Cruise Ship Size Comparison

The 10 largest cruise ships in the world are almost all Royal Caribbean hulls. That's a fair ranking, but it doesn't answer a different, common question: how does each cruise line's own biggest ship actually compare? Below is each of the 5 lines this site tracks, one flagship apiece, by gross tonnage and length.

Each cruise line's single largest ship, ranked by gross tonnage.
Ship Cruise line Gross tonnage Length Entered service
Icon of the Seas Royal Caribbean 248,663 GT 1,198 ft 2024
MSC World America MSC Cruises 216,638 GT 1,094 ft 2025
Carnival Celebration Carnival 183,521 GT 1,130 ft 2022
Norwegian Encore Norwegian Cruise Line 169,116 GT 1,092 ft 2019
Disney Destiny Disney Cruise Line 144,000 GT 1,119 ft 2025

Source: each line's own published ship specifications, cross-checked against Wikipedia ship pages, retrieved 2026-09-17.

The gap between Royal Caribbean and everyone else

Icon of the Seas outweighs every other line's flagship by a wide margin: about 35% more gross tonnage than Carnival's biggest ships, and well over 100,000 GT ahead of Disney's. MSC World America is the closest competitor and the largest ship not built by Royal Caribbean, helped by being one of the newest hulls on this list (2025) and the largest LNG-powered cruise ship built to date.

Length is a weaker signal than gross tonnage

Norwegian Encore and MSC World America run almost exactly the same length, about 1,092-1,094 feet, yet MSC World America carries nearly 48,000 more gross tons of enclosed volume. Length tells you how long the dock needs to be; gross tonnage tells you how much ship is actually packed into that length; wider beams, taller superstructures and more enclosed deck space all add tonnage without adding a foot of length.

See the full top-10 ranking on biggest cruise ships, how the biggest ships lay out inside on the deck plans hub, or check when any of these ships is actually in port on the cruise line trackers.

Frequently asked questions

Which cruise line has the biggest ships?

Royal Caribbean, by a wide margin. Its Icon of the Seas is the largest cruise ship in the world at 248,663 gross tons, well ahead of the next-biggest line's flagship.

How much bigger is Icon of the Seas than a Carnival ship?

Icon of the Seas (248,663 GT) is about 35% larger by gross tonnage than Carnival's biggest ships, Celebration and Jubilee (183,521 GT each), despite being only about 68 feet longer.

What is the biggest non-Royal-Caribbean cruise ship?

MSC World America, at 216,638 gross tons, is the largest cruise ship not built by Royal Caribbean. It's also the largest LNG-powered cruise ship built to date.

Is gross tonnage or length the better way to compare cruise ship size?

Gross tonnage, since it measures enclosed volume (how much ship there actually is), while length alone can be misleading. Norwegian Encore and MSC World America are within 2 feet of each other in length, but MSC World America has nearly 48,000 more gross tons of enclosed space.

Does a bigger cruise ship mean a better cruise?

Not automatically. A bigger hull generally means more dining and entertainment variety, but also longer embarkation lines and more crowded peak times at the pool. It's a trade-off, not a straightforward upgrade.