Universal Cruise Line

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AidenRodriguez731

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
That's one way to swim down market.

I'm not sure Carnival Corp would be willing to sell off just their flagship. Maybe? They can refocus on becoming an more upmarket holding company. As mentioned, there is one too many brands under the hood that I don't see any real synergy benefit from the purchase in totality. Are they going to slather Jurassic Park on Cunard, HAL and Princess?

Royal has become unaffordable to Comcast; though my one stupid lottery pick solo stock.

Edit-I watched the video, didn't realize it's just an inside baseball fan video. As alluded to Carnival recently ruined their rewards program and this seems to be more a Hail Mary wish.
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That's another big problem Universal has. A lot of their appeal of their own personal movies would be stuff like Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Fast & Furious. And I genuinely question what can you do with those properties on a cruise ship? A show? I guess? Character meet and greets? I don't realistically know what Universal would do here other than always stand in DCL's shadow. Disney benefits from having some of the most recognizable characters under their belt in history.
Universal benefits from having some very good brand deals... but that's a problem as that would almost certainly all have to be renegotiated for this outing... which is not the best for a company in so much debt.
 
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AidenRodriguez731

Well-Known Member
JoeCamel said:
More like not right now but we are not ruling it out either
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To me, Universal just simply doesn’t quite have the brand identity to sustain a cruise in their current state. Most of their characters just wouldn’t work on a family - friendly cruise which I’m sure they would go for to compete on a more direct line with Disney (they aren’t gonna win the adult market anytime soon because at the end of the day, it’s still Universal and there’s not THAT many “Universal Adults”) Harry Potter and Nintendo are huge franchises but I don’t know if either company would agree to that especially with international laws that they would have to now bend to.

So that leaves the minions, Dreamworks properties, and other true Universal. HTTYD could work really well as well as Shrek and probably Minions but none of those quite have the absolute juggernaut that is Mickey and the gang. Tbh Universals strong points aren’t the character meet and greets anyway which imo is one of the major standouts of a typical Disney cruise. So then the problem becomes, what is a Universal cruise?

Do you try and do an HHN section either a lounge or actual haunted house, sounds cool but haunted houses are wayyy too risky on the high seas so lounge it is but that would be a potential problem with kids plus most of the truly iconic IP would run into similar issues.

What would really separate and make Universals current vision fit a cruise line other than them just trying to be like Disney in this case. The only reason they would be doing it is to compete with Disney in a market that they notoriously do super well in without any experience, the audience, or the real ideas behind it. Universal has a great catalog but for super recognizable characters and themes that can work in a cruise, it pales in comparison.
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
I’ll reiterate the cruise industry is far more competitive than the parks space. Royal even licensed out Dreamworks for a while. Royal would be Universal’s true competitor in that industry, not Disney. There’s very little I can think of that Uni would be able to bring to the market that Royal isn’t already doing. Or Norwegian or Carnival for that matter.

Slapping Minions on a dining room is not actually “doing” anything.

They could do an interesting private Jurassic World Island.
 
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AidenRodriguez731

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
I’ll reiterate the cruise industry is far more competitive than the parks space. Royal even licensed out Dreamworks for a while. Royal would be Universal’s true competitor in that industry, not Disney. There’s very little I can think of that Uni would be able to bring to the market that Royal isn’t already doing. Or Norwegian or Carnival for that matter.

Slapping Minions on a dining room is not actually “doing” anything.

They could do an interesting private Jurassic World Island.
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Of course the other problem lies in the fact that most of the current cruise guys have been doing this for a longggggggg time. Iirc Disney is still one of the "new kids on the block" and they've been in it for 30 years and had a clearly defined niche that no cruise was quite doing at the time. Now, that niche is technically filled and I don't know if there is really that much interest in a different version of essentially the same thing. Just seems like this idea would not play well to Universal's strengths, especially considering its usually stuff like horror & thrills that do not fair well on the open seas. Its not exactly an idea that fits but rather pushing the circle into a square hole to compete with a square.
 
donsullivan

donsullivan

Premium Member
I think I said it earlier in this thread, but the concept of Universal launching a cruise line doesn't make any sense to me at all. To start, they have absolutely no experience operating the hotel side of the ship. Lowes has always operated all of Universal's hotels. Do they really want to get into the casino business, which would be required if they wanted to enter that space? There is only one line in the world that has gotten away without it, and even they are adding it for the new ship in Singapore because that's what customers require in that market.

The cruise industry is very different from when Disney entered the space in the 90's. Back then, cruising was 'The Love Boat' and nobody even thought about family cruising. And even then, Disney just snuck up on it very slowly.

With today's average investment for a medium-sized ship of approximately $1.5-$1.7 billion, and then developing and building out all the necessary skill sets and support infrastructure, it is a substantial investment. It would likely cost between $2.5 billion and $3 billion just to launch the business with one ship. And then it goes up from there. After investing $7.7B in Epic Universe and all other projects in the works (combined with Comcast's existing debt load), it's challenging to envision this as a favorable time for them to enter a new business with no prior experience..

A partnership to license IP with another line seems a more practical consideration right now given the state of the cruise industry vs trying to start their own.
 
Andrew C

Andrew C

You know what's funny?
Although there is room for new cruise lines when they can find their “niche” (ie: Virgin and Ritz Carlton), it seems a partnership would be the way to go for universal. But even then I don’t know what that would look like. It’s interesting. I don’t think anything will happen but I guess we can see where we are in 10 years. lol. Maybe they surprise us all.
 
JoeCamel

JoeCamel

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
I’ll reiterate the cruise industry is far more competitive than the parks space. Royal even licensed out Dreamworks for a while. Royal would be Universal’s true competitor in that industry, not Disney. There’s very little I can think of that Uni would be able to bring to the market that Royal isn’t already doing. Or Norwegian or Carnival for that matter.

Slapping Minions on a dining room is not actually “doing” anything.

They could do an interesting private Jurassic World Island.
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River cruises on the Mississippi and Missouri with a barge excursion on the Erie Canal? Stern wheeler themed western expeditions?

Maybe a quiet sail on the Black Lagoon would be in their wheelhouse?
 

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