Carnival orders its first new cruise ship in five years

Carnival's new Excel-class cruise ship will be a sister to Mardi Gras, the first LNG fueled cruise ship to be based in the Americas

In another sign of the cruise industry’s return to good health, the world’s largest cruise ship operator, Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) today reported that it has has signed an agreement with leading German shipbuilder Meyer Werft to build a fourth Excel-class cruise ship for its namesake Carnival Cruise Line brand. The ship, the tenth Excel-class ship in the corporation’s fleet across four of its brands, is expected to enter service in Spring 2027.

Joining current Carnival Cruise Line Excel-class ships Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration and Carnival Jubilee, the new 180,000-ton ship will carry over 6,400 guests and will be LNG-fueled.

This new ship is the first newbuild order placed by Carnival Corporation in five years and Carnival Corporation CEO Josh Weinstein indicated that more are to follow.

“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.

“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.”

WELCOME NEWS FOR MEYER WERFT

“”We are very pleased that the partnership between the Meyer Group and Carnival Corporation will continue with this new order,” said Meyer Group CEO Bernd Eikens. “Since 2018, Meyer Werft and Meyer Turku have built nine cruise ships with LNG propulsion on a joint technical platform for four cruise lines in the Carnival Corporation portfolio. The new ship will also be built on this platform and, with a length of around 344 meters and a size of approx. 180,000 gt will offer space for more than 6,400 guests.”

“This order is a clear sign that the cruise market has recovered and that there is great demand for sea voyages,” said the Meyer Group’s chief sales officer, Thomas Weigend, Chief Sales .

Meyer Werft says that the new order enables the shipyard to focus on the longer term and makes a decisive contribution to securing jobs locally and at partner companies. The yard’s order book now includes five cruise ships, one research vessel and the steel construction for four offshore converter platforms.