Carnival Corporation has announced it will build four new cruise ships for its Costa Asia, P&O Cruises and Princess Cruises lines.
Two of the four new ships will be built for Costa Asia for deployment in China, and one will be built each for P&O Cruises Australia and Princess Cruises.
This takes the company’s total number of new ships scheduled to be delivered by 2020, to 17.
The four new ships will be built by Fincantieri at the company’s shipyards in Monfalcone and Marghera, Italy, with deliveries expected in 2019 and 2020.
The two new 135,500-ton ships for Costa Asia and one new ship for P&O Cruises Australia will carry 4,200 passengers.
Princess Cruises’ new 143,700-ton ship will carry 3,560 passengers and will be its fourth “Royal Princess” class vessel, featuring the same design platform used on Royal Princess, Regal Princess and Majestic Princess.
Chief executive of Carnival Corporation, Arnold Donald, said: “These ships will be great additions to our fleet that support our goal to exceed guest expectations and create great vacation memories for each guest onboard our ships.
“These strategic investments in new ships that wow our guests are an important part of our measured growth strategy, which includes replacing less efficient ships with newer, larger and more efficient vessels over a very specific period of time.”
The company said specific features and amenities for the ships, along with deployment details, will be revealed in the coming months.