carnival cruise line upcoming cruise ships

Carnival to Introduce a New Class of Ship With Three on Order

July 23, 2024 Randy Young

Last Updated on August 20, 2024

Today, Carnival Corporation announced an order for three new ships for the Carnival Brand. These ships will be part of a new class of vessels that shipyard Fincantieri will design and build for the cruise line. The new ships will be delivered in the summer of 2029, 2031, and 2033.

About Carnival’s New Class Of Ship

According to the press release, Fincantieri will design and build the three new ships. Fincantieri was a long-time vendor of Carnival, working on their Vista and Dream class ships, among others. (For Carnival’s more recent Excel-class builds, they switched to Meyer Turku.) Fincantieri has also released several new ships over recent years, creating Norwegian’s Prima class, MSC’s Seaside class, and all Virgin Voyages ships.

“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 Corporation secure its position as the world’s largest cruise company and look forward to continuing this success story together,” said Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO, Fincantieri.

These ships will use liquified natural gas (LNG) as fuel, a cleaner burning alternative to diesel. Carnival’s Excel-class ships were the first in the fleet to use this new fuel. In combination with new technologies, it helps provide a “greener” cruise experience.

The new class of vessel is expected to be nearly 230,000 gross registered tonnes, 25% larger than the Carnival Mardi Gras, Celebration, and Jubilee. That’ll make it Carnival’s largest ships ever and make them in the top 10 largest ships in the world. The size will rival the Oasis-class ships by Royal Caribbean.

According to the press release, these ships will have over 3,000 guest rooms and carry almost 8,000 guests. To put that in perspective, Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas is roughly the same size but has 241 fewer cabins and 1,320 fewer people.

	New Carnival Class	Carnival Celebration	Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas
Gross Tons	230,000	183,521	228,081
Max Passengers	8,000	6,631	6,680
Cabins	3,000	2,641	2,759
Space Ratio	29	28	34

Currently, the largest ships in the world, Royal Caribbean’s Icon-class and Oasis-class, and MSC World-class all have designs with large, open parts of the ship. For example, Central Park on Royal Caribbean’s ship is an open air portion in the middle of the ship, lined with cabins. The ships also have expansive, open interior promenades with a mall-like atmosphere. Many people have credited this design with making the ships feel less crowded than their smaller counterparts. So far both Carnival and Fincantieri has stayed away from this design, both companies focusing on large, lower exterior promenades for pools, seating, and restaurants. It’ll be interesting to see the approach they take on these large ships.

central park neighborhood on allure of the seas — Central Park Neighborhood on Allure of the Seas helps break up large ships. So far, Carnival and Fincantieri have stayed away from this design in favor of more expansive, exterior promenades.

More Carnival Ships Coming in the Future

This announcement is in addition to the two Excel-class ships that Carnival announced earlier this year. These ships will be similar to the other Excel-class ships (Mardi Gras, Celebration, and Jubilee).

No replacement for the older ships in the fleet

While these new ships will add capacity to the fleet, they won’t replace Carnival’s oldest ships. Carnival’s two remaining Fantasy-class ships, Elation and Paradise, are 26 years old, and Carnival’s Spirit-class ships are over 20 years old. Typically, that’d place them close to retirement age, but these ships service ports like Jacksonville and Baltimore that can’t handle larger vessels.