Carnival Ships for Sale Question

[PhillyFan33579]

I know Carnival has several of their older Fantasy class ships for sale. What I don’t know is what happens if/when a ship is sold, since Carnival has not removed a ship from their fleet since I started cruising. 

 

I assume it would depend on the terms of the sale agreement, but is it possible for cruises already booked to be cancelled? Depending on the ship that is sold, is it possible for a port to be without a Carnival ship for awhile?  Would it lead to a near term moving of at least a few ships around?  I am very curious to see/know what happens if/when a sale agreement is reached for one of Carnival’s older ships. 

Edited July 9, 2019 by PhillyFan33579

[jimbo5544]

It has been a while, last time they just filled in another ship into that home port.  Carnival still feels strongly in having as many home ports as they can to offer 1st time cruisers the ability to cruise without flying to a cruise port.  Both Carnival and Royal have made strong commitments to their older ships.   I would not waste any sleep on the topic,  but they would love to sell a Fantasy class ship and the 2nd hand market is getting warmer.  

 

That said, Carnival has more ships in the Caribbean than any other line and one could say they have over saturated the market.

[jbethel11]

1 hour ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

I know Carnival has several of their older Fantasy class ships for sale. What I don’t know is what happens if/when a ship is sold, since Carnival has not removed a ship from their fleet since I started cruising. 

 

I assume it would depend on the terms of the sale agreement, but is it possible for cruises already booked to be cancelled? Depending on the ship that is sold, is it possible for a port to be without a Carnival ship for awhile?  Would it lead to a near term moving of at least a few ships around?  I am very curious to see/know what happens if/when a sale agreement is reached for one of Carnival’s older ships. 

I would think that Carnival wouldn't immediately release their ships and cancel existing bookings, but rather some sort of "buy-out contract" where Carnival will give the ship up after a certain date. To your second question, I was thinking this exact thought. Mobile and Jacksonville depend heavily on Fantasy Class ships. When Fantasy Class ships are sold, most likely to the Bahamas Paradise Line, those two ports will most likely be cut from the Carnival, and ports like Orlando, Charleston and New Orleans will probably supplement. 

[gatour]

Also, generally there are multiple year contracts with the ports, which specifies how many passenger landings will take place.  It is not tied to a specific ship, so they can bring in another ship.  Jacksonville just renewed its contract with Carnival, and I believe it is on it third Carnival ship.

[rafinmd]

I think the most relevant experience might be with subsidiary HAL.  Their Prinsendam was sold on 7/1/18 and the ship was immediately leased back to HAL for a full year, only leaving the fleet  a few days  ago.  Prinsendam's itineraries beyond the sale date were moved to other ships, causing some ripple effects with ships covering for ships that were moved to her itineraries.   Some cruises were cancelled (all with at least a year notice) but not necessarily Prinsendam's itineraries or even ships that moved to cover her itineraries.

 

Carnival seems to be putting money into maintaining the Fantasy class and I think there is very little interest among other cruise lines in their oddball design.  I can see more of a possibility of ships like the Pride or the other ship sailing out of Tampa being sold.  In that case I can imagine a Fantasy class being moved to Tampa or Baltimore from a current Fantasy home port without a size restriction and that home port getting a more modern ship.

 

Cruise lines seem to put out trial balloons for ships many years before the ship is sold.

 

Roy

[MisterOJ2]

1 hour ago, jbethel11 said:

I would think that Carnival wouldn't immediately release their ships and cancel existing bookings, but rather some sort of "buy-out contract" where Carnival will give the ship up after a certain date. To your second question, I was thinking this exact thought. Mobile and Jacksonville depend heavily on Fantasy Class ships. When Fantasy Class ships are sold, most likely to the Bahamas Paradise Line, those two ports will most likely be cut from the Carnival, and ports like Orlando, Charleston and New Orleans will probably supplement. 

 

I know that Jacksonville can only accommodate a Fantasy class ship, but is Mobile the same way? I cruised out of there last month, and I would think that port could work with a bigger ship.

