Carnival Cruise Line’s parent company inked a deal for three new ships powered by liquefied natural gas that will be the largest ever built for the fleet.
Carnival Corp. signed an agreement with Italian shipyard Fincantieri for the three LNG-powered ships that will be delivered in 2029, 2031 and 2023. The deal is contingent on financing, which the company expects to complete by next year.
Their addition would build on a fleet of 13 LNG ships already sailing among Carnival and its sister brands including the new Sun Princess from Princess Cruises that is set to sail from Port Everglades in Florida later this year. LNG is a cleaner burning fuel the cruise industry has been trying out on its ships in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.
The first LNG-powered cruise ship in North America was Carnival’s Mardi Gras, which debuted out of Port Canaveral, Florida, in 2021. It was followed in 2022 by the Disney Wish at the port, which also just welcomed its third homeported LNG-powered ship with the debut of Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas last week.
The new Carnival ships are a new class set to weigh in at nearly 230,000 gross tons. In comparison, Mardi Gras comes 180,800 gross tons, so the new vessels will be closer to the massive Oasis-class vessels from Royal Caribbean.
“We are proud to be known as America’s cruise line with tremendous guest loyalty and an outstanding team that has enabled us to deliver memorable vacations to over 100 million guests,” said Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy in a press release. “For this next generation ship, we are focused on creating innovative guest experiences that will take Carnival Cruise Line into the future with new fun features and excitement that we know our guests will love.”
Carnival already had two other ships on order, sister ships to Mardi Gras, Celebration and Jubilee in the Excel class that are due in 2027 and 2028.
The Carnival fleet is also in the midst of growth by five existing vessels that it had either already inherited or will inherit from sister cruise brands between 2023-2025.
“We are doubling down on the growth of Carnival Cruise Line – our highest-returning brand – to keep up with the incredibly strong demand we continue to see for the world’s most popular cruise line,” said Carnival Corp. CEO Josh Weinstein. “At this point, our newbuild pipeline is just one delivery in each of 2025, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2031 and 2033. We continue to take a disciplined approach to growth, strategically directing new capacity to the areas of highest demand at a rate of one to two new ships per year.”
The line currently sails 27 vessels and stands to add on another seven now in the next nine years, which will average about 1.5% growth in capacity per year through 2033, Weinstein said.
“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.
The new vessels will have more than 3,000 staterooms with a maximum passenger capacity of close to 8,000, which would top passenger capacity of the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas.
“We are excited to join forces with Carnival Cruise Line to debut a new class of ship, which will be the largest cruise ship ever constructed by Fincantieri and the largest ship ever built in Italy,” said the shipyard’s CEO Pierroberto Folgiero. “We are proud of the role Fincantieri has played in helping Carnival Corporation secure its position as the world’s largest cruise company and look forward to continuing this success story together.”
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