Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, recent cruise history suggested Royal Caribbean International’s Wonder of the Seas, slated to debut in 2022 as the company’s newest Oasis-class ship, would eventually be eclipsed as the largest cruise ship in the world.

After all, at 225,000 tons and accommodating 5,500 passengers, Oasis-class ships roughly equal the dimensions of Knut Kloster’s Phoenix World City, which in the 1980s represented a then-unimaginable expansion in cruise ship size. It didn’t seem a far leap to consider cruise ships might continue to grow ever larger.

Yet as with every other facet of travel, the corona­virus pandemic has significantly altered cruise operations now and likely into the future. Cruise lines are already shedding some ships and delaying new ship orders.

It’s possible the race to expand cruise ship scale has taken a back seat to more immediate concerns.

“I think you’re looking at an impact that will last, in practical terms, three to five years,” said Rod McLeod, retired chief marketing officer at Royal Caribbean International, regarding COVID-19’s effect on cruise operations. “That means delayed newbuilds, and I think you’re going to see orders for smaller ships,” he said.

“Will we continue to see ever-larger mega-ships?” asked McLeod. “I would be surprised. Royal Caribbean has the Quantum class (measuring 169,000 tons and accommodating 4,180 guests), and that is probably a more utilitarian class of ship for wide-ranging global operations.”

CRUISE LINES debuted the first 70,000-ton ships in the late 1980s and began billing ships as the “largest-ever” in the 1990s. At the time, the cruise lines’ idea was to create increased space to expand shipboard amenities, facilities and services, enabling cruise vacations to better compete with land-based resorts.

But operators found consumers responded to such designations, with many happy to report to friends and relatives they had sailed aboard the “largest-ever” cruise ship. Years later, the Oasis-class ships are more than twice the size of the 70,000-ton ships some imagined the “largest-ever” cruise vessels.

Yet just as COVID-19 has suddenly forced significant changes in the nature of cruise operations, the pandemic may also provide an avenue for the eventual debut of larger ships.

“If you had asked me this question a year ago I would say we had reached a limit,” said Dr. Robert J. Kwortnik, associate professor of services marketing at Cornell University’s SC Johnson School of Business. “There were big concerns about over-tourism and really big ships in ports that couldn’t support them,” he said.

“BUT I have a different view of it now. For one, some of these ports and destinations have realized just how important cruise is,” said Kwortnik. “This is an example of what happens when the industry stops. It’s not a theory anymore. Some destinations may now be saying, ‘We know now we don’t need cruise.’

“But there will be plenty of others that are saying, ‘We now realize how important cruise is to our tourism market,’ Kwortnik said.

And other industry experts continue to say there’s no reason to expect cruise lines to restrict the size and scope of future ships. “There’s no reason we’ve reached the limit. Limits are a figment of our imaginations,” said Stewart Chiron, a veteran Miami-based cruise retailer whose agency is known as The Cruise Guy.