Carnival Paradise

Carnival Paradise is the eighth and final Fantasy-class ship, launched at Kvaerner Masa-Yards in Helsinki in January 1998 and delivered that October. She is the last of the line in the literal sense, no more were built, and she is one of only two of the eight still in service, alongside her older sister Carnival Elation. What separates her from that sister is not the steel. It is what Carnival tried to do with her.

The non-smoking ship

She was built to be the first completely smoke-free cruise ship in the world, and Carnival meant it. Smoking was banned everywhere aboard, including in cabins and on open decks. Guests caught smoking were fined $250 and could be put ashore at the next port. The prohibition extended backward into construction: the yard workers who built her were not permitted to smoke aboard either.

It ended in December 2003, five years in. The reason given was money. Carnival found that non-smoking passengers drank less and gambled less than smoking ones, and on a ship where the fare is a loss leader and the bar and the casino are the business, that is the entire argument. The policy was dropped, smoking areas were opened, and Paradise became an ordinary Carnival ship.

It is worth knowing because it is the clearest statement anyone in this industry has made about where the revenue actually comes from. Twenty-odd years later most lines have quietly reached the same place from the other direction; smoking is now confined to a patch of open deck and part of the casino floor, and the casino is the reason for the exception.

What she is now

A 1998 hull with modern food bolted to it. The layout is the Fantasy formula: cabins inside the hull, a neon atrium amidships, two main dining rooms, a lido buffet, and 98 balconies that were cut in later; out of 1,061 staterooms, so they are rationed. The 2018 dry dock added a fourteenth deck and 38 staterooms above the existing structure, which is where the tonnage crept up from 70,367 to 71,925.

Fun Ship 2.0 arrived in 2015 and brought the Guy Fieri burger counter, the BlueIguana Cantina and the RedFrog Rum Bar. The most recent significant work was a sixteen-day dry dock at Freeport in October 2023, which rebuilt the adults-only Serenity deck around a new central hot tub and refreshed cabins throughout. She is due back in dry dock in early 2027.

She is a slightly smaller-capacity ship than Elation (2,124 lower berths against 2,190), and beyond that the two are close to identical. Where they differ is the market: Elation is a Jacksonville ship and Paradise is a Tampa one, and Tampa buys longer.

Where she actually sails

Tampa, year-round. Her program runs four to six nights, most often five, and unlike her Jacksonville sister the bulk of it is Western Caribbean rather than Bahamas, roughly six sailings in seven, with a modest run of Bahamas itineraries filling in around them. Sailing from Tampa means a slow transit down the Florida west coast and out through the Gulf, so a four-night trip from here spends more of itself at sea than a four-night trip from Miami does.

Who she suits

Drive-to guests from central Florida who want a short Caribbean trip at a low price, and repeat Carnival passengers who already know exactly what this class of ship is and are buying the itinerary rather than the vessel. The Western Caribbean calls out of Tampa are a real reason to pick her over the Bahamas loops.

She does not suit anyone who wants a balcony, for the same arithmetic as her sister. She does not suit families looking for the water parks and ropes courses of the newer fleet; there is a small WaterWorks and that is the extent of it. And she is wrong for anyone who dislikes sea days, because the geography of Tampa guarantees them.