Carnival is building a new ship, and it is doing something none of its big ships have done before. It is skipping the roller coaster.
Carnival Festivale is the fourth ship in the Excel class. That is the same family as Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration, and Carnival Jubilee. Those three all have a top deck roller coaster called BOLT.
Festivale does not. In its place goes a three deck outdoor zone called Sunsation Point, built around the largest water park Carnival has ever put on a ship. It is called Carnival WaterWorks Ultra and it has six slides. Some of them are family raft slides and some are sized for very small kids.
This tells you exactly who the ship is for. It is a family boat, top to bottom. There is even a dedicated space for the Turtles program, which is for children as young as six months old. That is a real thing that matters if you travel with a baby and most lines do not plan for that.
The ship is big. Around 5,300 guests at the lower berth count, more than 182,000 gross tons, and roughly 70 percent more connecting rooms than the earlier Excel ships. Connecting rooms sell out first for a reason. If you have ever tried to put a family of five in one cabin, you already know why that number is the headline.
It runs on liquefied natural gas, so it is one of the cleaner ships in the fleet. The theme this time is music, with a light and sound zone called Studio 724 running across a full deck.
Here is the honest part. Festivale does not sail until 2027. The maiden voyage is a transatlantic crossing from Southampton in early May of that year, then it settles into Port Canaveral for Caribbean runs to spots like Celebration Key and Half Moon Cay. That is a long wait, and a transatlantic is a lot of sea days if you booked it expecting beaches.
The other honest part is that this is a giant ship with giant ship energy. If you want quiet, this is not your boat. If you want your kids exhausted and happy by dinner, it very much is.
Booking a new ship two years out is its own small skill. Prices move, cabin categories open and close, and the good family rooms go early. If you want help sorting out whether Festivale is worth the wait for your crew, that is literally what we do.
Fair winds and following seas,
Captain Steve
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