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HELSINKI (BLOOMBERG) – In cold and dark Finland, amid the pandemic, workers at the Meyer Turku shipyard were hard at work putting a roller coaster on top of a cruise ship, a world first.
Others were setting up a brewery that could produce craft beers from filtered seawater, aimed at an astonishing onboard audience of up to 6,500 passengers.
His work at the shipyard is now complete: Mardi Gras, Carnival Cruise Lines’ largest “Fun Ship,” is ready to sail. Of course, it will be months before even the first traveler gets on board.
Questions abound about when the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will lift their no-sail orders and allow ships to resume or, in the case of Mardi Gras, begin operations.
Carnival is planning its debut in April, with weeklong itineraries throughout the Caribbean. That goal may be a pipe dream, given that the CDC will require all ships to apply for certifications yet to be determined and conduct test cruises to show they are prepared for a pandemic.
There’s also the problem of persistent border closures and the fact that virtually no ships that have left their port have returned without a confirmed case of Covid-19 on board, or at least a good scare.
Regardless of when it makes its maiden voyage, and whether Carnival Corp can shake its reputation as a super broadcaster at the start of the pandemic, it will surely be the craziest and most duped new cruise ship for 2021.
In addition to the upper deck roller coaster, the 180,000-ton, $ 950 million vessel, which is 1.5 times the size of Carnival’s next largest ship, has two theaters, five waterslides, a zip line and a 1972 Fiat parked. strategically to pose on Instagram in an interior “square”.
It will also be the first cruise ship in North America to run on liquefied natural gas, reducing particulate matter by more than 95 percent and eliminating up to 20 percent of carbon emissions, compared to marine diesel fuel.
That gives Mardi Gras the bragging rights as the “greenest” mega-ship (being relative eco-good faith in this segment) sailing from the United States to the Caribbean and Mexico.
For the typically egalitarian Carnival, which has always been everyone’s cruise line, the ship is a step in a more elegant new direction. Of all the cabins, flexible plastic shower curtains are gone, replaced by glass shower doors. And those who want to splurge can do so for the tune of $ 7,000 a week for two in the new Excel Suites that come with their own outdoor pool-style hot tubs, plus access to a private terrace with plush loungers and cabanas. .
It will also come and go from a new $ 155 million glass-walled terminal in Port Canaveral, an hour east of Orlando, which represents the largest single construction project in the port’s 65-year history.
So far, the ship’s pandemic-proof plans include a state-of-the-art medical facility, the largest in Carnival’s fleet. But guests looking for specific details on extra precautions will find that not much concrete information is available yet.
Instead, the company focuses on bells and whistles. Of those, there are many.
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