Carnival Is Blanketing the U.S. With Its Newest, Biggest Ships
Photo Credit: Carnival Vista is pictured. The ship, one of Carnival Cruise Line's newest, is moving to sail from Galveston, Texas at the end of September. Carnival Cruise Lines via Reuters
Skift Take
As cruise lines roll out new ships, they're showing them off to more markets. Carnival's approach — spreading its newest capacity around to several different ports — gives it the opportunity to reach a wide swath of the U.S.
Carnival Cruise Line is about to embark on a familiar jig it calls "the cruise ship shuffle."
When the dance is over by the end of September, the 26-ship line will have its newest, biggest ships sailing from Miami, and Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Galveston, Texas — three of the country's top four busiest ports.
And the stage will be set for even bigger moves coming in the next two years: The first new Carnival ship to debut in Southern California in 20 years arrives next year in Long Beach. And the line's biggest vessel yet — called the "XL class" for now — launches from Central Florida's Port Canaveral in 2020.
"Moving their newest ships around has been a consistent strategy for decades," said cruise industry observer Stewart Chiron, CEO of CruiseGuy.com, in an email. "Carnival wants to show off their best hardware coast-to-coast."
After a four-year lull with no new ships between 2012 and 2016, Carnival is about to have plenty of new hardware to spread around. And
