Around a month after the last order, Meyer Werft in Papenburg can look forward to a new project for the cruise line Carnival Corporation: the US company has ordered another ship in the “Excel” class.
Carnival announced today that it has signed a contract with Meyer Werft for a fifth Excel-class cruise ship for the Carnival Cruise Line brand of the same name. Delivery is scheduled for 2028.
In mid-February, Carnival Corporation announced the first newbuilding order in five years with the news that a fourth Excel-class ship would join the Carnival Cruise Line fleet in spring 2027. Today’s announcement brings to eleven the number of Excel Class ships for the company’s fleet across four of its brands and the fifth to be deployed by Carnival Cruise Line. The new order is subject to financing, which is expected to be finalised later this year.
Fifth Excel ship for Carnival
The Excel fleet includes ‘Mardi Gras’ (2021), ‘Carnival Celebration’ (2022) and ‘Carnival Jubilee’ (2023). ‘Carnival Firenze’ will follow in April. Christine Duffy, President of Carnival Cruise Line, said: “With the arrival of ‘Carnival Firenze’ in April, we will complete the expansion of our fleet by five ships in less than 20 months, and then we will enter another phase of growth with these two Excel ships.”
“We are proud of the role that Meyer Werft and Meyer Turku’s Excel class has played in Carnival Corporation’s success for many years. We look forward to continuing this success story together,” said Bernd Eikens, CEO of Meyer Group. The shipyard group’s order book now includes six cruise ships, one research vessel and the steel construction for four offshore converter platforms.
The fifth ship in the Excel class will be built on the same platform as its sisters. The 180,000-ton vessel will be powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) and will be able to carry more than 6,400 guests and 1,800 crew members.
Josh Weinstein, CEO of Carnival Corporation, emphasised: “We are focused on increasing capacity throughout the company where it meets demand and our position in the market. This strategy of measured capacity growth will result in us adding one to two ships per year beginning in 2027, and we will be rolling out additional fleeting plans across our cruise lines in the coming months to meet capacity demand and improve execution in all aspects of our operations, with the benefit of realising a higher return on invested capital.”