[jimbo5544]

2 hours ago, jbethel11 said:

I would think that Carnival wouldn't immediately release their ships and cancel existing bookings, but rather some sort of "buy-out contract" where Carnival will give the ship up after a certain date. To your second question, I was thinking this exact thought. Mobile and Jacksonville depend heavily on Fantasy Class ships. When Fantasy Class ships are sold, most likely to the Bahamas Paradise Line, those two ports will most likely be cut from the Carnival, and ports like Orlando, Charleston and New Orleans will probably supplement. 

Selling the entire class would take many years....those ports that have restrictions would get the remainder until......

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

Owned now by Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line West palm beach Florida

Check out the video

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=grand+celebration+cruise+ship&view=detail&mid=C9434A6B41B33E5CDDB2C9434A6B41B33E5CDDB2&FORM=VIRE

Name:	1987–2008: Celebration 2008–2014: Grand Celebration November 2014: Costa Celebration 2014–present: Grand Celebration
Owner:	1987–2014: Carnival Corporation & plc 2014–present: Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line
Operator:	1987–2008: Carnival Cruise Lines 2008–2014: Ibero Cruises November 2014: Costa Cruises 2014–present: Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line
Port of registry:	1987–2000: Monrovia,  Liberia 2000–2008: Panama City,  Panama 2008–2014: Madeira, 2014 onwards: Nassau,
Builder:	Kockums Varv, Malmö, Sweden
Cost:	US$130 million
Yard number:	597
Launched:	9 August 1986
Acquired:	February 1987
Maiden voyage:	14 March 1987 (as Celebration) June 2008 (as Grand Celebration) (When with Ibero Cruises) 3 February 2015 (with Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line)
Identification:	Callsign CQMC IMO number: 8314134 MMSI number: 255803270
Status:	In Service
General characteristics
Class and type:	Holiday Class
Tonnage:	47,262 GT 6,405 DWT
Length:	223.37 m (733 ft)
Beam:	28.20 m (93 ft)
Draught:	7.75 m (25 ft 5 in)
Decks:	10 (passenger accessible)
Installed power:	2 × 7-cylinder Sulzer diesels combined 23510 kW
Propulsion:	2 propellers
Speed:	21.7 knots (40.2 km/h; 25.0 mph)
Capacity:	1,496 passengers
Crew:	670

[N7786W Flyer]

4 hours ago, MisterOJ2 said:

 

I know that Jacksonville can only accommodate a Fantasy class ship, but is Mobile the same way? I cruised out of there last month, and I would think that port could work with a bigger ship.

 

Not sure that this is true.

 

When I was on the Miracle last year, I noticed in the 'trophy case' an award from JaxPort commemorating Miracle's 'maiden voyage' from the port.  So, apparently, the Spirit class vessels can also come/go from Jacksonville.

 

Garnett

[jimbo5544]

2 hours ago, N7786W Flyer said:

 

Not sure that this is true.

 

When I was on the Miracle last year, I noticed in the 'trophy case' an award from JaxPort commemorating Miracle's 'maiden voyage' from the port.  So, apparently, the Spirit class vessels can also come/go from Jacksonville.

 

Garnett

Agree, but I think the list ends with those two classes.

[wo5m]

If one or more of the ships are sold there are two likely options.

 

1. One of the terms of the sale will probably be that it will sale will not "close" until the completion of scheduled cruises"

2. If the sale does "close" prior to the completion of scheduled cruises, the ship will be leased back to carnival for the completion of the scheduled cruises. It gets the ship off the books and has some tax advantages.  

 

As for canceling already book cruises...this will never happen unless there is something like maniacal failure or weather that prevents the ship from sailing. Remember the 1'st rule of acquisition: Once you have their money, you never give it back!!! 

[KmomChicago]

The entire Fantasy class - eight similar 70,000 ton ships, is for sale, for around $100 million each, if you believe what you read online.  This is a bargain compared to the 600M-1B price tag on the newer megaships.  

 

Miami is probably oversaturated and they probably have trouble keeping Sensation full with so many other options there. Likely folks pre-booked on it could be moved / upgraded to the larger ships there or to another ship sailing Port Canaveral, Tampa, or Jacksonville, with minimal impact and compensation to guests. 

