BIG NEWS from Carnival Cruise Lines today. They are upping the anti and bringing two world class ships stateside. Two beautiful Vista class ships from their sister line, Costa Cruises, will be joining us stateside in May of 2023 and May of 2024. Here is the official release from Carnival…
“Carnival Cruise Line will be taking two beautiful Vista class ships from our Italian sister line Costa Cruises. Costa Venezia will enter service from New York in May 2023 and Costa Firenze will begin sailing out of Long Beach in May 2024. The ships will be operated by Carnival and will feature the outstanding Carnival hospitality and fun that the Carnival onboard team is known for. But the ships will stay in the Costa livery and retain many of the Italian design features of the Costa brand, as we introduce a new concept for Carnival’s North American guests whenCOSTA® by CARNIVAL® debuts.
By marrying the great service, food and entertainment that Carnival’s guests enjoy with Costa’s Italian design, we’re going to invite our guests to Choose Fun with Carnival, Italian Style! We will be making some modest changes to the onboard venues to bring some of the signature Carnival fun to the ships, and while these two ships are similar in size and layout to our three existing Vista class ships (Vista, Horizon and Panorama), there will be some differences, so we’ll be referring to the two Costa ships as Venice class so that you and our guests can distinguish the differences.
Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be busy finalizing deck plan updates, finalizing itineraries and opening the ships for sale. We know you and your clients will have many questions, and we’ll be working to address them in the ramp up to their opening for sale. For the time being, please know that:
- Travel advisors will soon have more great cruise vacation options to sell to their clients and our standard incentive programs, ticketing policies and support of the travel trade are all extended to two more Carnival ships. We realize this hybrid brand is new in the cruise industry, so we’ll work to make it simple and clear to travel advisors and guests alike.
- These will be Carnival ships, bookable on Carnival’s platforms, and carrying Carnival’s standard terms and conditions and commission structure.
- These two ships will be operated by Carnival, and guests will accrue in the Carnival VIFP program only.
For now, we simply want you to be aware of our plans and enthusiasm about the growth that is ahead of us. We know we’ve got some work to do and just like our new Excel ships, we will reveal the specific and unique features over time. With Venezia coming in May 2023, we will be back to you soon with more details. We wanted to make this public now so we can get our teams working to ready these ships for sales and operation. It’s our job to get back to our guests, employees and business partners with as much information as possible, and as soon as we can. Ultimately, we intend to give our guests more vacation options, our employees more career opportunities, and our business partners more opportunities to share in our success.
As always, we thank you for your support and enthusiasm for Carnival Cruise Line! “
As always now is a great time to contact your favorite Enchanted Adventures agent to plan your next getaway. While sailings for these two ships are not available yet, there are still lots of great ships and destinations to sail on.
