Carnival to Refurbish and Rename Carnival Victory

Carnival Cruise Line is refurbishing Carnival Victory and renaming her Carnival Radiance as part of the final phase of a $2 billion fleet enhancement program.

Following a 38-day, $200 million dry dock in Cadiz, Spain, Carnival Radiance will enter service in 2020. 

Carnival launched its fleet enhancement program in 2011. Since that time, it has completed refurbishments to more than 20 ships, taken delivery of three new ships and has three additional ships scheduled for delivery through 2022. Refurbishments include new water parks with huge slides and kiddie splash zones, Serenity adults-only areas and new miniature golf courses.

"We have been investing in our products, amenities and experience offerings at unprecedented levels which are driving higher results in guest satisfaction, passenger yields and onboard revenue," said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. "Our guests and travel agent partners can count on a high degree of consistency and quality vacation offerings across all our fleet and homeports regardless of what ship they're sailing on."

Since the fleet enhancement program was launched, Carnival's annual passenger count has grown from 4.1 million to 5.2 million guests; the number of children under 18 sailing annually has grown from 650,000 to 800,000; its employee base has grown from 34,000 to 40,000; its voyage operations have grown from 1,400 to 1,700 sailings per year; and its lower berth count has grown from 58,000 to 70,000.

Carnival is focused on providing better onboard technology. The Carnival HubApp is now available across all 26 ships in the fleet and running ahead of projections with regard to customer adoption. Since its introduction in January 2015, it has generated more than 4.5 million downloads from Apple's App Store and Google Play. Recent data shows that nearly two- thirds of all staterooms had at least one guest who downloaded the app, and more than half of all guests interacted with the HubApp at least once during the cruise. 

More than 20 percent of onboard specialty dining and tour excursion purchases are placed using the HubApp, contributing to the double digit lift in onboard revenue since the HubApp was introduced.  This summer on its two new Vista-class vessels, 40 percent of guests purchased the HubApp's onboard chat feature and the HubApp is also driving internet revenue, with penetration now averaging more than 50 percent of all guests across the fleet.

Carnival is now piloting a "pizza anywhere" delivery capability on select vessels with the eventual goal of allowing guests to order food and drink options directly from the HubApp for delivery to their location on board. Along with the added HubApp benefits, Carnival is investing in an enhanced Wi-Fi infrastructure to bring more robust service across the Carnival fleet by 2021. An enhanced connectivity system has proven extremely successful on Carnival Horizon and Carnival Vista, enabling fast and reliable Wi-Fi at sea. This will be deployed on Carnival Radiance.