by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 8:15 AM ET, Wed November 26, 2025
Janet Wygert (Photo Credit: Carnival Cruise Line)
When Carnival Cruise Line's Janet Wygert stepped into her new role six months ago as trade sales team lead, she went from managing four people to overseeing an expansive team that encompasses all of sales and trade marketing for the global cruise brand.
For some, that might sound like a fairly daunting transition. But for Wygert it was a natural next step.
The Wisconsin resident had been with Carnival for 38 years when she was tapped for the new position. Her career trajectory began in inside sales and later included serving as regional sales manager for Southern Ohio and Kentucky, and after that Wygert moved into strategic partnerships, serving as director and managing director. (To name just a few of the rungs on her decades-long career trajectory with the cruise line.)
And after just a few minutes of speaking with Wygert about her newest role, as well as her vision for the future and the importance of travel advisors in Carnival's success, it becomes abundantly clear that not only does she have a deep and expansive understanding of the Carnival brand, but Wygert’s also incredibly passionate the impact she can have as senior vice president of sales and trade marketing.
"I feel very fortunate. I have had a really meaningful career and I feel like there's just so much more to do," Wygert said during a recent sit-down interview at the CruiseWorld conference in Florida.
One of Wygert's top priorities is continuing to strengthen Carnival's partnerships with the travel advisor community, a focus that the company veteran says she’s deeply committed to.
"Travel advisors, for us, are at the absolute the heart of everything we do,” said Wygert. “Our team exists because of travel advisors. So, we want to make sure they feel valued. Not only celebrated, but valued."
"From my lens, I really believe, a strong trade equals a strong cruise industry," she added.
To that end, Wygert said she and her team are keenly focused on investing in the success of travel advisors, ensuring that they feel supported and empowered. That includes making it easier for travel advisors to do their job on a day-to-day basis by investing in GoCCL.com, Carnival's booking engine.
As an example, Wygert points to the fact that Carnival just made it possible to complete multi-cabin bookings through the booking platform.
While that may not sound like a significant development to the average person, Wygert thinks it's an improvement that travel advisors will genuinely appreciate.
There are other new tools for travel advisors in the works as well. Nothing Wygert is ready to discuss just yet, but she revealed that her team is "working on quite a few things."
Moreover, many of the improvements and tools in the works are driven by travel advisors themselves and their feedback. "I think it's very important that we listen to the travel advisors. They're out there everyday, they know what they need to make their jobs easier. And we're trying ensure that to the best of our ability we give them what they need," continued Wygert.
"So when I look at the vision overall, it's really about celebrating and supporting our advisors and making sure they have the tools to grow right along with us," Wygert added.
In addition to being excited about the many ways she and her team plan to support travel advisors, Wygert is also enthusiastic about all of the new destination offerings and developments Carnival has been busy working on.
Earlier this year, Carnival officially opened Celebration Key, a new, exclusive destination on Grand Bahama that marked the the completion of the first phase of a $600 million project. Currently a 68-acre tropical playground, Celebration Key includes the world’s tallest sandcastle, the world’s largest swing and swim-up bar and the Caribbean’s largest freshwater lagoons. There’s also a cruise pier that can accommodate Carnival’s largest ships.
The destination is expected to draw more than two million guests annually and by 2028 that figure is projected to reach four million.
“We’ve talked about Celebration Key quite a bit, but boy that's a game changer for our brand,” said Wygert.
“And it’s not just Celebration Key,” continued Wygert. “We will also be rebranding Half Moon Cay [in the Bahamas] to RelaxAway at Half Moon Cay. That will be available to our guests in 2026."
As part of the rebrand, Half Moon Cay will undergo a variety of enhancements including an expanded beachfront experience, the addition of lunch venues and a variety of bars. A pier is also being constructed on the north side Half Moon Cay, which will allow ships to dock, including Carnival’s Excel class ships.
“Now, even our largest ships will be able to dock,” said Wygert. “I know that sounds like a little thing, but it’s not. It’s so nice to be able to dock and walk off the ship. It’s a much better experience for the guests."
Beyond those two noteworthy developments, Carnival is continuing to invest in its exclusive destination in Roatán, Honduras, which was formerly known as Mahogany Bay. The destination, being renamed Isla Tropicale, will get a full slate of new features in 2026.
“We’re building upon an already beautiful beach there. It will have restaurants and bars. And we’re putting in a pool. It will be another spectacular destination,” said Wygert.
As exciting as all of these destination developments are, it’s when Wygert is talking about her longstanding focus on building relationships with travel advisors (and her team’s many strengths in supporting the travel advisor community), that she’s most animated.
Those relationships can be traced back to Wygert’s earliest days at Carnival, when she was working in inside sales, answering the phones and helping to problem solve for travel advisors across the country.
“I’ve been in the industry a long time and I really understand the travel partners,” Wygert said. "You can’t be in this industry for very long without understanding the value that the travel partners bring.”
“I see opportunity for us to continue to strengthen that relationship,” added Wygert. “And so for me, that’s very important.”
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