Carnival Triumph to Sail from New Orleans Year-Around

Carnival cruise line has announced that on April of 2016, it will be relocating the Carnival Elation, which currently sails out New Orleans to Jacksonville. Replacing the Carnival Elation will be the Carnival Triumph a newly renovated vessel with greater capacity.

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This is all to expand the capacity of the shorter four and five day cruises by 34 percent. Carnival’s president, Christine Duffy said, “Repositioning these ships to New Orleans, Jacksonville and San Juan provides our guests and valued travel agent partners with fresh and exciting new ‘Fun Ship’ choices in three important and highly attractive cruise markets,”. The ship will be cruising to Cozumel and Progresso, offering a quick getaway for those who prefer short cruises.

Carnival states that this is all done to supply New Orleans with sufficient capacity for its increasing market. Carnival Triumph will join Carnival Dream, and together these two ships are expected to carry about 450,000 guests annually from New Orleans.  Currently, Carnival is the only cruise line sailing year-around out of New Orleans.

Carnival Elation will be transferred to Jacksonville assuming the Carnival Fascination current itinerary. In turn, Carnival Fascination will reposition to San Juan year-around. It will offer 7 day cruises, with stops in St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and St. Maarten. There will also be a selected amount of 10 and 11 day cruises, with ports of call in Aruba, Curacao, Grenada, Barbados, Antigua, and St. Thomas.

I have always been a fan of Carnivals itineraries, they seem to offer more frequent stops than NCL and RCCL. Unfortunately, this year I won’t be able to sail as much as previous years. Although I expect to make a comeback in 2016 :).