Carnival Corporation has announced that an agreement which was first announced with italian ship builder Fincantieri in 2015 has now been completed. This means the paperwork and agreements between the cruise line and shipyard are complete. The real work of building and planning the ships can now go ahead, they will all be built at the Fincantieri shipyards in Monfalcone and Marghera, Italy.
The five new ships include two that will be built for Costa Asia for deployment in China, two ships for Princess Cruises and one designated for P&O Cruises Australia, with deliveries expected in 2019 and 2020.
The contracts for the five ships were signed during a ceremony on Saturday April 2 at the Fincantieri shipyard in Marghera, Italy. one of the main reasons for doing the contracts today was due to Holland America Lines brand new ms Koningsdam handover ceremony at the shipyard. Key personnel attended the ceremony including Italian Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Graziano Delrio, Carnival Corporation Chairman Micky Arison, Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald and Fincantieri CEO Giuseppe Bono.
The new ships for both Costa Asia and P&O Cruises Australia are expected to be 135,500-ton vessels with the capacity to carry 4,200 passengers. The 143,700-ton, 3,560-passenger ships for Princess Cruises will be the brand’s fourth and fifth Royal-class vessels, featuring the successful design platform used on Royal Princess, Regal Princess and the new Majestic Princess coming in 2017.
Arnold Donald from Carnival Corporation said:
“Today has been especially exciting for our company, our partners and our guests, as we celebrated the arrival of our amazing ms Koningsdam ship and officially signed agreements with Fincantieri to build five new cruise ships for the future,”
“Supporting our goal to exceed guest expectations on every cruise, these new ships will create a whole new level of excitement and opportunity to deliver experiences that our guests will not only remember for the rest of their lives, but will also share with others. Using our strategic fleet enhancement plan to delight our guests is an important part of our measured growth strategy, which includes replacing less efficient ships with newer, larger and more efficient vessels over a very specific period of time.”
We can expect further specific details of each ship from the different cruise brands over the coming months. Carnival Corporation has a total of 16 new ships scheduled to be delivered between 2016 and 2020.
