Information on Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Cruise Line has been a leader in the industry for many years now. The line was founded in 1972 by Ted Arison who was an Israeli-American. He originally co-founded Norwegian Cruise Line in 1966 and then went on to found CCL. The company is now run by his son, Micky Arison who owns 47%. Micky Arison is also the owner of the Miami Heat basketball team. Carnival Cruise Line is the world’s largest, with 23 ships currently sailing in its fleet. It is also the flagship line of Carnival Corporation & PLC, which is the mother company and currently has eleven different brands under its corporate umbrella.
How did Carnival Cruise Line begin its life
The rise of Carnival Cruise Line is quite an impressive story. It started as a one ship company. That first ship in the fleet was the TSS Mardi Gras and on her maiden voyage for the company back in 1972 she actually ran aground on a sand bar just outside of the Miami port. This could have put a very abrupt end to many business owners, but it was the vision and determination of Ted Arison that managed to get them over this initial set back and lead them onto much bigger things.
Successful cruise lines become successful by finding their own little niche in the market and becoming very good at serving the guests what they want within that niche. Carnival Cruise Line found its niche a long time ago. The ships in the Carnival fleet are called the “Fun Ships”, and this is because of their target market. While some cruise lines want to be perceived as a more classy and elegant line, that upholds the more traditional kind of cruising, CCL targets the younger crowd that likes to have fun and stay up late at night and make as much use of the Discos and bars that Carnival have in an abundance on their ships.
Although some of the 23 ships in the Carnival fleet do go too far reaching destinations such as Europe and Hawaii, most of the ships stay within US waters and the Caribbean. By doing this they can offer cheaper cruises, which the younger
Fun Ship Freddie
Carnival Cruise Line crowd look for, and then still make a huge amount of their profits from on-board revenue from outlets such as the bars and Casinos.
The ships of the Carnival Cruise Line fleet are very distinctive as they all have the large red, white and blue funnel that proudly protrudes from their upper decks. They also have a fleet mascot called “Fun Ship Freddie”, and any guests that sail on-board a Carnival ship will see him around the ship on embarkation days and sporadically throughout the cruise.
Although Carnival Cruise Line does not currently (at this time of writing) have the largest ship of any cruise line, they did have the first cruise liner to exceed a gross tonnage of 100,000 tons. This was the Carnival Destiny and she entered service in 1996. Since then Carnival have added another fifteen ships to their fleet, with another two ships due to enter service in 2011 (Carnival Magic) and 2012 (Carnival Breeze).
