Carnival Corporation & plc has ordered three new ships for its namesake Carnival Cruise Line brand for a new class of vessel. The agreement with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri provides for the design, engineering and construction of the liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered ships, which will be delivered in the summers of 2029, 2031 and 2033, respectively.
With this order, there have been five new ship orders for Carnival Cruise Line announced in 2024. Earlier this year, Carnival Corporation placed its first new-build orders in five years for two more Excel-class ships that will join the fleet in 2027 and 2028. The company also recently announced a series of shifts to further optimize the composition of its global brand portfolio and to increase guest capacity for Carnival Cruise Line, transferring a total of five vessels from sister brands to the Carnival Cruise Line fleet between 2023 and March 2025.
According to Josh Weinstein, CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc, this order will take the company’s overall measured capacity growth between 2025 and 2033 to an average of approximately 1.5 percent per year. “This gives us the headroom to strategically provide new capacity to the brands in our portfolio like Carnival Cruise Line, which provide outsized returns while continuing to execute against our responsible capital strategy, using our strong free cash flow over the next several years to improve our balance sheet, significantly reduce our debt, and continue to transfer value from debt holders to shareholders,” he said.
Featuring more than 3,000 guest staterooms, the new ships will be the largest in the Carnival Corporation fleet, carrying nearly 8,000 guests at full capacity. Once delivered in 2033, Carnival Corporation will have a total of 16 LNG-powered ships, including eight Carnival Cruise Line ships, making up nearly 30 percent of Carnival Corporation’s global capacity and delivering immediate greenhouse gas emission reductions. The new ships will also feature advanced energy efficiency, waste management and emission reduction technologies to further reduce the company’s environmental footprint.
Design details and itinerary information for the new Carnival Cruise Line ships will be announced in the future. The order is contingent upon financing, which is expected to be completed later this year.
For more information, visit www.carnivalcorp.com.
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