Meyer Werft to build new Disney ship for Japan

Photo: Disney

Disney and Japan’s Oriental Land Co., Ltd. (OLC) , which owns and operates the Tokyo Disney Resort, have reached a new agreement that will bring year-round Disney cruise vacations to Japan. It will also see Meyer Werft build a news Disney ship for Japan. It will be a sister cruise ship to the Disney Wish, delivered by Meyer Werft in 2022,.

Under the agreement, OLC will build and operate a Disney-branded cruise business in Japan, expected to commence by early 2029 and will operate the new Disney cruise ship, which is to be registered in Japan and based there year-round. The ship will be constructed at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, with imaginative designs created by Walt Disney Imagineering. It will feature many guest-favorite venues and experiences from the Disney Wish with select modifications specially designed with Japanese guests in mind. With about 1,250 staterooms it is expected to be approximately 140,000 gross tons and will be LNG fueled.

Meyer Werft, which has been looking for federal and state support, has already signed the contract to build the vessel at a signing ceremony in Tokyo, hailing it as “an important signal for the shipbuilding location Papenburg,” noting that delivery to the Oriental Land Company is scheduled for 2028.

“I am very happy to have signed this important contract in Tokyo today and to have once again won a customer from Japan for Meyer Werft. This is an important building block for the long-term future of shipbuilding in Papenburg,” said Meyer Group managing partner Bernard Meyer.

“With this new order, we are continuing our partnership with Disney and at the same time gaining the Oriental Land Company, also a long-standing partner of Disney, as a new customer,” said Meyer Group CEO Bernd Eikens. “This is a strong signal for shipbuilding in Papenburg and shows that companies from all over the world rely on the quality of the Meyer Group.”