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Dear reader,

Once again we can present a thoroughly updated edition of our handbook. The structure of the book is nearly the same as before, the fleet lists, statistics and ancillary texts have grown again. New details are included and a lot of photos were exchanged. As usual the tables show the fleets of the owners/operators as up to date as possible and the statistics provide the figures up to 2026. Ships on order for delivery 2026/27 are included in the relevant parts of the book. The chapter AF is included again with estimated figures.

The number of new ships in Europe went down to four or five per year during the pandemic. Now 17 new ships are expected in 2026, 25 in 2027 and much more are on order until the early 2030ies. A new fact is that many older ships are not scrapped but used as floating hotels for war refugees and asylum seekers all over the year.

In other regions we are watching different development trends. In the Russian fleet no more ships seem to be de-commissioned in spite of the loss of the Western markets due to the Russian agression against the Ukarine. Ukrainian owners have transferred their ships to the Danube. More new ships which were postponed during the pandemic and now the completion is delayed. In Egypt too, the optimism is back and most ships of the Nile fleet will be active agian. Owners like Viking River Cruises are investing again.  In North America American Cruise Lines has taken over the ships of the defunct American Queen Voyages.  China and Southeast Asia have opened the borders for foreign tourists again and a few new ships are on order for the Mekong.

While in the 19th edition some parts of the book are routine work now, it remains very time consuming to collect the information from every available, more or less reliable, source of information. The AI turned out to be missleading and is not yet used. We took every care in updating the contents but improvements are always possible. As usual I am asking for relevant proposals and news about ships and projects are always welcome.

May 2026

The 19th edition 2026 is available now

The price is € 200.00 for the first and € 100.00 for the second and further copies plus postage & packing. The book is also available per WeTransfer in form of PDFs for EUR 400.

Besuchen Sie auch meine deutsche Website <www.flusskreuzfahrtflotte.de>

Attention / Achtung: The Coastal Cruise Fleet 2022

siehe unter "Service"