Carnival to name new ship in Dubai

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2010 (6048 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Carnival chairman Micky Arison was given the keys to the company’s newest ship, the Costa Deliziosa, at a ceremony in Venice earlier this month.

The Costa brand is owned by Carnival, the largest cruise company in the world, and the Deliziosa will be the first ship to be named in Dubai, with the naming ceremony to have taken place on Feb. 23.

The ship will then sail a seven-day itinerary that includes two nights in Dubai with port calls to Muscat in Oman; Fujayrah and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The choice of Dubai as site for the ship’s naming ceremony and Arison’s comments during the handoff ceremony had a lot to say about where the cruise lines are heading this decade. Every one of the major cruise lines is looking to enhance its fleet in Europe and Carnival says they will deploy more ships to Australia, New Zealand, Asia and South America.

One Carnival executive announced their brands would expect to carry 190,000 passengers in Australia this year and grow to 300,000 by next year. For the cruise consumer, it means many more choices outside of North America.

Beginning in 2012, Carnival Corp. and all of its brands expect to build only two or three ships a year. They currently have 13 ships on order through 2012 and six of those are launching this year.

Carnival’s competitor, Royal Caribbean, has said on previous occasions it would be maximizing fleet usage and also cutting back on the building of new ships beyond 2012. These announcements make it clear the massive shipbuilding boom we are currently witnessing is soon coming to an end, or at least pausing for a few years.

I thought Arison might use the occasion of the Deliziosa handoff to announce the long-awaited release of details of a new class of ship for Princess, but he did not. We do know it will be larger than anything in their current fleet.

This week he told travelmole.com the announcement for a new ship class for Princess was only weeks away.

"Our focus is on getting capacity for Princess, that is our No. 1 priority," Arison said. "We will be in a position to announce something relatively soon."

For those who are Princess fans, it probably means 2012, or later, before the new ships set sail.

In other news from Carnival, their ship Fascination is back in service in Jacksonville after getting a $34-million upgrade. The ship will continue to sail its four- and five-day cruises year-round. On the four-day trips, the ship departs on Thursdays and visits Freeport and Nassau, Bahamas. The five-day cruises that depart Mondays call at Key West, Fla. and Nassau. The five-day voyages that depart on Saturdays visit the line’s private Bahamian island of Half Moon Cay, as well as Nassau. The refurbishments include a transformation of the open decks, borrowing features that were part of the design of the new Carnival Dream.

Air Canada is offering some new flight choices this summer to help get you to your ship. The airline will begin flying from Toronto to San Diego, which is a major port for the Mexican Riviera and Panama Canal cruises. If you’re cruising out of Europe, Air Canada is adding a new service to Barcelona, which is a thriving cruise embarkation port, as well as Copenhagen, which is growing in importance as a cruise port.

 

— Canwest News Service

 

Visit portsandbows.com for daily updates on the latest cruise news, best deals and behind-the-scenes stories from the industry. You can also sign up for an email newsletter on the site for even more cruise information. Phil can be contacted directly at preimercanwest.com.