Norwegian Cruise Line had already announced it was planning to compete with Royal Caribbean in the big-ship game, but details on just how big its new Pinnacle class would be were revealed Wednesday.

In a press release from Italian shipyard company Finacantieri, it announced NCL’s parent company, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., had moved beyond the letter of intent signed last year and has now made a firm order for four new ships to be delivered in 2030, 2032, 2034 and 2036.

The shipyard said the vessels will come in at 226,000 gross tons with capacity to sail with more than 8,300 passengers and crew. The intention to pursue a larger class of ship for NCL was made last April along with new ship orders for sister cruise lines Oceania and Regent Seven Seas. At the time, the NCL vessels’ passenger capacity not including crew was targeting more than 5,000.

“Designed according to the highest standards of comfort and technology these ships will also include sustainability features,” the shipyard stated.

The ships will be built at the Fincantieri Monfalcone shipyard near the Croatia border.

Fincantieri delivered NCL’s most recent ships, Norwegian Prima and Aqua, and is putting the finishing touches on their larger sister ship Norwegian Aqua set to debut this year and make its way to Port Canaveral. Three more ships in the Prima Plus class are on order through 2028 so construction on the Pinnacle class won’t commence until the newer ships are delivered.

Right now only two cruise lines have ships over 200,000 gross tons with Royal Caribbean sailing both its Icon and Oasis-class vessels and MSC Cruises with its World-class ships.

The largest cruise ship in the world is currently Royal’s Icon of the Seas, which debuted in January 2024, and has a 248,663-gross-ton weight and 5,610-guest capacity based on double occupancy with maximum passenger capacity near 7,600. With crew it can sail with nearly 10,000 people on board.

A sister ship, Star of the Seas, is set to debut this summer and sail out of Port Canaveral. It’s expected to be slightly larger and take over the title of world’s largest cruise ship.

That was the strategy Royal Caribbean took for the first five of its six Oasis-class ships, which all held the title for a time before Icon of the Seas’ debut beginning with Oasis of the Seas in 2009, the first cruise ship larger than 200,000 gross tons.

MSC Cruises debuted its first World-class ship, the MSC World Europa, in 2022 and has sister ship MSC World America set to debut out of Miami this year. Both are more than 200,000 gross tons and World America’s maximum passenger capacity will be 6,762.

MSC has two more World-class ships are on order with the fourth yet-to-be-named vessel set to sail from Port Canaveral in 2027.

For now, there are eight cruise ships in the world over 200,000 gross tons, which will grow to 11 by the end of the year.

That includes what will be Disney Cruise Line’s largest vessel, the Singapore-bound Disney Adventure, which was a ship originally to be constructed for an Asian cruise company that has since folded.

Carnival Cruise Line also has plans to debut a larger class as soon as 2029 with an order for three ships also to be built by Fincantieri that will be around 230,000 gross tons and have a maximum passenger capacity of about 8,000.

There’s no sign any line will surpass Royal Caribbean’s Icon class, though, meaning no other cruise line will have held the title for world’s largest cruise ship since Cunard line’s Queen Mary 2 debuted in 2005 at 149,215 gross tons.

That was quickly surpassed, though, in 2006 with the debut of Royal Caribbean’s Freedom-class vessels, all more than 155,899 gross tons, with Freedom of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas and Independence of the Seas all holding the title before Oasis of the Seas came online.