The Excellence class, including the sub-classes Helios class and XL or Excel class, is a class of cruise ships ordered by

Carnival Corporation & plc Carnival Corporation & plc is a British-American cruise operator with a combined fleet of over 100 vessels across 10 cruise line brands. A dual-listed company, Carnival is composed of two companies – Panama-incorporated, US-headquartered Carni ...

for its subsidiary brands

AIDA Cruises AIDA Cruises is a German cruise line founded in the early 1960s and organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc since 2003. Based in Rostock, Germany, AIDA Cruises caters primarily to the German-speaking market; as se ...

Costa Cruises S.p.A. (), operating as Costa Cruises, is an Italian cruise line founded in 1854 and organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc since 2000. Based in Genoa, Italy, the cruise line primarily caters to the Italian cruise ...

P&O Cruises P&O Cruises is a British cruise line based at Carnival House in Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. It was originally a subsidiary of the shipping company P&O and was founded in 1977. Alon ...

and

Carnival Cruise Line Carnival Cruise Line is an international cruise line with headquarters in Doral, Florida. The company is a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc. Its logo is a funnel shaped like a whale's tail, with a red, white, and blue color scheme. Th ...

. The ships are being constructed by Meyer Werft at their shipyard in

Papenburg Papenburg (; East Frisian Low Saxon: ''Papenbörg'') is a city in the district of Emsland, Lower Saxony, Germany, situated at the river Ems. It is known for its large shipyard, the Meyer-Werft, which specializes in building cruise liners. Geo ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

, and

Meyer Turku Meyer Turku Oy is a Finnish shipbuilding company located in Turku, Finland Proper. The company is fully owned by German shipbuilder Meyer Werft GmbH. The main products are cruise ships and cruiseferries. The shipbuilding facility is Perno shi ...

at their shipyard in

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

. The first, , entered service for AIDA Cruises in 2018.

History

In March 2015, Carnival Corporation entered into a strategic partnership with Meyer Werft to build new ships between 2018 and 2022. In June 2015, four ships were ordered for delivery between 2019 and 2020. In September 2016, three more ships were ordered for

and

for delivery in 2020 and 2022. The Excellence class will be the first cruise ships in the world to be dual fueled by

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the v ...

(LNG) and traditional

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bu ...

, which is intended to make them more environmentally friendly than traditional, diesel-powered ships. Each ship is expected to cost $950 million. The first four ships in the class suffered delivery delays. The delays of ''AIDAnova'', ''Costa Smeralda'' and ''Mardi Gras'' were attributed to the ships being the first to be fueled by LNG, design complexities, difficulties coordinating subcontractors, and the large size of the ships. The delay of ''Iona'' was due to a temporary suspension of operations by P&O Cruises, and slower construction progress, in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. ''Mardi Gras'' was later delayed until 2021, also due to the pandemic.

Ships

References

External links

Costa Croisières commande deux paquebots géants propulsés au GNL

Meyer décroche trois paquebots géants pour P&O et Carnival Cruise Lines
{{Carnival Cruise Line Cruise ship classes