Carnival Cruise Line has announced that they have placed an order for a fourth Excel class cruise ship that will debut in the spring of 2027.
This new Excel class ship will be 180,000 gross tons in size, carry 6,400 passengers, and be a sister ship to Mardi Gras (2021), Carnival Celebration (2022), and Carnival Jubilee (2023). Carnival did not say what the name of this fourth Excel class would be but that it would be built at the Meyer Werft shipyard.
“Our Excel-class ships have been a tremendous addition to the Carnival fleet and proven very popular with our guests,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. “As the world’s most popular cruise line, this new ship enables us to continue the growth of our incredible fleet as we welcome our loyal guests back to cruise more frequently and attract new-to-cruise guests to experience all that a Carnival cruise has to offer.”
This ship will be the 10th Excel class ship ordered by Carnival Corporation. Other Carnival cruise lines that operate this class of ship are Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, and P&O Cruises.
The name, homeport, and itineraries for this new ship will be announced at a later date.
“Building on our strong performance and growing momentum around the world, we are excited to resume our newbuild program and further enhance our global fleet with yet another state-of-the-art ship that will wow Carnival Cruise Line’s guests,” said Josh Weinstein, CEO of Carnival Corporation. “With one newbuild scheduled for delivery in 2025, none for 2026, and this order being our only expected newbuild in 2027, our responsible capital approach will support utilizing our substantial free cash flow over the next several years to strategically improve our balance sheet, significantly reduce our leverage levels and continue to transfer value from debt holders to shareholders.
“We are following through on our measured capacity growth strategy with the addition of one to two ships per year beginning in 2027, which will be allocated to our cruise lines that most need the capacity to satisfy outsized demand, delivering an attractive payback period. We also remain focused on driving revenue growth throughout our portfolio of world-class cruise lines by continuing to improve execution across all aspects of our operation, yielding higher return on invested capital,” said Weinstein.
“We are very pleased that the partnership between the MEYER Group and Carnival Corporation will continue with this new order,” said Bernd Eikens, CEO MEYER Group.
Carnival Cruise Line has 27 cruise ships in their fleet. This new LNG powered Excel class ship will give them a fleet of 28 ships by 2027 and is currently the only vessel that Carnival has on order.
Carnival Corporation is the world’s largest cruise company operating nine cruise lines that sail all around the world.
