The world’s largest cruise company, Carnival Cruise Line has announced the addition of three new large-scale ships by 2033. The liner has revealed that, at a size of 230,000 gross registered tonnes per ship, the fleet will be ready for operation in 2029, 2031 and 2033 respectively.
Each ship will accommodate 8,000 guests in 3,000 rooms, making these the biggest ships in the line’s fleet. Production is being carried out by Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, however full design plans are still to be unveiled. “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 Pierroberto Folgiero, Fincantieri’s CEO.
The plans come in response to record-high consumer demand for cruise holidays, with comments from the Carnival Corporation including the intention to “deliver even more fun” to their guests. The itineraries of the new vessels are yet to be revealed.
“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 Josh Weinstein, CEO of parent company Carnival Corporation.
“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 the president of Carnival Cruise, Christine Duffy. “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.”
This isn’t the first announcement regarding expansion from the liner this year. Two new Excel-class ships were ordered in March and will launch in 2027 and 2028. “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,” explained Weinstein. According to the company’s CEO, this order will take the cruise liner’s total measured capacity growth to approximately 1.5% per year between 2025 and 2033.
The company has also recently decided to merge the longstanding P&O Cruises Australia into its Carnival Cruise Line in an attempt to increase passenger capacity and improve its global brand portfolio. Carnival will transfer a total of five ships from sister brands to the Carnival Cruise Line fleet between 2023 and March 2025. The new vessels will join Carnival’s spread of 27 cruise ships currently on the seas.
