Nautical nip, tuck for liner
There’s this adage in the cruising industry: don’t take a ship about to be dry-docked. Yet I did so recently: by the time you read this, Carnival Cruise Line’s (cruise.center/carnival) Carnival Victory will already be on its final voyage before heading across the Atlantic where it will spend two months being transformed into the Carnival Radiance.
I embarked Carnival Victory in Miami for one of its four-night western Caribbean voyages to Key West, Fla., and Cozumel, Mexico. I visited the ship, originally built in 2000, to document its interior spaces before it is substantially altered and turned into Carnival Radiance. I came expecting things to not be quite shipshape, yet I found a ship that, 20 years after its construction, is still looking great.
A dry-dock a few years back has already updated all guest cabins and corridors, which have Carnival’s new “tropical” colours scheme that was introduced on the Carnival Breeze in 2012. Carnival Victory’s pool deck and upper pool deck have already been given brand-new faux-teak decking, and the entire vessel looked and felt as if it was in great condition.
My cruise also made me appreciate how much these “older” Carnival ships are like individual works of art. Longtime interior architect Joe Farcus had crafted an undersea theme for the ship. It’s bold, whimsical and often beautiful.
That’s all going to disappear soon as Carnival Victory is given a fresh new interior design. No public room will be spared; some will be stripped to their steel beams and outfitted with the newest features.
As with Carnival Sunrise last year (the former Carnival Triumph), the refit will give Carnival Victory — soon to be Carnival Radiance — a brand-new experience for Fun Ship cruisers to enjoy, while extracting maximum service life out of a ship that still has the power to delight.
Of course, Carnival will continue to offer these four-day jaunts to the western Caribbean from Miami aboard Carnival Conquest and the smaller Carnival Sensation. It makes for a great little getaway: half a day to explore
Key West, and a late-evening call into Cozumel that makes it possible to take a shore excursion over to the mainland to take in the historic ruins of Tulum.
Carnival Victory returns to service as the all-new Carnival Radiance on April 29, with a 10-day Mediterranean voyage (hosted by Carnival’s legendary cruise director John Heald) before setting out across the Atlantic for New York and, later this year, its new home port of Port Canaveral (Orlando).
Happy cruising.
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