Carnival Corp to build four new ships as part of ‘growth strategy’

Posted on 4 January, 2016 by Spacejunkie2

Carnival Corporation has announced it will build four new cruise ships for its Costa Asia, P&O Cruises and Princess Cruises lines.

Two of the four new ships will be built for Costa Asia for deployment in China, and one will be built each for P&O Cruises Australia and Princess Cruises.

This takes the company’s total number of new ships scheduled to be delivered by 2020, to 17.

The four new ships will be built by Fincantieri at the company’s shipyards in Monfalcone and Marghera, Italy, with deliveries expected in 2019 and 2020.

The two new 135,500-ton ships for Costa Asia and one new ship for P&O Cruises Australia will carry 4,200 passengers.

Princess Cruises’ new 143,700-ton ship will carry 3,560 passengers and will be its fourth “Royal Princess” class vessel, featuring the same design platform used on Royal Princess, Regal Princess and Majestic Princess.

Chief executive of Carnival Corporation, Arnold Donald, said: “These ships will be great additions to our fleet that support our goal to exceed guest expectations and create great vacation memories for each guest onboard our ships.

“These strategic investments in new ships that wow our guests are an important part of our measured growth strategy, which includes replacing less efficient ships with newer, larger and more efficient vessels over a very specific period of time.”

The company said specific features and amenities for the ships, along with deployment details, will be revealed in the coming months.

Costa Cruises to build world’s largest passenger ships

Posted on 1 August, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

By Hollie-Rae Merrick

Costa Cruises is to build two 6,600 passenger ships, making the vessels the largest in the world by capacity.

The Carnival Corporation-owned brand will launch the new ships in 2019 and 2020. The two vessels will be built at the Meyer shipyard in Turku, Finland, and will be the first ships powered by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

The announcement of the new ships for Costa is a significant statement about the brand’s recovery following the Costa Concordia tragedy in 2012.

The Costa new builds will have 600 more passengers than Royal Caribbean’s Oasis class, which will remain the largest cruise ships in the world by size.

Costa’s ship order is part of parent Carnival Corporation’s multibillion dollar contract with two Meyer shipyards in Finland and Germany.

Carnival’s deal with the shipyards is for a total of nine new ships between 2019 and 2022, including the two newly announced Costa ships.

Michael Thamm, chief executive of the Costa group, said: “These ships will expand the leadership position for the Costa Group, the market leader in all major continental European markets.

“The multibillion dollar contract with Meyer mirrors our strategy to constantly innovate our vacation offers and to deliver an unmatched cruise experience to our guests.”

Neil Palomba, president of Costa Cruises, said: “The two Costa ships are a real innovation for the market, setting new standards for the whole industry: they will be the first green ships powered with LNG and they will offer an extensive number of guest-friendly features.

“The order also confirms that the Costa brand will continue to grow, becoming even stronger and keep on generating a positive economic impact in the main countries where it operates, including Italy.”

Qatar to charter cruise ships to host World Cup supporters

Posted on 26 April, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

By Phil Davies

Cruise ships are to be chartered to help accommodate football supporters at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.The Qatar Tourism Authority announced at the Cruise Shipping Miami convention that it would be contracting rooms from cruise companies as a “means of additional accommodation”.

The QTA said: “Over the past few years, QTA established a number of strong relationships with international cruise operators as well as with other specialists involved in the industry.

“This has proved to be of great importance especially that Qatar will be extensively benefiting from cruise ships over the 2022 World Cup, as a means of providing additional accommodation supply for fans and visitors over the period.

“QTA will be contracting a minimum of 6,000 rooms on cruise ships for the 2022 tournament, and is building its knowledge base to develop this sector of the maritime industry.”

The Gulf state said it would have 100,000 hotel rooms available for fans, more than the minimum 60,000 required by Fifa, as part of its bid to host the tournament.

Temporary accommodation such as cruise ships could help the QTA hit the 60,000 figure and alleviate the potential for thousands of unoccupied rooms once the tournament comes to a close, City A.M. reported.