 

LA has both the Inspiration and nearly identical Imagination doing the same short itineraries.  I would think this is excess capacity at certain times.  Likely they have good metrics showing where they are breaking even or losing $$ due to heavy discounting and excess capacity.

 

As noted, some ports are too small to accommodate anything larger than this class, so shuffling would also certainly be needed if the ship in, say, Jacksonville is sold. 

 

I would guess that they have some kind of contingency plan in place to deal with this. If we sell this ship, currently homeported here, we can move this one there, and this other one here to back fill it.  I believe they are on a year-to-year with Mobile, Alabama right now, for instance.  While this port is an option for booking on the Carnival website into 2021, it would not be very difficult to move bookings over to New Orleans as the itineraries are nearly identical and the ships are newer and larger.  It's too early to get flights for those dates so people might not be terribly inconvenienced by the move two hours west, and a little OBC can do wonders.

[Earthworm Jim]

15 hours ago, wo5m said:

As for canceling already book cruises...this will never happen unless there is something like maniacal failure or weather that prevents the ship from sailing. Remember the 1'st rule of acquisition: Once you have their money, you never give it back!!! 

 

I'm not so sure about that. I had a cruise booked far in advance of sailing some years ago (2007?) and the ship was chartered so I lost my booking. and we had the option to get our money back. (Well, that was pre-Early Saver days and we were no where near final payment date, so of course we could have gotten our money back I guess. But they offered our money back as an option.)

 

They also offered to switch us to another cruise of our choice, which we did, no complaints. The new cruise was slightly more expensive but they honored the original rate. I'm not sure how far I could have pushed that if the new cruise was substantially more. I didn't try.

[wo5m]

2 hours ago, Earthworm Jim said:

 

I'm not so sure about that. I had a cruise booked far in advance of sailing some years ago (2007?) and the ship was chartered so I lost my booking. and we had the option to get our money back. (Well, that was pre-Early Saver days and we were no where near final payment date, so of course we could have gotten our money back I guess. But they offered our money back as an option.)

 

They also offered to switch us to another cruise of our choice, which we did, no complaints. The new cruise was slightly more expensive but they honored the original rate. I'm not sure how far I could have pushed that if the new cruise was substantially more. I didn't try.

I guess that would be an exception, but I guess the point is carnival is probably making more from the charter than a normal cruise. That brings me to the 16'th rule of Acquisition:  A deal is a deal ... until a better one comes along.

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

Do not know what Carnival would do about a Carnival ship itself. . But I do know what Carnival owned Costa did. Bahamas Paradise Cruise Lines purchased the Costa Classica while it was getting refurbished. The ship was booked for future cruises. Costa gave refunds to everyone and sold the ship.

[jimbo5544]

11 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

Do not know what Carnival would do about a Carnival ship itself. . But I do know what Carnival owned Costa did. Bahamas Paradise Cruise Lines purchased the Costa Classica while it was getting refurbished. The ship was booked for future cruises. Costa gave refunds to everyone and sold the ship.

.....which happene to be a Carnival ship first, the Celebration which was our first cruise back in 96....at 35+ tons we thought she was huge

[xDisconnections]

1 minute ago, jimbo5544 said:

.....which happene to be a Carnival ship first, the Celebration which was our first cruise back in 96....at 35+ tons we thought she was huge

The Holiday also with Ibero as Grand Holiday and the Magellan with Cruise & Maritime Voyages 

[jimbo5544]

Just now, xDisconnections said:

The Holiday also with Ibero as Grand Holiday and the Magellan with Cruise & Maritime Voyages 

Is she still sailing?  I saw a review on here from someone sailed her (one of the really good things on CC) and I was blown away by how nice she was in the inside.

[xDisconnections]

Just now, jimbo5544 said:

Is she still sailing?  I saw a review on here from someone sailed her (one of the really good things on CC) and I was blown away by how nice she was in the inside.

I think so. if she is, I'm sure the ship is in better condition than some of Carnival's current rust buckets.

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

17 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

Do not know what Carnival would do about a Carnival ship itself. . But I do know what Carnival owned Costa did. Bahamas Paradise Cruise Lines purchased the Costa Classica while it was getting refurbished. The ship was booked for future cruises. Costa gave refunds to everyone and sold the ship.

