Tag Archives: Mardi Gras

Carnival gives construction update on Mardi Gras

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Carnival gives construction update on Mardi Gras
Carnival Cruise’s New build the Mardi Gras.

Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras is on schedule for a February 2021 debut, the line said on Monday.

Photos from the Meyer Turku shipyard in Turku, Finland, where the vessel is under construction, show the suspended track for the Bolt rollercoaster has been installed. The track will eventually encircle the ship’s upper decks and offer passengers a ride on the first rollercoaster at sea, with views from 187 feet above the water.

The ship’s 2,600-plus cabins (including 180 suites) have been built and interiors are being outfitted. There are 11 stateroom categories.

The 5,282-passenger Mardi Gras will be Carnival’s largest ship and powered by liquefied natural gas. It will have six themed zones that include dining, beverage and entertainment options, including restaurants from Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri and Shaquille O’Neal. The 21-deck vessel will feature the Grand Central atrium with three-deck-high windows overlooking the sea.

The ship has twice been delayed. Last December, Carnival postponed the ship’s debut from Aug. 31 to Nov. 14 because of a construction delay at the shipyard in Finland. More recently, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the line rescheduled its maiden cruise until Feb. 6, 2021.  The ship will sail out of Florida’s Port Canaveral.

Cruise lines say loyalty will lead them back

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Who Owns and Operates What in the Cruise Industry? | TravelPulse

During Carnival Corp.’s business update last week, a Wall Street analyst asked whether the brands that were particularly tarnished by media coverage in the early days of the pandemic, such as Princess Cruises, were suffering more in terms of bookings.

The answer was no. CEO Arnold Donald said that not only was Princess not doing worse than other Carnival Corp. brands but was “trending with all the other brands in the industry.”

Wall Street might not understand this, but it doesn’t come as a surprise to travel advisors who understand how strong cruise line loyalty can be.

“What we noticed in our sales numbers is that Princess has remained strong since that incident,” said Vicky Garcia, COO of Cruise Planners, No. 24 on Travel Weekly’s 2020 Power List. “It did not affect them. Princess has a very loyal following, so they almost went into a reactionary mode and said, ‘I’m going to be even more loyal because they got so beat up.’ They were so loyal they wanted to defend and support it.”

New Cruise Itineraries Fall 2020 – 2022 – Best Cruise Destinations ...
Majestic Princess

In fact, Cruise Planners data shows that Princess 2021 departures are up 11% over the same time last year and almost 40% versus the same time two years ago.

It is this level of loyalty to brands and to cruise vacations in general that has cruise line executives confident that past cruisers will be the ones to bring the industry back once ships can start sailing again. It is that confidence that also prompted Donald to declare during the call with analysts that Carnival expects demand to be “more than adequate to fill ships in a staggered restart” with fewer ships sailing, citing the two-thirds of its global guests, 8 million each year, that are repeat cruisers, and the company’s active database of nearly 40 million past guests over its nine brands.

According to CLIA’s 2020 State of the Cruise Industry Outlook, 82% of cruisers say they are likely to book a cruise as their next vacation.

While that survey was done before the pandemic, UBS Investment Bank recently asked 94 cruisers in the U.S. about  their “inclination to cruise again” and found that, while the sample is small, the survey showed that over 85% of respondents are “likely to cruise again,” while less than 5% say they “will not or [were] unlikely to cruise again.” The remainder says they “will not cruise for a long time.”

Of the cruisers surveyed, 56% expect to take a cruise in the next 18 months, and 16% said they expect to wait until there is a vaccine. Expectations for cruising this year remain somewhat low, the survey found, with 13% of those surveyed expecting to cruise in the next six months.

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Carnival Cruise newest ship Mardi Gras

Reliance on past cruisers and customer loyalty, however, will not long sustain an industry with more than 100 new ships on order through 2027, which Donald acknowledged.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do once we start cruising with much larger volumes of capacity to attract new-to-cruise,” he said. “Of course, we will have work to do, but right now the brands are strong, the bookings are encouraging, and with the staggered start we’re going to have in the resumption of cruising, there should be plenty of pent-up, latent demand with previous cruise-goers to fill the ships.”

Port Canaveral: Diversified Offering

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Six Ships, Port Canaveral

A brand-new Terminal 3 is nearing the final stages of construction for Carnival Cruise Line at Port Canaveral, along with a 1,800-spot parking garage, all in preparation for the new Mardi Gras which will become the first LNG-fueled ship in North America.

 

Projections call for just under five million cruise guests in the fiscal year 2020, and over 5.6 million by 2024.

 

For port CEO Captain John Murray, the planning started years ago, wanting to be ready for LNG-fueled ships. The effort has paid off as Port Canaveral will host the Mardi Gras year-round and is expected to be home to Disney’s LNG-fueled ships as well.

“We are growing consistently,” Murray said. “All our cruise lines are very strong and over the next few years they plan to add additional ships.

 

A rendering of the new Cruise Terminal 3

“We are going to become the Florida port that can expand as the tonnage will be on the market and there won’t be as many berthing options in Florida as there have been in the past.”

Other big news at Port Canaveral includes the summer arrival of Marella Cruises in 2021, a deployment move announced late last year that had been in the works since 2017, said Robert “Bobby G” Giangrisostomi, vice president, cruise business development.

“They were looking for an American product,” he said, adding that the port’s proximity to Orlando was key.

 

Long term, the big homeport customers have major deals with Port Canaveral, including Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Disney, and Murray said in November he was negotiating a new deal with Norwegian.

 

With options, Carnival’s latest arrangement could extend to 45 years. For the port, terminal infrastructure is about building smart. “Flexible terminals,” commented Giangrisostomi. “A 1,200-foot ship can have up to 7,000 passengers. You have to be flexible. LNG ships, big ships, medium ships and Port Canaveral can handle them all.”

Deals also include more parking infrastructure, which may not be as long term.

“We have to look at what the concept of parking could be in 10 years,” Murray said, noting autonomous vehicles and an 83 per cent jump in Uber and Lyft usage at the port year-over-year.

 

Shorter cruises? Plan for more drive-in passengers. Estimates suggest that 40 to 60 per cent of guests embarking at Port Canaveral are drive-in customers.

“We are 200 miles closer to the entire Southeast,” explained Giangrisostomi

Another metric that is up is port-of-call business. With an expected 83 transit calls this year, that number jumps to just over 100 next year with more visits from the Oasis of the Seas sailing from Bayonne.

 

“Our port-of-call business is substantial,” added David German, director, cruise business development. “It’s good for the local community, with 6,000-plus passengers.”

The out-island arms race has paid dividends to all the Florida ports, Murray added. With cruise lines spending big developing their own destinations in the Bahamas, they have a reason to keep ships in nearby homeports.

 

New facial recognition has sped up clearing ships with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which can now happen in as little as two hours for 5,000 disembarking guests.

“They clear the ship very quickly. It helps the cruise lines get to zero counts much sooner,” Murray said.

 

“Being ready and out front for our cruise customers,” Murray answered when asked about how to run a cruise port successfully. “The guests are the most important part of our operation … easy in, easy off, easy on the ship, easy off the ship. We want to be number one in customer service … It boils down to the end-user.”