Carnival Venezia

Carnival Venezia was designed for a market that no longer exists. Fincantieri laid her down at Monfalcone in November 2017 and delivered her in February 2019 as Costa Venezia, at $780 million and 135,225 gross tons, the largest ship Costa had ever commissioned, and the first the company designed specifically for Chinese guests. She sailed a 53-day inaugural voyage from Trieste to Tokyo, took up a Shanghai homeport on May 18, 2019, and spent her first season running East Asian itineraries sold exclusively in China, with an Italian shell wrapped around a Chinese product.

Eight months later the pandemic closed that business, and China’s zero-COVID policy kept it closed. Costa canceled all Asia departures in 2022, moved her to Istanbul for a Mediterranean summer, and stopped her again on December 1 of that year. Carnival Corporation’s answer was to move her and her younger sister Costa Firenze, a ship built for the same market that never actually sailed in it, across to Carnival Cruise Line, where American capacity was short. Venezia went first.

The transfer, and what to call it

The corporation branded the project “Costa by Carnival,” which is the phrase you will find in the 2022 and 2023 trade press. It is not the name on the product. Carnival markets her as “Carnival Fun Italian Style,” with no Costa branding anywhere, and that is what you board.

The conversion took place at Navantia in Cadiz in the spring of 2023. She was handed over on March 22, made her first Carnival sailing on May 29, a two-week transatlantic from Barcelona to New York, and Jay Leno christened her at Manhattan on June 14, 2023.

What the refit did not do is gut her. The funnel got the whale tail and Carnival’s venues went in (Fahrenheit 555, Guy’s Burger Joint, WaterWorks, SportSquare, Serenity, Camp Ocean), but the Venetian interior was left standing. The atrium is still three decks of Piazza San Marco. The theater is still the Teatro Rosso, red velvet with oversized crystal fixtures and wall niches built to read as private boxes. There is a Gondola Lounge, a marble fountain on the pool deck, faux frescoes in the corridors and a full-size gondola sitting in one of the main dining rooms. Il Viaggio is the Italian specialty restaurant.

The result is a ship that does not feel like the rest of the fleet. The cabins were built to Costa’s specification and are fitted accordingly; the public rooms stack in a European order; there is more marble and gilding than a Carnival regular expects. It is the reason to pick her and the reason some people do not.

Where she actually sails

Three homeports in sequence across seventy-seven departures between August 2026 and March 2028. Reading the departure port is not optional with this ship.

Manhattan, through September 2026, her last scheduled New York season. Seven departures, most of them short Bermuda runs of four to seven nights, plus eight-night sailings to Celebration Key, Grand Turk and RelaxAway at Half Moon Cay. After this summer she does not come back; Carnival Firenze takes over the New York homeport in May 2027.

Port Canaveral, October 2026 to May 2027. Twenty-five departures. Twenty-two are seven nights, in two rotations, one west to Cozumel, Belize and Isla Tropicale at Roatán, the other east to San Juan and St. Thomas, with Celebration Key on nearly all of them. There is a five-night Bahamas run, an eight-night down to Aruba and Bonaire, and one fourteen-night Southern Caribbean voyage that reaches Antigua, Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, Kingstown and St. Maarten.

Miami, May 2027 to March 2028. Forty-five departures and the bulk of her schedule, alternating six and eight nights. The six-night run goes to Amber Cove, Grand Turk, Grand Cayman, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios; the eight-night goes south to Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Celebration Key appears on forty-eight of her seventy-seven sailings overall, which is the single most common thing on her schedule.

Who she suits

People who want a European ship running an American week. The Italian interior is not a theme applied to a Carnival hull; it is an actual Costa ship with Carnival’s food and service inside it, and if that combination appeals, there are only two ships in the world that offer it. New Yorkers get one more summer of walking to the pier. From mid-2027, South Floridians get her six-night Caribbean rotation, which is a genuinely well-built week: five ports in six nights with almost no dead time.

She does not suit anyone who wants the current Carnival product delivered as advertised. There is no roller coaster, no LNG, no suite neighborhood, and the cabins are smaller and laid out differently from the ones in the brochure photography. Families used to the Excel ships will find the top deck thin. And she is a poor booking to make eighteen months out without checking the port, because she is a New York ship, then a Port Canaveral ship, then a Miami ship, all inside this window.