What We Know About Carnival’s Ace Class Ships

August 28, 2024 Randy Young

In July, Carnival announced an order with Fincantieri for three new ships. While there’s not a lot of information out there yet, here’s what we know about the newest ships coming to Carnival Cruise Line.

Carnival’s New Ships Are Called Ace Class Ships Internally

The newest class of ships is known internally as “Project Ace.” In a Zoom Webinar to Carnival travel agents, Carnival Corporation CEO John Weinstein inadvertently dropped the tidbit, “We call it Project Ace, you can call it Ace class. It’s a placeholder.” He went on the indicate that the name was actually his idea.

While it’s just a placeholder for now, the class name could stick. Typically, the name of a class is based on the name of the first ship with the design. But Carnival’s most recent class of ship, the Excel Class, differed from that pattern. Instead, the ships kept the internal codename “Project Excel.” This change in naming convention could be because this class of ship launches vessels under multiple brands in Carnival Corporation’s portfolio.

Fincantieri Will Build Ace Class Ships

The new Ace Class ships will be built by Fincantieri, a long-time vendor of Carnival who has built 15 ships for the brand, including the popular Vista and Dream Class ships. This is a departure from the newest Excel Class, which was built by Meyer Turku.

Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Fincantieri, said, “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.”

Ace Class Ships Will Be Big

Carnival’s Ace Class ships are going to be big. Carnival’s press release stated the new class of vessels is expected to be nearly 230,000 gross registered tons. That’s 25% larger than the Carnival Mardi Gras, Celebration, and Jubilee. They’ll be Carnival’s largest ships ever and put them in the top 10 largest ships in the world.

	Carnival Ace Class	Carnival Excel Class	Royal Caribbean Oasis Class
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

In terms of size, the Ace Class ships will be roughly the size of Royal Caribbean’s Oasis-class ships. In terms of passengers, though, there will be many more guests on the new Carnival ships. The Ace Class ships will hold a maximum of 8,000 guests and have close to 3,000 cabins. 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.

Ace Class Ships Will Have New Features

Like any new class of cruise ship, the ships coming from Project Ace will have some new features. On Carnival’s Vista Class, they debuted the first brewery at sea and introduced SkyRide. The Excel Class saw the first roller coaster on a cruise ship and the impressive Grand Central atrium with three-story glass windows.

What will the Project Ace ships have? Carnival isn’t letting any details slip just yet. Weinstein added, “It’s going to have the ethos that you would expect for Carnival Cruise Line. It is about fun. It’s about inclusive, fun and wanting everyone to be able to participate…It’ll definately have features we’ve never had before.”

Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, also commented, “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.”

Ace Class Ships Will Run on LNG

The three new Ace Class ships will run on liquified natural gas (LNG). It’s a cleaner burning fuel than diesel, providing a more “green” alternative. It’s not a surprise, as most new ships, including Carnival’s Excel Class ships and Royal Caribbean’s Icon Class ships, run on this new fuel. Norwegian Cruise Line, so far, is the only one staying away from LNG with new builds.

According to a Fincantieri press release, the ships will also have other optimizations to make them more sustainable. “These new ships will also feature advanced energy efficiency, waste management, and emission reduction technologies to further reduce the company’s environmental footprint. “

First Ace Class Ship Will Debut in 2029

The first Ace Class ship will debut in the summer of 2029. Its two sister ships will come out in the summers of 2031 and 2033. Before they debut, two more Excel Class ships will come out in 2027 and 2028.

Project Ace Ship Design

So far, any ship that has crossed the 200,000 gross ton mark has used a split superstructure design. This design creates interior promenades or atriums open to the air and lined with cabins. Think of Royal Caribbean’s Central Park on its Oasis-class ship, the World Promenade of MSC’s World-class ships, or the Imagination Garden on the upcoming Disney Adventure.

Fincantieri has not built any ships with that structure, though. Over the years, they’ve pioneered a new vision of cruise ships, with a large exterior promenade and moving a lot of facilities down closer to the water. Originally named Project Mille, this ship concept was the basis for Virgin Voyages’ ships, Norwegian’s Prima Class, and MSC’s Seaside Class.

Will Carnival’s Ace Class ships build upon the Project Mille footprint or go with something closer to Royal Caribbean’s structure?

Shipping Italy, a website that follows the Italian Shipyards, has a different idea. They first reported on this order six months before it was officially announced. In their writeup, they mention that the ships will be based on the “prototype” built for Princess Cruises in Monfalcone. That would refer to the Princess’ new Sphere Class ship the Sun Princess which launched earlier this year. Shipping Italy says the new class will be based on this ship, but “but even larger and more innovative.”

Carnival’s is Betting Big on Big Ships

Carnival’s new Project Ace ships are a big gamble. They’ve never had a ship carry so many people before, and the ship needs to be designed to accommodate everyone comfortably. 8,000 guests are a lot of people on a cruise ship, more than any other cruise ship in the world. Can Carnival manage to make the experience enjoyable while putting that many people on one ship?

To be fair, people had the same thoughts when they debuted the Excel Class, but guest feedback and reviews for the new ships have been mostly favorable. The Excel Class was a evolution of the Carnival brand in a way that everyone seems to love. We’ll see if Carnival can continue that trend with Project Ace.