dolphinsfan246

I could see it being true. Just speaking for myself, in my earlier cruises our sail and sign account would always go over $1,000 for the week. But now, going on cruise #14 and our sail and sign account barely ever gets over $400. When we were new to cruising, we loved to pose at every photo background, felt the need to buy all those said photos. Now we take our own in photogenic spots and don’t buy any. I used to love to buy all kinds of merch from the Fun shops, now I have so much I don’t feel the need to buy anything there anymore. We used to play Bingo a lot , after so many losses we cut that out too. I’m sure other people are like me, once you cruise a lot you really start to notice where you don’t have to spend money.

Spirit class can sail from Philadelphia, Carnival Legend did a couple of unique sailing from there during its inaugural season in 2002. That’s the last time I recall a Carnival ship sailing from Philly. But the Spirit class is already stretched thin between Tampa, Baltimore, Alaska, etc. Spirit class doesn’t HAVE to be committed to Alaska, but Carnival seems adamant about keeping a couple there each year. As for MAS, I’ve recently heard it from a good source that Margaritaville will be expanding with a 3rd ship in 2025 with sailings from New Orleans. That 3rd ship is still TBA, I’m guessing it could definitely be Pacific Explorer. They said it would be in between the size of Paradise and Islander. And with the sunset of the P&O Australia brand in early 2025, the transition makes sense.

I’d love to hear more about the grilled chicken options at Shaqs!

Or would they pull the Adventure or Encounter over for an Alaskan season? It would make sense why they didn’t release those sailings today because there is still very little info about their transfer. If it was Luminosa why not just release those today with the rest?

Interesting choice to have only 2 Spirit class ships in Alaska. Especially with all the other lines going bigger in Alaska (not that I agree with that) Perhaps there is still more to come with Alaska?

The $400 on board credit doesn’t HAVE to stay on the ship. Add it to your casino balance and then cash out at the desk. Take it home if you please.

The next round of deployments will be very interesting as they set up the dominoes to fall in 2027 when the new builds start coming. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an Excel class ship moved to shorter cruises before then. This would take a short term sacrifice to week long capacity in either Miami or Port Canaveral. I don’t think Galveston would get that treatment as Jubilee is still new. What might make the most sense is putting Mardi Gras on the Freedom or Glory’s run and then moving another Vista or Dream class to take its place. This then frees up a Conquest class vessel to go elsewhere. It’s a short term sacrifice to the 7 day capacity but it’s made up for in the short cruise capacity. It really depends on how bad and how soon do they want to compete head to head with Utopia. A “Fantastically Fun” weekend at Celebration Key will market just as well as Royal’s “Ultimate” weekend at Coco Cay and presumably cost less.

I went there on my first cruise on the Holiday. I don’t think it can accommodate ships larger than Fantasy class? I might be wrong about that. The only thing I remember about it was that it was a gravel pit and we took a bus to Tulum.

Stay tuned 😉

There won’t be an official announcement on any details for at least another year or more on the CCL ships. The AIDA/P&O order should be coming very soon. The CCL ships will not have a split superstructure. They will achieve their extra tonnage by being wider than the Sphere class by about 10 meters. A lot of cool new features are in the works and being discussed.

An Excel class going to short cruises seems inevitable at this point, especially running it through Celebration Key twice a week. The only question is when can they do that? Seems their hands are tied on that until 2027.

Yes, built on the same block and hull structure as the Sphere class, just smaller. The XXL ships for CCL are also a much larger variant of the Sphere class design, with a new bow. This is currently Carnival’s “go to” design which can be stretched to fit just about any size and brand they want. Known formally as Fincantieri’s “Project Mille”. Other ships designed like this are the Virgin trio, MSC Seaside class, and Norwegian Prima. The bow of the new Carnival ships will look very similar to Norwegian Prima.

Yes , the Port Canaveral tugs page was posting about bringing her in this morning. I thought it was very strange because the weather was calm.

I was wondering why she was both late and had tug assist this morning. That explains a lot. I’d be disappointed at that port switch as well but I’d take the $400 and still enjoy myself.

Princess has options to execute for additional Sphere class sisters, they wouldn’t get a smaller version.

I have a lot of connections in the Fincantieri design team. But like I said, I can completely understand why you wouldn’t believe that. Just wait for the order. I have seen the preliminary renderings, they are a very new and quirky design that only the AIDA ships can pull off, the P&O variants are a much more subdued version.

You’re absolutely right about that, but they aren’t part of this particular order.

So you think 3 renovations to older ships is good enough to keep the German market? TUI is significantly upping their game and Carnival is not about to watch them push AIDA out of the market. 4 of these ships are going to AIDA. They will be around 4,000 PAX at double occupancy. Obviously I’m just a stranger on the internet so I can’t convince you otherwise. However when the order comes, don’t be surprised.

AIDA is currently Carnival’s 3rd highest returning brand behind only CCL and Princess. They absolutely are going to pour money into that.

The exact same source said that the XXL order was going to be 4 ships at 208K tons, 2 for CCL, 2 for Costa. That turned out to be quite wrong.

Hey believe whatever you want, I’ll believe the official press release.

Nothing set in stone. There is still a lot of decisions to be made on Costa’s future. It has also been brought up that Venezia or Firenze could go back in 2027. Carnival Fun Italian Style is not going over as well as John Heald wants you to believe. I only mentioned the Costa brand folding as the worst case scenario, but it is on the table.

Yes their demand in the UK is very strong and they want to grow it. Costa folding the same way as P&O Australia is still entirely on the table at this point.

We can revisit when the official press release comes out. Strange as Shipping Italy is usually pretty accurate when it comes to Fincantieri rumors. They just got one little detail mixed up.

Just remember this when the order comes 🤷‍♂️ I can’t change your mind. But the CCL brand is not part of this order.