Carnival Corporation & plc, the world's largest cruise shipping group, said that the two 180,000 gross ton LNG powered ships it had ordered from Meyer Werft in Papenburg will enter service with AIDA Cruises in Germany, while two similar vessels from Meyer Turku would be allocated to a brand later.
The company said two of the ships will be built for AIDA Cruises at Meyer Werft's shipyard in Papenburg. "Additional information about the ships, including which new ships will be added to each brand, will be made available at a later date," Carnival said in a statement this morning.
However, on 27 March Carnival signed two strategic memorandums of agreement, with Meyer and Fincantieri respectively, that will add a total of nine new cruise ships to the company's fleet over a four-year period from 2019 - 2022. Details of the vessels and to which brands they would be allocated will be disclosed later, but the company said they would serve the North American, European and Chinese markets, Carnival said at the time.
We think it is quite possible that the two ships from Turku will enter service in China, probably under the brand name of a new company that will focus on the Chinese markets.
The newbuildings Carnival group ordered today have a capacity of 5,000 in lower beds and a maximum of 6,600 and their public areas will be designed with flexibility and multi functionality in mind: a high density design probably best suited for fairly short cruises, which dominate the Chinese market.
Carnival group has shared platform designs between various brands for almost two decades and the concept appears to have proven quite successful.
