Carnival’s future new generation cruise ship that will be named Mardi Gras has been voted as the number one most anticipated future cruise ship by Cruise Hive readers. Now we’re excited!
Carnival Mardi Gras Wins!
The Carnival Mardi Gras new generation cruise ship which construction just recently started on has won this year’s “Most Anticipated Future Cruise Ship” in the 2018 Cruise Ship Awards.
The future mega ship received more votes than five other vessels from five different cruise lines. In second place came Scarlet Lady which will be the first-ever Virgin Voyages cruise ship and in third place came the yet to be named first Leonardo-class vessel from Norwegian Cruise Line.
Also Read: New Mega Ship for Carnival Cruise Line to be Named Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras will be the first fully powered Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) cruise ship for Carnival Cruise Line and will become the largest ever cruise ship to join the fleet. She will arrive in 2020 and is currently in the early stages of construction at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland.
She takes her name from the original Mardi Gras which was the first ever Carnival cruise ship back in 1972. A new era for the Miami-based cruise line will begin with the new-class mega ship bringing new innovative features to the fleet including the first ever roller coaster at sea.
Once completed the Mardi Gras will be a huge 180,000 gross tons and will have a guest capacity of 5,200 at lower birth. She’s going to an extremely popular ship for Carnival Cruise Line and Mardi Gras received way more votes than other future ships in the category. Once in service, she will be sailing Caribbean cruises from the new terminal at Port Canaveral, Florida and the cruise line will be releasing further details about the specific itinerary and ship features in the future.
Scarlet Lady from Virgin Voyages in Second
The first ever Virgin Voyages cruise ship named Scarlet Lady came in second place as one of the most anticipated future cruise ships. She is currently under construction at the Fincantieri Genoa shipyard in Italy. Once completed the new class vessel will be 110,000 gross tons with a guest capacity of 2,700 and will be for adults only.
The ship will be based out of PortMiami, Florida in 2020 sailing week-long Caribbean cruises with some even including extended stays in Havana, Cuba. We’ve covered the ship a lot on Cruise Hive so do check all the latest right here.
NCL’s Leonardo-class in Third
We still have a while to go until the first Leonardo-class vessel arrives for Norwegian Cruise Line in 2022. The LNG powered cruise ship is being built by Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri and will be 140,000 gross tons with a passenger capacity of 3,300.
Also Read: Norwegian Cruise Line Unveils “Project Leonardo”
We don’t know too much about this future ship yet but do keep checking Cruise Hive as we’ll be posting any announcements from NCL. The cruise line has ordered a total of six Leonardo-class vessels coming in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027.
The Results
Thousands of Cruise Hive readers voted in this year’s awards which opened up early September 2018. Only one vote has been allowed per category and we have checked to make sure no repeats have been counted. Let’s take a look at the final result of the most anticipated future cruise ship in order:
- Mardi Gras (Carnival Cruise Line)
- Scarlet Lady (Virgin Voyages)
- Unnamed Leonardo-class (Norwegian Cruise Line)
- Celebrity Apex – (Celebrity Cruises)
- P&O Iona (P&O Cruises)
- World-class (MSC Cruises)
In 2017 Spectrum of the Seas came out on top as the most anticipated future cruise ship for Royal Caribbean. The ship will arrive in 2019 and is being purpose-built for the Chinese market. As the ship is coming out next year we moved her to the ships for 2019 category.
Thanks to everyone has voted this year in the annual awards which are focused more on the cruise ships but we have added some new categories to mix things up slightly. Feel free to browse the results which we’ve already announced below:
