"We are pushing the frontier," said Peter Ratcliffe, CEO, when asked about Princess Cruises' new ships. He said that building bigger ships was not an inevitable development, but suggested it may be the most likely course.

The bottom line, however, is to make sure that the ships maintain their intimacy and deliver a quality product, according to Ratcliffe, who also noted that the Grand-class ships receive the highest passenger satisfaction scores in the fleet.

For a while, it looked as if the orderbook for cruise ships was drying up.

Until the recent orders from Royal Caribbean International (RCI) for its new class of 160,000-ton, 3,600-passenger Ultra Voyager ship to be built at Kvaerner Masa-Yards, and from Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) for two new 93,000 ton ships to be built at Meyer Werft, only Fincantieri had work after next summer.