The best Carnival Cruise Line itineraries: 5 great places its ships go

Table Of Content

• Carnival Paradise & Carnival Sunrise make CCL-Carnival Cruise Line’s first calls to Grand Cayman
• Carnival shipboard Wi-Fi plans
• Stranded gulf sailors rescued by CCL's Carnival Jubilee ship
• FAQs for Carnival Cruises Destinations
• Entertainment and activities
• Carnival Triumph-Sunrise ship conversion 2019 refurbishment review
• CCL-Carnival Cruise Line lights up Times Square and high seas for spectacular 2024 New Year's...

PayPal can be used as a payment option for any of Carnival cruise itineraries with durations 3- to 15-days, visiting ports both USA and international ports and destinations. HUB app is a free download mobile app allowing onboard chatting between Carnival passengers. A fee of USD 5 per device per cruise is required to activate the chat feature.

Carnival Paradise & Carnival Sunrise make CCL-Carnival Cruise Line’s first calls to Grand Cayman

Carnival's biggest operations are out of PortMiami and Port Canaveral in Florida; Galveston, Texas; Long Beach, California; and New Orleans — all major cruise hubs. You'll also find Carnival ships in such secondary cruise ship ports as Baltimore; Charleston, South Carolina; Mobile, Alabama; and Jacksonville, Florida. The arrival of Mardi Gras and Carnival Celebration over the past two years has marked a major turning point for the line. At around 180,000 tons, they rank at No. 15 and No. 13, respectively, among the world's largest cruise ships — the only Carnival ships to crack the Top 20. One more ship in the series — Carnival Jubilee — will arrive in December 2023. This is a notable change for the brand from just a couple of decades ago.

Carnival shipboard Wi-Fi plans

The fun continues when you reach your port — there’s a huge variety of shore excursions to choose from. The new tour deals pertain to over 50 call ports in Mexico, Hawaii, Bahamas, Caribbean, Canada New England, South America. Ecstasy also had a 10-day "Carnival Journeys" voyage (September 12, 2022) visiting Key West, Grand Turk, Amber Cove, Grand Cayman, Cozumel. Between May 2019 and Oct 2022, Ecstasy was homeported in JAXPORT (Jacksonville Florida) to operate year-round on 4-5-day short breaks to The Bahamas. The program started with a 15-day Transatlantic crossing (RepositionCruises.com) from Barcelona to NYC (May 29-June 13, 2023).

Stranded gulf sailors rescued by CCL's Carnival Jubilee ship

Sunrise ship's godmother is Kelly Arison - daughter of Micky Arison. The vessel's christening ceremony was on May 23, 2019, held at Manhattan Cruise Passenger Terminal in Port NYC New York. The naming ceremony featured a 4-ft (1,2-m) high champagne bottle sculpture (filled with confetti) which was custom-made by Romero Britto (1963-born Brazilian artist). Follows the complete list of Carnival Sunrise lounges, clubs and other entertainment venues for kids, teens, and adults.

FAQs for Carnival Cruises Destinations

All new cruisetour offers complement CCL's "Shore Excursion Best Price Guarantee" providing a 110% refund in OBC/onboard credit if passengers find a better price on similar land tour deals. Each Fun Ship also has a dedicated "shore excursion desk" with experienced staff to answer any questions and to recommend particular tours. The company's tour section was revamped with enhanced navigation, more videos, and photos, online reservations, guest-written tour reviews. The new program "Carnival Journeys" features destinations like Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico, Panama Canal, Europe. Since 2015, Carnival Cruise Line offers the so-called "Carnival Journeys" itineraries. These are longer than usual voyages with length ranging between 9 and 15 nights.

Entertainment and activities

The two ships — most recently the 2,260-passenger Carnival Luminosa and 3,012-passenger Carnival Splendor — typically operate a mix of three- to 10-night sailings along the Australian coast and to New Zealand. Most of the sailings are six nights in length and include two days in Bermuda. The line also typically offers a few shorter four- and five-night Bermuda sailings and, occasionally, a longer seven-night Bermuda sailing. The giants of cruising to Alaska are Princess Cruises and Holland America, which are sister lines to Carnival that control a large percentage of the market.

During the day, Celebration Central Atrium serves as a relaxing space for enjoying beverages, light food, live music or participating in trivia contests and leisurely pursuits. The Atrium's Lobby level (deck 6) has a large Center Stage (portside) for live performances and is served by the Tropicale Bar. The Atrium's mid-level (deck 7) is integrated into the Casino Louge served by the Aquaria Bar (featuring glass murals by Luciano Vistosi, from the ship Carnival Victory). From the Atrium's upper level (deck 8) are accessed the restaurants Bonsai Sushi and Bonsai Teppanyaki. Festivale Restaurant (MDR/main dining room) is aft-positioned on both decks (6-7). Like most large-sized newbuilds, the new Carnival Jubilee is LNG-powered, with 4x Caterpillar Marine LNG engines (model MaK 16M-46DF) generating combined output 57,2 MW.

