In an effort to increase port capacity at both New Orleans, Louisiana and Galveston, Texas, Carnival Cruise Line has made plans to swap ships between the ports for short-term cruises. This proposal is expected to be initiated starting in 2019.
Carnival Cruise Line is a Miami-based company which says that the Carnival Dream (a 3,646-passenger ship) will move to Galveston from New Orleans in an attempt to increase capacity at the Texas port for four- and five-day cruises. The capacity increase is no small amount, with initial calculations showing a chance of 22 percent.
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In tandem, the Carnival Valor (a 2,974-passenger ship) will make its way to New Orleans from Galveston, which is anticipated to increase the NOLA port’s short-term cruise capacity by 10 percentage points. Both of these changes have been scheduled for May of 2019, and Carnival says it anticipates that three ships will call Galveston their home port, carrying 645,000 passengers per year, and two in New Orleans will carry close to 400,000 people per year. As of this year, Galveston is on record as the fourth busiest homeport for cruise ships in North America, as well as one of the top 10 throughout the world. It has been home to a number of well-established cruise lines in addition to Carnival, such as Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Disney. It’s also known as the oldest port in the Gulf of Mexico west of New Orleans.