Name:	1991–2014: Costa Classica 2014–2018: Costa neoClassica 2018: Grand Classica
Owner:	1991–2018: Carnival Corporation & plc 2018: Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line
Operator:	1991–2018: Costa Crociere 2018: Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line
Port of registry:	1991–1994: Naples,  Italy 1994–2000: Monrovia,  Liberia 2000–2018: Genoa,  Italy 2018: Madeira,  Portugal
Builder:	Fincantieri
Launched:	2 February 1991
Completed:	December 1991
Acquired:	7 December 1991
Maiden voyage:	17 December 1991
Renamed:	2014, 2018
Identification:	Call sign: ICIC IMO number: 8716502 MMSI number: 247819000
Status:	In service
General characteristics
Tonnage:	52,926 GT
Length:	722 ft (220 m)
Beam:	102 ft (31 m)
Draft:	25.5 ft (7.8 m)
Decks:	14
Speed:	18.5 knots (normal) 20 knots (maximum)
Capacity:	1,308 passengers (normal) 1,680 passengers (maximum)
Crew:	620

[jimbo5544]

4 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

Name:	1991–2014: Costa Classica 2014–2018: Costa neoClassica 2018: Grand Classica
Owner:	1991–2018: Carnival Corporation & plc 2018: Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line
Operator:	1991–2018: Costa Crociere 2018: Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line
Port of registry:	1991–1994: Naples,  Italy 1994–2000: Monrovia,  Liberia 2000–2018: Genoa,  Italy 2018: Madeira,  Portugal
Builder:	Fincantieri
Launched:	2 February 1991
Completed:	December 1991
Acquired:	7 December 1991
Maiden voyage:	17 December 1991
Renamed:	2014, 2018
Identification:	Call sign: ICIC IMO number: 8716502 MMSI number: 247819000
Status:	In service
General characteristics
Tonnage:	52,926 GT
Length:	722 ft (220 m)
Beam:	102 ft (31 m)
Draft:	25.5 ft (7.8 m)
Decks:	14
Speed:	18.5 knots (normal) 20 knots (maximum)
Capacity:	1,308 passengers (normal) 1,680 passengers (maximum)
Crew:	620

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the Grand Celebrqtion which also spent time under Costaa Flag

Edited July 10, 2019 by jimbo5544

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

10 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

.....which happene to be a Carnival ship first, the Celebration which was our first cruise back in 96....at 35+ tons we thought she was huge

 

3 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the Grand Celebrqtion which also spent time under Costaa Flag

Not a problem. I posted the Celebration in post #8 

[jimbo5544]

7 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

I think so. if she is, I'm sure the ship is in better condition than some of Carnival's current rust buckets.

Not so sure about that....was just looking for the review....thought it was by Darthforsty...but not sure

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

9 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

I think so. if she is, I'm sure the ship is in better condition than some of Carnival's current rust buckets.

Funny you should single out Carnival as having rust buckets. Must not care for Carnival. That's fine. However, ALL ships are rust buckets covered in many layers of paint. Scrape and repaint, scrape and repaint. The problems with steel and salt water. Only the new ones a year or so old might not have rust. Even those will show signs. No matter how old a ship is. As long at is is structurally sound and the mechanics are also. No reason to deep six it. Both the Grand Classica 32 years old and the Grand Celebration 28 years old look great. Inside and out.

[xDisconnections]

8 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

Funny you should single out Carnival as having rust buckets. Must not care for Carnival. That's fine. However, ALL ships are rust buckets covered in many layers of paint. Scrape and repaint, scrape and repaint. The problems with steel and salt water. Only the new ones a year or so old might not have rust. Even those will show signs. No matter how old a ship is. As long at is is structurally sound and the mechanics are also. No reason to deep six it. Both the Grand Classica 32 years old and the Grand Celebration 28 years old look great. Inside and out.

At least other cruise lines try to cover up the rust. The Carnival ship I was docked next to in Nassau very recently looked pathetic. It's only a matter of time before Carnival gets rid of these clunkers and puts them up for sale.

Edited July 10, 2019 by xDisconnections