Carnival finalizes agreement with Meyer Werft for Excel-class cruise ship

Carnival Corporation & plc (CCL; CUK) announced it has signed an agreement with German shipbuilder Meyer Werft to build a fourth Excel-class cruise ship for its namesake Carnival Cruise Line brand. The ship, the 10th Excel-class ship in the corporation’s fleet across four of its brands, is expected to enter service in Spring 2027. “Building on our strong performance and growing momentum around the world, we are excited to resume our newbuild program and further enhance our global fleet with yet another state-of-the-art ship that will wow Carnival Cruise Line’s guests. With one newbuild scheduled for delivery in 2025, none for 2026, and this order being our only expected newbuild in 2027, our responsible capital approach will support utilizing our substantial free cash flow over the next several years to strategically improve our balance sheet, significantly reduce our leverage levels and continue to transfer value from debt holders to shareholders. We are following through on our measured capacity growth strategy with the addition of one to two ships per year beginning in 2027, which will be allocated to our cruise lines that most need the capacity to satisfy outsized demand, delivering an attractive payback period. We also remain focused on driving revenue growth throughout our portfolio of world-class cruise lines by continuing to improve execution across all aspects of our operation, yielding higher return on invested capital,” said Josh Weinstein, CEO of Carnival Corporation.