Carnival Cruise Line announced that Costa Luminosa will join its fleet in September from sister company Costa Cruises. The ship will start guest operations as Carnival Luminosa in November 2022 from Brisbane, Australia.
The acquisition of Luminosa is an update to the previously announced plans for Carnival to take Costa Magica, which will now remain at Costa Cruises.
After delivery, Carnival Luminosa will operate from October through April from Brisbane, then reposition to Seattle, where it will sail Alaska itineraries from May through September, before returning to Brisbane.
Luminosa is a sister ship to four other Spirit-class ships that already sail for Carnival. Entering service in 2009, the 92,720-gross-tons ship accommodates up to 2,826 guests and 1,050 crew.
"With our full fleet back to guest operations and the pent-up demand for Carnival we are seeing every week aboard our ships, the chance to expand with Luminosa and then the arrival of Carnival Celebration in November provides our guests with more choices and new ways to enjoy a Carnival vacation," said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. "Our Spirit-class ships are very popular with our guests, and Luminosa will be a great addition given the large number of balcony cabins, which make her an ideal ship for this deployment. And equally important, this will allow Carnival to finally start our highly anticipated itineraries from Brisbane, so we'll have two ships operating in Australia for the high season Down Under."
Given the short timeline, the ship will go through some modest updates to change from Costa to Carnival over the next few months ahead of the November start-up.
The ship will not initially have all of the Funship 2.0-branded spaces found across the Carnival fleet. Cruises out of Brisbane will be announced shortly, but the itineraries are expected to include visits to the Great Barrier Reef and Airlie Beach, and, as destinations open over time, ports of call such as Noumea and Lifou Isle in New Caledonia, Port Vila and Mystery Island in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
In addition to Carnival Luminosa out of Brisbane, Carnival Splendor will arrive in Sydney to resume sailing year-round on Oct. 2, 2022. With the arrival of Carnival Celebration, Carnival's fleet will number 24 ships, and its lower berth capacity will be 7 percent higher than at the end of November 2019.
The cruises for Costa Luminosa from September forward will be cancelled and Costa will inform impacted guests.
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