Carnival Valor, Destiny, and Legend in Grand Cayman.
I always like to see stories like this, especially with all the doom and gloom going on about the economy over the last year.
Carnival gave a strong sign of confidence to the health of the cruising industry last week, as the company placed an order for new Dream Class ship to be built - the first order in almost two years.
While there have been several new ships launched this fall - most notably Carnival Dream and Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas - the industry has not been placing new orders. Howard Moses, president of the Cruise Authority here in Atlanta told Travel Weekly this week, "Clearly, ship orders are a good thing for the industry and an indicator that the lines have a healthy balance sheet."
The cruise industry has had it's share of problems due to the poor economy and the huge spike in fuel last year. Royal Caribbean had problems finding adequate financing during it's build of Oasis while other Cruise Lines have had to adjust accordingly and made tough choices in order to stay afloat.
According the to the Miami Harold and several other sources Carnival will pay just $200,000 per berth, or about $738 million, for it's third Dream Class ship. Carnival paid about $820 million for the 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream, the first of it's class, which debuted in September.
While there are certainly bigger ships being built by Royal Caribbean, making the Oasis class the largest in the world - bigger is not necessarily better according to Micky Arison, Carnival Corporations CEO. Mr. Arison told Travel Weekly during a question and answer interview yesterday, "I think they [smaller ships] are much better because they are more efficient. I’m looking at the more efficient they are, the more I’m able to give a reasonable price to the consumer. The reality is for what we announced a few days ago, we could build two Dreams for the cost of one Brand X. And we get 7,400 beds to their 5,400 beds. That’s more efficient, and being more efficient means better value and price to the customer."
Because they are more efficient, Carnival has a solid bottom line and is the first to show signs of confidence with this new order in an industry that we just love.
Comments