Two additional cruise ships will join the Carnival Cruise Line fleet by 2023. One vessel will be part of the LNG-powered Excel class, and another will be transferred from sister line Costa Cruises. This will make up for the recent Carnival cruise ships that were sold off and scrapped.
Carnival Cruise Line Fleet Will Grow Again
Carnival Cruise Line will grow with an additional two cruise ships. One of the additional ships will be new and the sister to Mardi Gras and Carnival Celebration, part of the excel-class. Parent company Carnival Corporation originally ordered this ship for sister line AIDA Cruises, but now the new-build will be reassigned to Carnival Cruise Line.
The third Excel-class cruise ship will arrive in late 2023 and be fully powered by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The ship was ordered by Carnival Corp in 2018 for German-based AIDA Cruises and was set to join that fleet in October 2023. Once completed, she will be around 180,000 gross tons and sail for Carnival Cruise Line.
Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line said:
“We are excited about these additions to our fleet which reflect the strong position that Carnival has established in the U.S., the pent-up demand we continue to see for cruise vacations, and the overall plans by Carnival Corporation to optimize capacity and growth in key markets.”
“While our immediate focus is on our restart of guest operations this summer, this is another cause for excitement at Carnival, and we will be announcing more detailed plans about homeports, itineraries and ship names very soon.”
The other ship that will join Carnival Cruise Line is the Costa Magica from Costa Cruises. She will undergo a dry dock to receive the Carnival look, including the new livery rolling out across the fleet. Once completed, the vessel which will be renamed will join the fleet by mid-2022.
Both ships will bring new features and amenities to the fleet, and the cruise line says they will have environmental benefits. They come as the Mardi Gras is about to begin cruises for the first time out of Port Canaveral on July 31. Sister ship Carnival Celebration will also become the second Excel-class in the fleet once delivered in late 2022.
With the two additional ships, the Carnival fleet will be at 27 by the end of 2023 and will undoubtedly make up for the huge loss of four Fantasy-class vessels in 2020. Carnival Fantasy, Inspiration, and Imagination were sold for scrapping at the Aliaga ship-breaking facility in Turkey. Carnival Fascination was also sold, but thankfully she will remain active under the new name Century Harmony in China.
