Cruise ship cost to build
WRS Tech’s Shipbuilding and Shipping recruitment teams are incredibly busy with the surging new build cruise market and our consultants are heavily involved in a number of cruise ship new build programs as well recruiting for shore based technical specialists involved in the management of such impressive floating assets.
The cost of building a cruise ship generally depends on the vessel's size, the building shipyard (labor prices, taxes, quality of service) and the onboard features (facilities and amenities). Cruise lines price the cruise ships building cost by the number of beds (the marine term is "berths").
The most fun fact of all in this category is the berth price of one of the world's most expensive big cruise ships - the most famous Cunard liner RMS Queen Mary 2 (launched 2004), with a berth cost of over US $300,000 - the industry's highest ever considering its tonnage.
The primary cause of such a high PPB (Price Per Berth) are:
- The QM2 ship builder is STX Europe (Saint-Nazaire shipyards in France)
- Extensively high quality materials were used in construction
- The unique ship design (this classic ocean liner required around 40% more steel than a standard passenger ship)
- The QM2 ship size itself - length 1,132 ft (345 m), width 135 ft (41 m), height 236 ft (72 m) and weight of 151,400 tons. QM2 is also the fastest cruise ship in the world - max speed 35 mph (56 kmh) and service/operational speed of 30 mph (48 kmh).
At the other end of the scale using a different metric the world's most famous passenger ship ever, The World cruise ship operated by ResidenSea (and recently had a refit by WRS Tech contractors).
The luxury residential ship (construction cost $266 million) offers one-bedroom apartment at the modest price of around $2,000 per night. Purchasing an apartment on board this ship is a quite different matter. The World cruise ship apartment cost (if some of the current owners decide to sell) is a pretty big deal – price start from US $2 million to over £15 mill (depending on size and deck location).
Additionally to this "initial spending", the lucky owner will be charged an annual maintenance fee ranging from US $60,000 to over $500,000, again depending on the room chosen.
Cruise ships are incredible things, where a huge amount of planning, preparation and work goes into creating a luxury and modern ship for its customers.
