Four More Reasons to Experience Carnival!
December 16, 2005
Four ships, four cruise brands, four years - four more reasons to take a cruise. Each of Carnival's major cruise line brands will get a shiny new cruise ship by autumn of 2009. The order for the ships' construction came just yesterday, with Carnival Corporation shelling out 2 billion bucks towards the endeavor.
Carnival Corporation, which owns - among others - Princess Cruises, Holland America Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, and its namesake, Carnival Cruise Lines, placed the order through Italy's Fincantieri company, a world-renowned shipyard that has built approximately 7000 ships of all different types of styles throughout its 200-year history.
The four cruise ships, all of which will be able to hold at least 2,000 passengers, will start arriving in the summer of 2008. The first ship to be delivered will be the 2,044-passenger ship for Holland America Line. That will be followed in the fall of 2008 by a 3,100-passenger ship for Princess Cruises. In the summer of 2009, Costa Cruises is scheduled to get a 3,004-passenger ship.
Finally, Carnival Cruise Lines' new arrival, a 3,608-passenger titan, will be the largest ship ever built for the Carnival brand. It is scheduled for service in the fall of 2009. All told, the four ships will add almost 12,000 berths to the Carnival Corporation's fleet, which already includes just shy of 140,000 berths on 79 ships.
Currently, Princess Cruises and Holland America Cruise Line, both of which are considered premium quality cruise lines, have 15 and 12 ships respectively. Both cruise lines travel to the Caribbean, Alaska, Europe, the Mediterranean, Mexico and several other destinations around the world. These lines emphasize a superior level of service and refined atmospheres.
Costa Cruises and Carnival Cruise Lines are both considered the Popular style of cruising; however, each has a completely unique feel. Costa Cruises is an Italian cruise line, emphasizing European style, design, cuisine, and more. Carnival Cruise Lines have their own brand of "fun ships." But don't fall in the trap of thinking that all there is to do on a Carnival Cruise Lines' ship is party; on the contrary, Carnival Cruise Lines offers one of the most well-rounded and diverse cruise experiences on the market.
The four ships slated for these four cruise brands are only a fraction of the cruise ships that are currently in line to become part of the Carnival Corporation fleets. In fact, with Wednesday's order, Carnival now has 16 ships on order for delivery through fall 2009, thirteen of which are being built by Fincantieri.
"Fincantieri constructs some of the world's most beautiful and technically advanced ships," said Carnival Chairman Micky Arison. Of course, using a foreign shipyard is also good business sense; Arison stated that Fincantieri's prices were "very competitive considering today's unfavorable U.S. dollar/euro ratio." A dollar is currently worth about 0.84 euros, compared with 1.14 euros five years ago.
To give you an idea of how much a giant in the cruise industry Carnival Corporation is, the deal with Fincantieri calls for the Holland America and Princess ships to be paid for in dollars, at $450 million and $570 million, respectively. The other two ships are priced in euros. At current rates, Carnival would pay the equivalent of $575 million for the Costa ship and $640 million for the Carnival Cruise ship. Obviously, that takes tremendous capital to pull off, so Carnival's doing something right!
Currently, you can place a reservation for a cabin on any one of those 79 ships through Cruise Network. Feel free to stay right here at www.cruisenetwork.com, or call a Cruise Specialist at 1-888-267-1232 to book.