Created in partnership with Food Network's Guy Fieri, Guy's Burger Joint offers burgers that beat anything you'll find around the pool on other mass-market ships and even most luxury vessels. In recent years, Carnival also has deployed two of its vessels to Australia to operate voyages from Sydney and Brisbane. In a departure from Carnival's American-focused business model, the Australia sailings are aimed mostly at the local Australian market, though they are open to American travelers.

That said, given the complexity of booking a cruise — there are a lot of decisions to make during the booking process; trust us — we recommend you use a seasoned travel agent who specializes in cruises. One or two nights a cruise, there will be a more formal "cruise elegant" night where men are expected to turn out in dress slacks and a dress shirt, preferably with a sports coat, or even in a suit. The suggested attire for women on such nights is cocktail dresses, pantsuits, elegant skirts and blouses. During the day, there is no specific dress code, and people dress casually. If it's a sea day in a warm-weather destination, and you're bound for the top deck, that means looking like you're going to the beach — T-shirts, shorts and bathing suits (with a cover-up to go inside) are just fine.

The option is available via "Manage My Booking" (Carnival.com) where customers can select a package for the duration of the cruise. On Carnival ships departing from Australian ports tipping is not compulsory. In February, CCL added X-ray security 3D scanning at 9 of its North American homeports.

In 2001, the new Panamax size Spirit class debuted with the Carnival Spirit, the first of the four-ship class within the Carnival fleet. In 1993, Carnival began to get rid of their older second-hand tonnage, and sold their first ship, Mardi Gras, after 21 years of service with the line. The Carnivale followed the same year, going to newly created Carnival subsidiary Fiesta Marina Cruises.

Upcoming Carnival Cruises: 2024 Prices, Itineraries + Activities on Cruise Critic - Cruise Critic

Upcoming Carnival Cruises: 2024 Prices, Itineraries + Activities on Cruise Critic.

Posted: Mon, 23 Oct 2023 14:30:46 GMT [source]

In December 2020, CCL-Carnival officially announced the inaugural season's schedule of the new Celebration liner. Next tables show the Maiden Voyage (ship's first cruise) and the inaugural Caribbean itineraries with lowest prices in USD per person (with double occupancy). Grand Central features 3000-ft2 (280-m2) glass panels (built into the vessel's superstructure) to provide passengers with unobstructed views as they relax in comfortable seating. The Gateway (midship on deck 6) houses the Latitudes Bar fitted with travel-themed chairs and menus and featuring a mechanical split-flap display board (listing the daily menu - cocktails, wines, spirits, special tastings/samplers). At Latitudes Bar are also held the Celebration Happy Hour event (with live entertainment) as well as private parties and special occasions (birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc). In mid-January 2018, CCL announced 4 new craft beers that will be brewed onboard Carnival Horizon (and on the new XL-class ships/Mardi Gras, Celebration, Jubilee).

The same year the veteran ship Festivale, the last of the original second-hand fleet, was retired. In other words, if you are sailing seven-night cruises, you will be Gold level on your fourth sailing, as you will be passing the 25-day mark on that sailing. In addition, vessels offer extra-charge laundry and, on select ships, dry cleaning services. On most ships, smoking (including electronic cigarettes) is only allowed in designated outdoor areas and in casinos and nightclubs.

For the most part, Carnival ships don't have quite as many features on board as Royal Caribbean or Norwegian vessels, in part because they're not as big. They're still packed with a variety of attractions, including multiple entertainment venues, casinos, spas and lots of deck-top fun zones such as water parks and ropes courses. You'll find at least one of its ships sailing out of pretty much every major port city around the country. (2025) New sailings from New Orleans including 4 and 5-day itineraries with stops in destinations like Cozumel and Costa Maya, Mexico, as well as longer 6-7-day cruises. Two special Carnival Journeys itineraries sail to and from New Orleans to Barcelona in June 2025. The 2022-built Carnival Celebration operates year-round roundtrips from Miami (preferential berthing at Carnival Terminal 3).

Follows the complete list of Carnival Celebration lounges, clubs and other entertainment venues for kids, teens, and adults. The Gateway has a large digital map showing the current location of all CCL ships in real-time. Carnival Jubilee was officially delivered to CCL by Meyer Werft GmbH & Co KG on December 4th (2023) in Port Bremerhaven. The delivery event was attended by Christine Duffy, Ben Clement, Jan Meyer, as well as the ship’s senior officers.

As is typical with cruise line loyalty programs, lower tiers don't bring all that much in terms of truly valuable benefits. During the evenings, there is an official dress code, but it's pretty laid-back. Most nights are designated "cruise casual," which means just that — khakis or jeans, polo shirts, sundresses, etc. Super casual items such as cutoff jeans, men's sleeveless shirts, T-shirts and gym shorts aren't permitted. Carnival allows you to bring one bottle of wine or Champagne per person onto ships at boarding plus up to a dozen standard cans or cartons of nonalcoholic drinks such as sodas.