Carnival just named a ship that does not exist yet, and it is going to be enormous. Here is what actually made news this past week.
Carnival held a steel-cutting ceremony on Friday at the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy. It marks the start of construction on the first ship in a brand new class Carnival is calling Ace Class. The ship will be named Carnival Destiny, and it is set to debut in the summer of 2029.
The name is not new. It honors the original Carnival Destiny from 1996, which was the largest cruise ship in the world at the time and the first to cross 100,000 tons. The new one is a different animal. Two sister ships are planned for 2031 and 2033, and these vessels are expected to be the biggest Carnival has ever built.
What this means for you is patience. A 2029 debut is three years out, and a lot changes between a hologram at a steel-cutting and a ship you can actually book. If you cruise Carnival, this is the direction the line is heading. If you were hoping to sail Destiny next winter, you were not paying attention.
The other big story is a setback. An Italian court halted Royal Caribbean’s plan to build a new cruise port near Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport. The port would have cut travel time to the city and was projected to serve close to a million guests a year. For now the plans are on pause.
Rome is one of the busiest embarkation regions in the Mediterranean, and most cruisers still get there through Civitavecchia. That is a long transfer from the airport. A closer port would have made a real difference for anyone flying in and boarding the same day. This ruling does not kill the idea, but it does slow it down, and legal fights over ports in Italy tend to move at their own pace.
The takeaway from both stories is the same. Big cruise plans get announced years before they matter, and not all of them survive contact with reality. Booking based on a press release is a good way to get disappointed.
If you want help sorting out what is real and what is still a rendering, that is literally what we do.
Fair winds and following seas,
Captain Steve
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