By
Rebecca Gibson |
Carnival Cruise Lines has commenced the first stage of its comprehensive fleetwide operational review, which will initially focus on improving the operating and safety systems onboard Carnival Triumph and Carnival Sunshine.
The cruise line will make significant investments to improve the level of operating redundancies and the scope of hotel services that can run on emergency power onboard its ships. It will also improve its fire prevention, detection and suppression systems.
“I would like to provide continued assurances that all of our vessels have fully effective safety systems, equipment and training in place,” said Gerry Cahill, president and CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines. “The changes we are implementing are focused primarily on improvements to better support continued power and hotel services should unexpected issues arise.”
In order to accommodate the measures, Carnival Triumph will remain out of service until 3 June 2013, when it will resume its year-round four- and five-day Mexico cruises from Galveston, Texas. Carnival has been forced to cancel ten cruises during this period, offering guests booked on the affected voyages a full refund and a reimbursement for non-refundable transportation costs. Passengers will also receive a 25 per cent discount on a future four- to five-day cruise.
Carnival Sunshine, which is currently in dry dock as part of a scheduled renovation project, will now enter service on 5 May 2013, following the cancellation of two European cruises. Passengers on the cancelled voyages will be reimbursed for any non-refundable travel costs, receive a full refund and a 25 percent discount on a future cruise. The ship will then embark on a series of nine- and 12-day Mediterranean cruises from 5 May until October, a 16-day trans-Atlantic crossing and a six-day Caribbean cruise in November, before arriving in New Orleans at the end of November to begin its year-round seven-day Caribbean service.
“We sincerely regret cancelling these cruises and disrupting our guests’ vacation plans,” said Cahill. “We are fully committed to applying the recommendations stemming from our fleetwide review and to make whatever investments are needed despite the difficult decision to impact people’s vacations.”