Carnival Cruise Line

It’s not just the newest ships at sea that glimmer and host a great time but keeping the entire fleet fresh is the goal of every cruise line.  Often lines will spruce up entire classes of ships, adding the latest features and venues.  Carnival however has announced a drydock that represents the final phase of a $2 billion eight-year project, and this phase involves a real transformation.  Let’s look at some of the new features and venues still to come, how this all relates to pizza, and then get Billy’s take on how this positions Carnival compared to their competitors... read more

Many cruise lines are offering sailings with stops in Cuba, and now, Carnival Cruise Lines is expanding their offering to include stops in Havana from Charleston and other East Coast homeports.  This represents a significant increase in options, especially for those looking to sail out of Charleston, where options had previously been somewhat limited. read more

When you think of cruising most people think about leaving from South Florida, Seattle, or perhaps a large city in Europe.  There are many other ports out of which you can cruise, and recently Carnival announced they’re greatly increasing their capacity at some of them.  We look at why this is important, and what we think it might say about the popularity of cruising as well as the economy... read more

Continuing to build momentum in a quickly changing world of alternative-fueled ships, Carnival Cruise Line has signed another in a series of agreements today with Shell to be their supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for North America's first fully LNG powered cruise ships. The ships will be largest for the cruise line, at 180,000 gross tons, and due to sail in 2020 and 2022.  They'll be fueled through Shell's LNG Bunker Barge (LBB).  The LBB was recently announced as part of a plan to develop a global LNG bunkering network (bunkering is a nautical term referring to fueling-up ships) to support the growing number of LNG-powered ships being constructed, allowing them to refuel along the south-eastern US coast... read more

In an industry-first move, Carnival Cruise Lines has launched a program which allows guests to pay for their cruise in three monthly installments.  Traditionally, guests have had to make a deposit and then pay the balance before final payment day.  This new program allows guests to not only spread out these payments, but do so automatically so they can both budget easily and avoid a missed opportunity to sail because of forgotten payments.  Here's how it works... read more

Today at a ceremony in Freeport, officials with Carnival Cruise Line and the Bahamian government signed an agreement to build a record-breaking cruise port on Grand Bahama Island.  This port will be the largest purpose-built cruise facility ever built in The Bahamas and will be funded and operated by Carnival Cruise Line.  While the exact location has not yet been announced, it will include a one-mile stretch of beach, food, beverage and shopping outlets, an array of water-based amenities and other recreational facilities.  Importantly, the port will also feature a pier capable of accommodating two of Carnival’s largest cruise ships simultaneously and can expect to see up to 1 million guests a year... read more

This weekend we were lucky enough to enjoy several hours on Carnival Vista, Carnival's newest ship.  There will be lots to digest here, but I'll tell you this much - we are truly impressed.  In last week's post we pointed to seven things we were looking forward to on the Vista, and they all delivered.  This 133.5K gross ton cruise ship offers up many great options not found on other Carnival ships and it's hard to try and take it all in on a three hour visit but we sure tried.  In this review, which we're guessing will take us three rounds, we'll share some of what we saw, experienced, and tasted.  Just typing this made us hungry, so we're going to start off talking about dining on the Carnival Vista... read more