Carnival Cruise Lines' announced today that they will homeport Carnival Magic at Galveston when it arrives in the US in the fall of 2011. That will unleash a flood of capacity increases as ships move in conjunction with the Magic deployment decision.
Both Galveston and New Orleans will see significant capacity increases as a result as Carnival moves to solidify their market position in both cities faced with competitors' recently-announced redeployments for roughly the same time periods.
The end result will have Carnival Magic sailing from Galveston on 7-night cruises, Carnival Triumph in Galveston for a 4- and 5-night program, Carnival Conquest in New Orleans for 7-night cruises, and Carnival Ecstasy sailing 4- and 5-night cruises from New Orleans.
In this CND article we looked at the details of the new programs, the changes that Carnival is requiring at Galveston and what it's going to cost, and the capacity that's pouring into New Orleans and what that might mean.
The complete article appeared in the June 23, 2010, edition of Cruise News Daily.
