Features

BETH J. HARPAZ AP Travel Editor

NEW YORK — If you’re planning a cruise vacation in 2010, get ready for higher prices, better entertainment, water parks and one of the most innovative concepts to come along in awhile: Rooms designed for solo travelers on the Norwegian Epic, without the supplemental charge that single passengers on cruises have traditionally paid.

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Guests slide down two massive corkscrew waterslides.

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A staff member tries out a surf simulator on board the Oasis.

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“I think it’s genius,” said Cynthia Boal Janssens, editor and chief blogger at AllThingsCruise.com. “I’m amazed with so many new ships coming on line that this hasn’t been done sooner. Lots of single people cruise and want to cruise, but right now, if you are going on a cruise as a single person and you occupy a double cabin, they charge you an additional fee for doing that, sometimes as much as 200 percent.”

The Epic, which launches this summer, will offer 128 studios for singles. The cabins open onto a lounge area where solo travelers can socialize.

Oasis was the “it” ship of 2009, attracting enormous publicity as the largest cruise ship ever built. It carries 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members, with facilities that include an ice rink, golf course, volleyball and basketball courts, a 1,300-seat indoor theater and seven “neighborhoods,” including a boardwalk and a mini-Central Park. There is so much to do on board, that when the ship pulls into a port, “a lot of people don’t get off,” said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of CruiseCritic.com.

The cruise industry will launch a dozen new ships this year, but Brown said, “Nothing will compete with Oasis.”

Despite all these new ships coming onto the market during a recession, the cruise industry has managed to keep them full. In 2009, ships sailed at 104 percent capacity on average, meaning that every room was occupied, and some rooms were shared by more than two people, according to the Cruise Lines International Association, an industry group with 25 cruise lines representing 97 percent of cruise capacity in North America.

At the same time, the number of passengers keeps increasing: 13.01 million people cruised on CLIA ships in 2008, 13.44 million in 2009 and a projected 14.3 million will sail in 2010.

“Maybe we are not recession-proof, but we are recession-resistant,” said Richard Sasso, CEO of MSC Cruises and marketing director of CLIA.

Discounts have brought customers in, too. Cruise prices go down when demand is weak — just like airfare — until every cabin is filled.

Another long-term trend in cruising is the increase in family-friendly programs and attractions. In the past 10 years, the median age of cruisers has dropped from 57 to 47, according to Bob Sharak, CLIA’s executive director.

“Multigenerational groups — the groups that bring adults, kids and grandkids — are bringing down the average age,” said Mimi Weisband, spokeswoman for Crystal Cruises.

One feature on new ships that younger passengers are sure to love is the water park. Carnival Dream, which launched last year, has an aqua park called WaterWorks with a 300-foot-long water slide, the longest water slide at sea.

Janssens said the small and medium-size ships from lines such as Silversea, Star Clippers and Crystal are especially appealing for older, more traditional travelers.

“They may not have big-name shows, you don’t have all the razzle-dazzle, but there’s a lot of elegance with this type of cruising — lovely dinners and you meet so many well-traveled people,” Janssens said. “They tend to be more luxurious, and you go to interesting places that the big ships can’t reach, where there aren’t 10,000 people in port.”

While megaships like Oasis may get the headlines, Janssens theorized that “people who like small ships are becoming even more loyal to them as big ships get bigger.”