Fincantieri Four
Fincantieri announces contract to build four new ships for the Carnival Corporation.
Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri announced today that it has been contracted to build four new ships valued at 2.5 billion Euros for Carnival Corporation at its Marghera and Monfalcone shipyards. Two of the ships will be for the Costa Group’s Asian division, both measuring 135,500 gt and with a capacity for 4,200 guests, to be delivered in 2019 and 2020.
Including the two new vessels, which will be based on the COSTA DIADEMA blueprint, the Costa Group has eight new ships on order with a total capacity of 45,000 berths (four for its German Aida Cruises division; two for Italian-based Costa Cruises; two for Costa Asia), bringing the total capacity of the fleet to 110,000 berths.
The other two ships include a fourth 143,700-gt, 3,560-guest Royal Class vessel for Princess Cruises and a 135,500-gt, 4,200-guest ship for P&O Australia.
Peter Knego
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So it sounds like P&O Australia is getting a Dream-class ship, too.
WOW. And so the shift to China and the Far East continues. I really shows the nature of emerging markets in the form of a growing middle class in many places in that part of the world. With the way things shift economically and politically over there, though, this is truly risky.But risk never stopped Carnival Corp., Nope.
Given that Chinese passengers mostly only want 3 and 4 day cruises it will be interesting to see where all these ships will sail to.
Interesting that, for the first time in history, P&O Australia are to receive a brand-new ship specifically aimed at their market. Obviously a response to the placement of new vessels in Australian waters by rival companies.
Also of interest, is a bit of news gleaned from the P&O Aus website. Apparently, in 2017 (a couple of years before the debut of the new giant), they are putting a sixth ship into the existing fleet. To be named “Pacific Explorer”, and although they do not say so, from the deck plans and profile, this is obviously the ship currently sailing as “Oceana” for P&O UK. I guess this makes sense, as the other three ships of the same class are already all in Australia under the Princess Cruises banner.
It is curious that, with a population of 22.5 million (as against UK’s 65 million), Australia will soon have as many (P&O) ships as the UK fleet, although probably not as many berths overall. Also, I imagine that with the entry into service of the new 135,000 tonner in 2019, one or more of the three older Pacific Jewel class may be withdrawn from service.
Sorry folks, must add a correction to my last comment – with a little more research, I see that Pacific Explorer is actually Dawn Princess (sister of Oceana) so they’re transferring one of the three Princess ships over and P&O UK is maintaining its fleet numbers.