Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) is to splash almost $200m in a makeover of its Carnival Triumph.
The 101,500 gt ship will re-emerge from the two-month refurbishment project as the renamed Carnival Sunrise.
Drydocking of the vessel in Cadiz, southern Spain, in the spring of 2019 will include an update of all the staterooms and provision of Carnival’s branded food, beverage and entertainment “innovations.”
Christine Duffy, president of CCL, says the transformation is part of the company’s multi-billion dollar enhancement programme that is “transforming our fleet on an unprecedented scale.”
In 2013, Carnival Corp spent $155m transforming its 103,900 gt Carnival Destiny (built 1996) into Carnival Sunshine.
That project took 75 days at Fincantieri, the vessel surfacing also with vastly improved food, beverage and entertainment areas and a three-deck adults-only area.
Although the major cruise lines all have a huge number of new cruiseships on order, various vessels date back to the 1990s and need updating. Carnival Destiny was the first cruiseship above 100,000 gt.
Carnival Sunrise’s inaugural schedule, departing 29 April 2019, will be from Norfolk, Virginia and starts with a seven-day cruise visiting Grand Turk, the private island of Half Moon Cay and Freeport.
It will reposition to New York for a series of four-to-14-day voyages beginning 23 May 2019 and to Fort Lauderdale for cruises beginning 28 October 2019.
CCL has 26 ships with another three newbuildings scheduled for delivery.
They are the 133,500 gt Carnival Panorama, under construction at Fincantieri and set to debut in 2019, as well as two so far unnamed 180,000 gt ships in 2020 and 2022 at Meyer Turku.
Combined cost of those three newbuildings is over $3bn.
