“There is a lot going on at Carnival,” Josh Weinstein, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation told a packed lounge of press, travel agency partners, and destination VIPs onboard Celebrity Celebration in Miami on Sunday.
To say a lot is going on would be an understatement, as Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line then spent the next hour making announcement after announcement, including the names of Excel 4 and Excel 5, the rebranding of Carnival’s exclusive Mahogany Bay cruise port, and some information about the line’s next new class. Duffy also revealed some of the differentiators between Excel 4 and 5 and the first three Excel-class ships.
All the announcements, Duffy said, have one thing in common. They’re about leaning into Carnival’s legacy of sailing the most fun fleet at sea.
“Our chairman Micky Arison still emphasizes, we are the fun ships and we are committed to continuing to lean into that legacy and heritage,” she said.
Innovations within the fleet are critical to maintaining this heritage, Duffy emphasized. Between 2019 and the end of 2025, Carnival will have retired six old ships and transferred five into the fleet from sister brands, resulting in a 34% increase in capacity for the line.
But Carnival isn’t done, with the fourth ship in the Excel-class – Carnival Festivale – to be delivered in 2027 and the fifth – Carnival Tropicale – in 2028.
Both share the name of a classic Carnival Cruise Line ship. The original Festivale was introduced in 1978 (then the largest passenger ship based in Florida), while the original Tropicale started operating in 1981.
Carnival Festivale will be homeported from Port Canaveral and visit both Celebration Key and RelaxAway Half Moon Cay, among other destinations.
The new Festivale will feature a music theme, with design elements in spaces around the ship that invoke the process of making music, like drum cymbals in the Grand View Bar and a showcase staircase designed to look like a soprano saxophone.
A significant change on both Carnival Festivale and Carnival Tropicale will be the introduction of an expanded Alchemy Bar.
“Alchemy Bar is the most popular bar on a Carnival cruise ship,” Duffy said, joking that some passengers go straight to the bar upon embarking and never even make it to their stateroom.
The bar will be moved to a “more prominent location” on deck six and given enough space to be able of offer live music in the evenings.
Like the rest of the Excel-class ships, both Carnival Festivale and Tropicale will feature some of the line’s new signature eateries including Shaq’s Big Chicken, Emeril’s Bistro 1397, Guy’s Pig & Anchor, Rudi’s Seagrill, and ChiBang.
These will be joined by new dining concepts that are still undergoing development.
“I’m very excited about the five new ships on order,” said Carnival’s chief culinary officer Chef Emeril Lagasse in a videotaped message. “The plans for making new dining concepts are key a part of the guest experience. I’m already hard at work cooking up my suggestions to incorporate new venues, new cuisines, and new trends in dining.”
Another significant change for both ships will be the elimination of the line’s Family Harbor, a keycard-entry only area with a family lounge and staterooms designed specifically for families.
“We are moving away from the dedicated Family Harbor concept and instead we are adding significantly more interconnecting rooms,” Duffy explained.
Both ships will feature 1,000 interconnecting rooms – a 70% increase from the current Excel-class ships.
The Family Harbor lounge will be eliminated (replaced by some of these new interconnecting rooms).
The ships will also feature a new dedicated space for kids 2 years of age or younger (called Turtles by Carnival) in response to requests from travel advisors telling Carnival this was something their clients are looking for.
Photo: Carnival Cruise Line
Replacing the top-deck’s BOLT roller coaster, Carnival Festivale and Carnival Tropicale will feature a massive outdoor family space (decks 16, 17, 18) called Sunsation Point, the highlight of which will be a six-slide Ultra Water at Sea.
Among the six slides will be four that are new to Carnival including two family raft slides and at least one ride open to children as short as three feet tall.
Other Sunsation Point features will be the addition of splash pads for the younger kids, reimagined miniature golf, a Tree House Elevated Adventure Trail, ropes course, themed arcade spaces, and more.
On select nights, Sunsation Point will open after dark with special lighting effects, DJ’d music, and more.
“The reality is given that Mardi Gras will still be here in Port Canaveral, as well as this ship, so many people have sailed on these ships, we wanted to give something different and unique experiences that people can have even though it is the same class of ship,” Duffy said.
To keep up with the success that Royal Caribbean is having with putting some of its newest ships into the short cruise market, Carnival Cruise Line will transition Mardi Gras to short cruises in 2027 when Carnival Festivale joins the fleet.
“Fifty percent of our cruise itineraries operate short. We thought what better time to be able to move an Excel-class ship over to a short cruise itinerary,” Duffy said.
Sailing from Port Canaveral, Mardi Gras will offer itineraries that visit both Celebration Key and RelaxAway Half Moon Cay.
“We think this is going to be a big unlock for people who either don’t have time to take seven days or just love cruising so much on our Excel ships that they’ll do both long and short.”
In addition to the two new Excel-class ships on order, Carnival Cruise Line also has three newbuilds on the books. All three will be in new class of ship, at this point in time called Project Ace.
These three ships will be significantly larger in size than the Excel-class ships (about 6,400 passengers), capable of holding some 8,000 passengers.
Duffy had very little to say about the new class of ship other than that it will sail out of U.S. homeports and itineraries won’t be open for another two years.
“This ship will be filled with new innovations and new experiences across every category from food, beverage, entertainment, programming…”
Duffy and Weinstein made a few other announcements, though with fewer details.
For one, Weinstein was clear that while Carnival Corp. is focused on slow, intentional growth – one ship for Princess next year and five ships for Carnival Cruise Line over the next seven years – other Carnival brands will not be left out completely.
“That focus on Carnival Cruise Line is not an accident,” Weinstein said. “We’re simply starting with the most successful brand in our portfolio… I am happy to say though that Carnival won’t be alone for too long. I’ve been telegraphing that more is in the works for others of our cruise lines that have already shown the need for more capacity based on their demand profile.”
Further details of these new ships will be shared “in due course,” Weinstein said.
Duffy also spoke about future deployments, mentioning that Carnival will go back to year-round cruising from Mobile in spring 2027. She also said the line is planning to “upsize capacity” in Baltimore with a Conquest ship in 2027.
In a bid to bring more attention to its lineup of Carnival Corp.-exclusive destinations, the company is rounding them all up into the Paradise Collection by Carnival. This includes Celebration Key, RelaxAway Half Moon Cay, Puerto Maya, Grand Turk, Amber Cove, and Princess Cays.
It also includes Mahogany Bay, which will be expanded and enhanced in 2026 with the addition of a pool with swim up bar and cabanas. Future enhancements will include an expanded beach and a beach club. With these enhancements, the island will be renamed Isla Tropicale Roatan.
