ORLANDO, Fla. — Carnival Cruise Line is removing its two oldest ships from its fleet while also canceling some previously scheduled sailings.
Carnival Sensation and Carnival Ecstasy will be gone from the line’s current 24-ship lineup by year’s end. The line had previously announced the restart of Sensation, which debuted in 1993, was being delayed. Now the 70,000-gross-ton vessel will not return to service, having sailed its last voyage for the cruise line before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the industry.
Carnival Ecstasy, which debuted in 1991, will continue to sail through October before it retires from the fleet.
“Our guests have remained passionate and supportive throughout the restart and 2022 gives us plenty of reasons for enthusiasm and excitement as we reach full operations in the U.S., prepare for our 50th birthday celebration, and await the arrival of Carnival Celebration this fall,” said line President Christine Duffy in a press release.
“Our very loyal guests, our vibrant home-port strategy and our fleet of popular ships are strengths to our advantage as we adapt to changing opportunities and circumstances.”
Carnival Celebration follows the debut of Carnival’s Mardi Gras in 2021 as the second ship in that class, the largest ever built for the line coming in at nearly 182,000 gross tons and a 6,500-guest capacity, compared with Ecstasy and Sensation’s roughly 2,600-guest capacities.
The announcement means that as previously planned, Carnival Ecstasy will move from Jacksonville to Mobile, Alabama, beginning with a March 5 restart with itineraries planned through Oct. 10 before retirement. With Sensation’s departure, the cruise line does not currently have a ship slated to sail from the Gulf Coast port for Oct. 15, 2022-Sept. 30, 2023.
Carnival Spirit was moving to Jacksonville because of the shuffle, and will sail from March 7-April 9, but the cruise line announced the cancellation of two cruises in mid-April. The line said a yet-to-be-named ship will be assigned to the Florida port for sailings beginning April 23.
Overseas, the line is canceling sailings of Carnival Splendor in Australia from June 10-Sept. 26 as well as Carnival Spirit from June 5-Oct. 5 because of uncertainty of operations amid the pandemic. A two-ship return to Australia will wait until the line can confirm its presence in the country.
The line did not announce whether they would be selling the ships to another line, as it has done in the past, or just have them scrapped.
The pandemic saw the offloading of several older cruise ships, including Carnival Fantasy, Fascination, Imagination and Inspiration, all of which eventually were sent to the ship-breaking yard in Aliaga, Turkey.
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