I knew summer was coming to an end when I had to dig the lights out for my bike again. My cycle to and from the office is getting noticeably darker, the cycling jacket has made its first appearance in months and somehow we’re already heading into the final stretch of 2026.
At this point in the year I always find myself looking ahead. In my case, that usually means looking at where the cruise lines are heading next, which new itineraries have caught my eye and, perhaps more importantly, what our customers at Paramount Cruises are actually booking.
So I spent some time looking through our booking trends from June, July and August to see what they might tell us about 2027 and 2028. Rather than focusing on individual bookings, I was interested in the wider patterns: how far ahead people are planning, which destinations keep appearing and where newer itineraries are already starting to gain traction. Looking across those three months, a few clear themes began to emerge.
1. Customers Are Looking Much Further Ahead
The first thing that jumped out at me was just how far ahead people are now prepared to book. Across June, July and August, more than two-thirds of our bookings were for cruises departing in 2027 or 2028, and that trend became even stronger as the summer progressed.
In June, just over half of our bookings were for 2027 or 2028. By August, that had risen to almost four in five. Meanwhile, 2028 is no longer some distant date on a cruise line deployment calendar. Across the full three-month period, almost one in five bookings were already for holidays departing in 2028, with those customers typically committing close to two years before they travel.
We often talk about booking early in terms of price, but for many holidays I think it is increasingly about choice. The earlier you book, the better your chances of getting the cabin you want, travelling on a particular date or securing one of the relatively limited departures on a more unusual itinerary.
That’s becoming particularly relevant as cruise lines announce increasingly interesting programmes well into 2028. If there is a ship, itinerary or destination you really want to experience, the question may no longer be “is it too early to book?” but rather “what am I waiting for?”
2. Northern Europe Is About to Get Much More Interesting
Northern Europe is probably the region where some of the announcements for 2028 have caught my attention most, and one of the biggest has been Virgin Voyages sailing from Amsterdam. It is a completely new direction for Virgin, taking its adults-only style of cruising into Northern Europe, Scandinavia and even further north.
More importantly for us, the reaction since the programme went on sale has been immediate. In August, the new Amsterdam sailings accounted for close to one in five of our bookings made during the month for travel in 2028. For a programme that had only just gone on sale, that’s a pretty impressive start.
I’d genuinely love to experience it myself. Amsterdam is easy to reach from the UK and I think Virgin’s style of cruising could work brilliantly in Northern Europe. There is, however, a fairly obvious problem with that plan: I have a one-year-old daughter and Virgin Voyages is adults-only, so I don’t think I’ll be testing that theory personally any time soon.
In reality, I’m much more likely to find myself onboard Celebrity Beyond with my partner and daughter. Celebrity Beyond sailing from Southampton in 2028 is probably one of the cruise announcements I’m personally most excited about. Celebrity Apex has already shown how well the Edge Series works from Southampton, but Beyond takes that proposition a step further. As a newer and larger sister ship, Celebrity Beyond gives customers even more choice when it comes to cruises from Southampton, with itineraries heading into Northern Europe as well as further afield.
And I’m certainly not complaining if that ends up being our family cruise in 2028.
More broadly, this is what makes Northern Europe so interesting over the next couple of years. We’re starting to see different cruise brands approaching the region in very different ways, giving customers more choice not only in where they sail, but also in the type of experience they can have onboard.
3. Japan Cruises Continue to Defy Expectations
Japan is the one destination I keep wondering whether it can possibly maintain the level of interest we’ve seen over the past few years. So far, every time I think demand might start to plateau, it seems to do the opposite.
Around one in twenty bookings we took across the three-month period were for cruises departing from Tokyo or Yokohama, and importantly that demand appeared consistently across June, July and August rather than being the result of one particularly strong week or promotion.
It isn’t being driven by one ship either. Our forward bookings include a mix of cruise lines and ships, with Princess Cruises particularly prominent but Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Azamara and MSC Cruises all appearing too.
That growing choice matters. Japan is often associated with cherry blossom season, and understandably so, but the range of itineraries now available means it shouldn’t be viewed as a destination for only a few weeks of the year. There are cruises designed around summer festivals, autumn colours and longer explorations of the Japanese islands, alongside the ever-popular spring departures.
Princess Cruises, for example, is expanding further in 2028 with both Diamond Princess and Sapphire Princess homeporting in Tokyo as part of what the cruise line describes as its largest-ever Japan season.
