Carnival Cruise Line Tops 3 Million Passengers Since Restart

Carnival Cruise Line has welcomed more than three million passengers since its July 2021 restart, the company said this week. 

The news comes after what Carnival said was the “biggest booking week” in the cruise line’s 50-year history this past spring. 

That led Carnival’s ships to soar past 100 percent occupancy this summer, with an average of 95,000 guests per week. 

Carnival’s five busiest homeports have been Miami, Port Canaveral, Galveston, Long Beach and New Orleans. 

They have accounted for more than 77 percent of all Carnival embarkations. 

But smaller homeports, like those Tampa, Charleston and Baltimore, have “also been key” to the company’s strategy, it said. 

The company’s number one destination has been Mexico, which has seen more Carnival calls than any other country — a total of 800 visits, about half of which have been to the island of Cozumel in the Caribbean Sea. 

Other top destinations are Nassau, with 320 calls, Half Moon Cay (also in The Bahamas) with 155 calls and the Dominican Republic’s Amber Cove, with 159 calls. 

“Carnival set the pace for the industry as the first major cruise line to return to full guest operations in the U.S., and we continue to lead as we now have welcomed three million guests who have enjoyed much-needed vacations,” said Carnival President Christine Duffy. “The economic benefit to our homeports and destinations is also significant and we are looking forward to restarting cruise operations in Australia this October.”

Carnival is adding a new ship in the Caribbean this November, with the new Carnival Celebration set to homeport in Miami.