Carnival Vista ship to be energy efficient

Carnival Vista ship to be energy efficient

While we have no news on the progress on the Carnival Vista ship, we can tell you that she will be an energy efficient cruise ship thanks to her Multi-Effect Plate (MEP) evaporators. This freshwater generating plant uses far less energy than other systems, which is so important not only for our seas, but also to help keep costs down for cruise ship companies.

Many of these companies have been involved with an internal race to outfit their vessels with these MEP high efficiency evaporators. It comes as no surprise to us that Carnival Cruises has ordered these for the Vista seeing as though Norwegian Cruise Line has ordered them for the duo of Breakaway Plus ships, as well as Royal Caribbean fitting them to the three Quantum class ships.

That is not all, there is a third Oasis class vessel coming, and that two will make use of MEP technology.

There is not much else we can tell you about this upcoming ship, and while we know many of you will wish to know the Carnival Vista deck plans, venues, home port and other such question, you will just have to sit tight. However, with a delivery date of winter 2016, we don’t expect to learn any new details on Carnival Vista until early next year.

New Carnival cruise ship after Vista

New Carnival cruise ship after Vista

It’s been almost a year since news of the Carnival Vista first broke and it was clear to see that there was a lot of excitement for those within Carnival, and also the many faithful customers who keep coming back to the cruise ship company.

Carnival Cruise Line had a very rough few years and mixed with the fact that there was a lack of new ships from the company, and you have a recipe for something that will not go down well with potential customers.

Thankfully, the company has made many new safety changes and also brings news that there is to be another new Carnival cruise ship after Vista, or maybe even two. Both of these are planned to be delivered in 2017, and so we should hear from Carnival very soon if this is in fact true.

Not much is known about Vista at this time, such as its size or tonnage, and we don’t expect to find that out until later this year or early next year, seeing as though Carnival Vista will not enter service until December 2016. However, we can tell you that the first steel was cut four months ago.

It is not yet known where these new Carnival cruise ships will be based, but one has to wonder if they will start to venture outside of North America because of the growing market, although they already do that in a way seeing as though they own Cunard and P&O.

Construction of Carnival Vista takes first step

Construction of Carnival Vista began last week when the first steel was cut, which means that over the next few months new details in regard to the Carnival Vista should start to become available. This ship will not set sail until 2016, but at least in that time we will have a greater understanding of what is being called the Fun Ship.

Now that the first piece of steel has been cut the next step will be to start building out the rest of this 135,000-ton, 4,000-passenger ship, which will include the many restaurants, bars and various entertainment facilities.

The Carnival Vista will be the 25th ship in the fleet, so no doubt the cruise line will have a few special treats in store. Again, we do not know much about the new ship because Carnival is keeping design details to themselves for now.

If you had the choice what sort of features would you like to see brought to the Carnival Vista, bearing in mind that the ship will be centred around having fun?

Technology and the shipboard library

Technology and the shipboard library

By Tom Stieghorst

 

The ship’s library has always been a small but special part of the cruise experience. But for how much longer?

The library at sea, like libraries everywhere, is under siege by changing technology. And whether ships need to set aside space for libraries in the future is very much being debated as new ships are designed.

Carnival cruise director and blogger extraordinaire John Heald said in a recent posting that the library on the recent transatlantic crossing of the Carnival Legend was full of books.  *TomStieghorst

“One thing all those transatlantic crossings had in common was that the library, by the end of the first sea day, sat entirely empty,” Heald wrote. “Here on the Carnival Legend, the bookcases are full.

“Yep, the book is dead, long live the Kindle. Every deck I walk on, I see young and old reading their Kindles.”

Even on an ocean crossing with presumably few younger, tech-savvy passengers on the manifest, the library remains fully stocked, Heald said: “Wherever I am, I see older people and their parents absorbed in their Kindles.”

Perhaps that’s just Carnival. Maybe the magnificent libraries on the Cunard Line fleet have emptier shelves on their Atlantic trips. But on most ships where space is at a premium, the library is an endangered species.

At the next major drydock nothing prevents a ship’s library from being converted to some other use. Heald suggested perhaps a cigar bar (a suggestion likely made for for comic effect, but maybe not.)

The trend is on display on Carnival Sunshine, the ship Carnival renovated from stem to stern earlier this year. While the library wasn’t eliminated or converted to another use, it now shares space with a bar.
Carnival is in the process of designing the next ship to set sail under its red and blue banner, the Carnival Vista. With Kindles in the hands of passengers young and old, it may well be the first Carnival ship without a library.

In his post Heald referred to a bookstore in Miami that he said was possibly a Borders, which he liked to visit when he comes to Miami. “It would not surprise me that, when I return there in November, it’s become a Walgreens or worse, a gym,” he wrote.

If in fact it was a Borders, it closed two years ago, along with the rest of the chain’s stores.  The Borders on South Dixie Highway in Miami reopened last week as a Trader Joe’s specialty market.

At least it’s not a gym.

New Carnival ship to be called the Vista

New Carnival ship to be called the Vista

By Tom Stieghorst
The 25th Carnival Cruise Lines ship will be called the Carnival Vista, said Jim Berra, the cruise line’s marketing vice president, at a news conference aboard the Carnival Sunshine.

The design of the new ship will maximize views of the ocean, Berra said.

“We’re starting to use the ship names as a touchstone for how we think about design. With Vista, what we’re going to try to do is design a ship that is extremely open to the ocean.

“We think at the end of the day that is really why people are cruising. They want the salt air, they want the ocean breeze, they want to look out to the horizon and see the ocean, so a lot of what we’re thinking about in design and the inspiration for the design, is they want those views out to the ocean.”

Breeze 2.0 had been the working name for the ship, which will be 135,000 gross tons and carry 4,000 passengers. It is scheduled for delivery in 2016.