Carnival Cruise Line celebrated another milestone this past week when they saw their 3 millionth guest take a cruise on one of their cruise ships since they restarted cruises a year ago.
After recording its biggest booking week in the cruise line’s 50-year history this spring, the last quarterly Carnival Corporation business update projected Carnival Cruise Line’s ships to reach nearly 110% occupancy this summer. That expectation is being realized in the increase of guests across the fleet. Carnival Cruise Line saw its total guest count hit the two million mark in May and it has now risen to three million in less than 75 days – an average of 95,000 guests per week.
“Carnival set the pace for the industry as the first major cruise line to return to full guest operations in the U.S., and we continue to lead as we now have welcomed three million guests who have enjoyed much-needed vacations,” said Carnival president Christine Duffy. “The economic benefit to our homeports and destinations is also significant and we are looking forward to restarting cruise operations in Australia this October.”
In addition to sailing from all 14 of Carnival Cruise Line’s year-round and seasonal U.S. homeports, the cruise line’s three-ship deployment to the Pacific Northwest set in motion its largest Alaskan season ever, with approximately 100,000 guests expected to embark on unforgettable vacations from both Seattle and San Francisco. The Port of San Francisco is also Carnival’s newest seasonal homeport, strengthening its position as the cruise line embarking more guests than any other operator from California.
Carnival Pride is spending the summer in Europe, offering itineraries packed with stops at 40 popular ports across 17 countries, and embarkations from both Barcelona, Spain and Dover, England. The ship will return to Tampa and resume operations there on Nov. 12, 2022.
In all, Carnival cruise ships have made more than 3,000 port-of-call visits at 92 individual ports in 36 countries. Carnival ships have called on Mexico the most with about 800 visits – half of which have been to Cozumel, making it the cruise line’s most popular port. After Cozumel (385 calls), the other destinations included in the top five are: Nassau (320 calls) and Half Moon Cay (155 calls) in The Bahamas, Amber Cove, Dominican Republic (159 calls), and Mahogany Bay, Roatan (123 calls).
Carnival Cruise Line recently broke ground on a new $200 million cruise port in Freeport, Grand Bahama which officials anticipate will breathe new tourism life into the economy of the second-largest city in The Bahamas.
The rapid return of Carnival’s guest base is consistent with the growth that has been previously announced, with five ships joining the fleet over the next two years. This November, Costa Luminosa will become Carnival Luminosa and begin sailing seasonally from Brisbane, Australia.
Carnival Celebration, an Excel-class ship powered by LNG, will join its innovative sister Mardi Gras as part of the Carnival fleet and begin service from PortMiami in November. A third Excel-class ship, Carnival Jubilee, is set to debut next year from Galveston. Carnival also continues to plan the launch of its new concept, “Choose Fun with Carnival, Italian Style,” which will bring two additional ships from Costa into the Carnival fleet in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
