Three real things happened in cruising this week. None of them require you to do anything today. All of them are worth knowing.
First, the Carnival Festivale floated for the first time at the Meyer Werft shipyard. The building dock was flooded and the ship touched water in late September, with the yard confirming it in early October. That is the Excel-class ship Carnival has been building, and floating out is the point where a hull stops being a construction project and starts being a ship. It still has a long way to go before anyone sails on it. The interiors, the sea trials, and the sorting out of every little thing all come after the float. If you have a Festivale sailing on the books, this is good news in a quiet way. The ship is on track, and that is the most exciting sentence anyone can write about a float out.
Second, Royal Caribbean announced Japan sailings for spring 2028 on Voyager of the Seas. Japan has been getting steadily easier to reach by cruise ship, and more mainstream lines keep adding dates. Spring 2028 sounds absurdly far away. It is not, for this. Japan cruises book early because the good cabins and the cherry blossom timing go fast. If Japan is on your list, the lesson is not to book right this second. The lesson is to start paying attention now so you are ready when the itinerary that fits you shows up.
Third, Carnival Corporation signaled that its 2027 spending will climb, partly because of five major drydocks planned for that year. A drydock is when a ship goes out of service for weeks to get repaired and refreshed. Five big ones in a single year is a lot of ships off the water at once. For travelers, this is the story that can actually touch your trip. A ship in drydock is a ship not sailing, which means canceled dates and shuffled itineraries somewhere down the line. None of those dates are set in a way that affects a 2026 booking. But if you are eyeing a 2027 Carnival sailing, ask before you book whether that ship has a yard visit lurking.
Here is the thread tying all three together. A float out, a new deployment, and a drydock plan are the three ways a cruise line tells you what it is doing with its ships. Build one, send one somewhere new, and fix the rest. Most of it will not change your current booking at all. The one that might is the drydock, and that is the one nobody puts in a splashy headline.
If you want someone to check whether a 2027 sailing has a yard visit hiding in the schedule, that is literally what we do.
Fair winds and following seas,
Captain Steve
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