There is another interesting pattern in our own bookings too: more than nine in ten of our 2027 and 2028 Japan cruise bookings include a hotel stay. That suggests customers aren’t simply flying to Japan, boarding a ship and coming straight home again. They want time in Tokyo and, increasingly, the opportunity to turn the cruise into a more complete holiday.
For a destination with as much to see, eat and experience as Japan, that makes complete sense.
4. South America and Antarctica Have Huge Potential
South America is slightly different. I’m not going to pretend it suddenly represents the same volume of bookings as the Mediterranean or Caribbean because it doesn’t, but the booking behaviour we are seeing is particularly interesting.
We recorded South America cruise bookings throughout June, July and August, covering departures from ports including Buenos Aires, San Antonio, Valparaiso and Lima. More than nine in ten of those bookings also included accommodation as part of the wider trip.
That’s significant because South America is one of those parts of the world where the cruise can be the starting point for something much bigger. Our Antarctica cruise packages continue to be popular, while combinations involving Machu Picchu, Cusco and the Sacred Valley give customers another reason to extend their time on the continent.
It is also an area where the cruise lines are adding more choice. Princess Cruises’ 2027/28 South America programme, for example, combines Patagonia and Antarctica itineraries with land options including Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley and Cusco, while other cruise lines are continuing to expand their own programmes around the continent.
A voyage might take you around Cape Horn, through Patagonia or towards Antarctica, but that doesn’t mean the holiday needs to start and finish at the port. If you’ve already travelled from the UK to South America, adding a few nights in Buenos Aires, exploring Santiago or heading north into Peru can turn an incredible cruise into something even more memorable.
As more choice becomes available across South America and Antarctica in 2027 and 2028, I think we’ll see more customers considering exactly that.
5. The Cruise Is Increasingly Just One Part of the Holiday
This is probably the most interesting trend in the data because it goes beyond any individual cruise line or destination. Across all our bookings made between June and August, almost 45% included a hotel component, but the further ahead customers are booking, the more pronounced that becomes.
More than half of our 2027 bookings included accommodation, rising to around seven in ten for 2028. Sometimes that simply means spending a night or two near the departure port before joining the ship, but increasingly we’re seeing much more ambitious combinations.
Take cruises from New Orleans. Every booking we took during the period for a cruise departing from the city included accommodation, with many customers combining New Orleans with Memphis and Nashville before or after their cruise. From Vancouver, customers are adding time in places such as Banff and journeys through the Canadian Rockies onboard the Rocky Mountaineer train, while in Japan, Tokyo stays are becoming almost standard among our cruise-and-stay customers.
We see the same thing in places such as Singapore and Hong Kong, which customers increasingly treat as destinations in their own right rather than simply somewhere to board a ship. In South America, we’re combining cruises with cities, national parks and some of the continent’s most famous landmarks.
For me, this is one of the most exciting parts of what we do at Paramount Cruises. Cruising is a brilliant way to see the world, but it doesn’t need to be the entire holiday. If you’re going to fly thousands of miles to join a ship, there is often a fantastic opportunity to experience more of the destination while you’re there.
The cruise becomes the centrepiece rather than the whole trip.
So What Will Define Cruising in 2027 and 2028?
Looking through the bookings, what struck me most wasn’t one particular ship or destination. It was how confident customers appear to be about planning further ahead and how ambitious some of those plans are becoming.
We’re seeing people commit to 2027 and 2028 earlier, respond quickly when genuinely different itineraries are launched and increasingly combine their cruise with experiences on land. Japan still seems to have plenty of momentum, while South America and Antarctica have enormous potential as more choice becomes available.
Virgin Voyages heading north from Amsterdam is one of the most interesting new programmes we’ve seen, even if I won’t personally be allowed onboard with my daughter for quite a few years yet. And Celebrity Beyond sailing from Southampton in 2028 is firmly on my radar.
But perhaps the biggest takeaway is that customers seem increasingly willing to plan a bigger holiday when the experience justifies it. A cruise might still be what starts the conversation, but more and more, it isn’t where that conversation ends.
Methodology: This article draws on Paramount Cruises bookings made between 1 June and 31 August 2026. The trends reflect our own customers, the products available through Paramount Cruises and areas where we have developed specialist cruise-and-stay holidays. Some destinations, including New Orleans, are influenced by our established multi-centre programmes. The findings should therefore be viewed as an insight into our customers’ booking behaviour rather than the wider UK cruise market as a whole.
