLC, the company that
owns and operates Tokyo Disneyland is scheduled to be completed in late 2028
OLC is scheduled to get their ship “early 2029”. This ship may come out before
the first of the 5th-Class ship or shortly after. This ship will go
straight to Tokyo, Japan where she will carry the Japanese flag and do 2 and 4-Nights
at sea cruises out of Tokyo. It could also go into service between the two 5th class of ships scheduled for
that year.
The second 5th-Class ship will come out later in
the year. Where exactly she will go I have no idea. DCL said at D23 that the 5th-Class
of ships will allow them to go to new people and places. What exactly that
means I don’t know. Ships of this size have a lot more ports they can visit.
Older ports were not designed for the massive mega cruise ships. The
infrastructure cannot handle the number of guests and sometimes the port itself
is not large or strong enough to handle a larger ship. In the recent years some
of the megs ships have caused damaged to ports due to size and weather.
Sad reality check. Magic turns 30 in 2028, and Wonder turns
30 in 2029. This is important to note as 30 years is the active life expectancy
of a cruise ship. After this point the ship can cost more to run and maintain
than it makes and becomes a liability. The way ships are built it is hard to do
major upgrades on technology that is installed when it was built. You are
limited on how far you can upgrade. It also starts to smell inside. Disney does
a great job of maintaining these ships and I believe they can stay in service
longer than 30 years. I don’t think they will retire until the mid-2030’s at
the earliest. I believe that at least two of the 5th-class of ships will
be “replacing” the Magic and Wonder. That is why I was surprised the
announcement at D23 did not include an order for more ships. I honestly do
expect to hear they are ordering more ships in the near future.
On a side note, they did show some concept art for the new 5th-class of ships but did not give any more information. These pictures have caused speculation among fans and bloggers/vloggers. It appears that the ship may have a 3 story high glass window where the Grand Hall/Atrium Lobby is located. There is also speculation that a full promenade deck will return with these ships. It is hard to tell from the pictures alone. I can see the glass where normally there was walls and “missing” lifeboats where the window is. Remember, this is just “concept art” and not an actual depiction of what the ships will look like. The picture that shows the full ship is purposely low resolution. The second picture is a lot clear and you can see more detail.
