Carnival Corp. orders 9 ships to be built from 2019 to 2022

Posted on 30 March, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

By Johanna Jainchill
Carnival Corp. said Thursday that it would add nine ships to its fleet between 2019 and 2022.

Carnival offered almost no details about the ship order. It did not specify which of its nine brands would get the new vessels or offer any information about their size, design or cost.

In a statement, Carnival said the new ships were expected to serve the North American, European and Chinese cruise markets, would be specifically designed and developed for their particular brands and would be the most efficient ships in Carnival history.

“We’re excited to take this next step in our fleet-enhancement plan with these two new agreements that are consistent with our long-term strategy of measured capacity growth over time,” Carnival Corp. President and CEO Arnold Donald said in a statement.

The order is in line with Donald’s previous statements indicating that the company would restrict its growth to two to three ships per year across its fleet.

Carnival said it had signed memorandums of agreement with Italy’s Fincantieri shipyard to build five of the vessels and with Germany’s Meyer Werft to build four.

Additional information about the ships, such as their design and which brands they will be built for, will be revealed at a later date, Carnival said.

In announcing the new builds, the company indicated that Donald would be offering additional details about the new vessels during Carnival Corp.’s earnings call on Friday.

Carnival Corp. is the parent company of Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, Aida Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, P&O Cruises (Australia) and P&O Cruises (U.K.).

Late last year it ordered one ship each from Fincantieri for Carnival Cruise Line and Holland America Line for delivery in 2018.

The company has added more than 30 ships to its combined fleets since 2007, and it has another nine scheduled to be delivered between 2015 and 2018, which Donald pointed out in December was about one vessel for each of its brands over the next four years.

This year, Carnival is adding two ships to its global fleet and removing four. The new vessels are P&O’s Britannia, which launched earlier this month, and the Aida Prima, set to debut later this year.

Cruise Ship Affected By Strong Winds In Mediterranean

Posted on 10 March, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

Photo By: LiveBoat.it

Thanks to CruiseHive.com

A Costa Cruise ship sailing in the Mediterranean has been affected by bad weather conditions including strong winds.

Apparently according to local Italian media the neoRomatica which is operated by Costa Cruises had a scary ordeal during a Mediterranean cruise. The ship sailed into a storm on Thursday night March 5th near the vessels last port of call at Trapani, Sicily. The storm was producing wind gusts of around 60 mph which also caused strong waves to hit the 57,000 gross ton cruise ship.

The neoRomantica was forced to let go one of its anchors so the strong conditions wouldn’t knock it out of action. The anchor was apparently hitting the ship’s bow very strong which has done some damage as seen in the featured image. An Italian forum has messages from passengers who were onboard the ship at the time:

” Moments of panic !!! staff on board certainly very prepared to deal with the situation! We were forced to stay almost a full day in the hallway without eating almost had it not been for some apple and a few bottles of water !!! ”

“My boss is on board, I confirm cabins flooded (including that of my head, not accessible to virtually all day yesterday, the water is coming down from the ceiling, wetting the bed and carpet, you name it) and the black out” .

Here is one video posted by a YouTube user who was a passenger onboard neoRomantic as the storm was just starting to get more intense:

So it seems some Cabins had been flooded but this could have been from water pipes inside the ship. With the heavy rocking and banging of the waves against the ships hull it’s possible that pipes could burst. As a result of the damage the ship diverted to Savona, Italy instead of sailing back to its home port of Marseille, France. Passengers were taken back to Marseille by bus.

Cruise Hive has requested further details from Costa Cruises and will update this report once we get a response.

Captain of Costa Concordia Sentenced to 16 Years for Manslaughter

Posted on 12 February, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

Captain Francesco Schettino, the man who was at the helm of the Costa Concordia when the cruise ship hit a reef off of the coast of Italy in 2012, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to a little over 16 years in prison.

The trial lasted 19 months and Schettino was found guilty of multiple counts of manslaughter after 32 passengers and crew members that were on the Costa Concordia died as a result of his actions.

He was also convicted of abandoning ship and causing a shipwreck. He left the ship before many of the over 4,000 passengers and crew members were still onboard.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 26 years and 3 months and called him a “reckless idiot”. Schettino was not present in the court when Judge Giovanni Puliatti read the verdict in the Grosseto Theater. He previously told the court that he was being “offered for sacrifice” for the sake of the economic interests of his employer.

– See more at: http://cruisefever.net/0211-captain-of-costa-concordia-sentenced-16-years-for-manslaughter/#sthash.MkVk8BBG.dpuf