Carnival Corp has ordered three newbuildings from Fincantieri for its Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) brand.
The company explained that cruise vacation demand was at a historical level and that they will represent a new class of vessel, at nearly 230,000 gt.
Fincantieri will design, engineer, and construct the LNG powered ships, which will be delivered in the summers of 2029, 2031 and 2033, respectively.
“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 mill guests,” said Christine Duffy, CCL President (pictured).
“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.”
With this order, there have been five new ship orders for CCL announced this year.
Earlier, Carnival Corp placed its first newbuilding orders in five years for two more ‘Excel’ class ships that will join CCL in 2027 and 2028.
The company also recently announced a series of moves to further optimise the composition of its global brand portfolio and to increase CCL guest capacity by transferring five vessels from sister brands to the CCL fleet between 2023 and March, 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 Josh Weinstein, Carnival Corp CEO.
“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,” he explained.
According to Weinstein, this order will take the company’s overall measured capacity growth between 2025 and 2033 to an average of around 1.5% 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.
With over 3,000 guest staterooms, the new ships will be the largest in Carnival Corp’s fleet and will be able to carry almost 8,000 guests at full capacity.
Once they are all delivered in 2033, Carnival Corp will have 16 LNG powered ships – including eight CCL vessels – making up almost 30% of the Group’s 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.
“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.
“We are proud of the role Fincantieri has played in helping Carnival Corp secure its position as the world’s largest cruise company and look forward to continuing this success story together,” added Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO, Fincantieri.
The new ships’ design details and itinerary information will be announced in the future, Carnival said, adding that the order is contingent upon financing, which is expected to be completed later this year.
