Carnival Cruise Line to bring new Italian-themed ship to port
Carnival Cruise Line will expand its fleet to five ships in Port Canaveral with the arrival in late 2024 of the Italian-themed Carnival Venezia.
The line announced the rebranded ship originally built for sister cruise line Costa Cruises as Costa Venezia will spend the winter Caribbean sailing season out of the Central Florida port starting Dec. 18, 2024.
The 135,225-gross-ton ship is currently undergoing a facelift in Spain that will include a unique blackand-yellow paint job as part of what Carnival is marketing as Fun Italian Style.
Its first sailing as a Carnival ship is a transatlantic voyage from Barcelona to New York on May 29 with regular sailings from New York’s Manhattan Cruise Terminal starting June 15, its home until it begins Port Canaveral service 18 months later.
Once in Florida, the ship with a 4,090-passenger capacity based on double
occupancy will sail one four-night Bahamas cruise before embarking on 15 seven-night cruises alternating Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries as well as two 14-night Carnival
Journeys-branded sailings. It will return to New York in spring 2025. Sales for those voyages opened Tuesday.
“The sailings we’re opening today will allow us to
share this new signature fun with more guests and bring another truly dynamic offering to one of our most popular homeports,” said Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy in a
press release.
Among the ports of call on Eastern Caribbean itineraries are Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos; San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; and
Amber Cove, Dominican Republic.
Western Caribbean itineraries cull from Montego Bay or Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Mahogany Bay and Isla Roatan, Honduras; Belize City, Belize and Cozumel, Mexico. Some sailings also feature stops in the Bahamas.
The pair of two-week Carnival Journeys cruises are both Southern Caribbean options. One departs Jan. 12, 2025 and visits St. Thomas; Antigua; Dominica; Grenada; Barbados; St. Maarten; St. Kitts and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The second departs Feb. 23, 2025 and visits Grand Turk; Aruba; Curacao; Cartagena, Colombia; Colon, Panama; Limon, Costa Rica and Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.
Since it was built for Costa Cruises, the ship features Italian design with architectural features inspired by Venice including the atrium the line is calling Piazza San Marco. It debuted in 2019 and sailed out of China until the COVID-19 pandemic.