| IMO | 9801689 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 135,500 GT |
| Length | 323.0 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 4232 |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 6271 |
| Launched | 2019 |
| Maiden voyage | 2019 |
| Class | Venice-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Carnival Cruise Line |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Carnival Venezia is not a Carnival newbuild. She was built as Costa Venezia for Costa Cruises, entering service in 2019 as the first Costa ship designed specifically for the Chinese market, and transferred to Carnival Cruise Line in 2023 under the "Carnival Fun Italian Style" concept — a hybrid product that kept her Italian design and Costa-yellow funnel while staffing and operating her as a Carnival ship.
She is a Vista-class hull, grouped by Carnival with her sister Carnival Firenze as a Venice-class sub-class of that design. On delivery to Costa she was the largest ship in the Italian line's fleet. Her career is a compact history of the cruise industry's pandemic era: built for a China market that closed, laid up, redeployed to the Mediterranean, and finally reassigned across the Atlantic to fill Carnival's need for capacity in the United States.
Key specifications
The dataset records the ship at 135,500 GT — the design tonnage announced when the class was ordered — with a length of 323.0 m and a maximum capacity of 4,232 passengers. As measured on completion, Lloyd's Register figures quoted by Wikipedia give her 135,225 GT, a length of 323.6 m and a beam of 37.2 m, with capacity for 4,208 passengers at double occupancy and 5,260 at maximum, and a crew of 1,278. She has 14 passenger decks. Her MAN diesel-electric plant totals 62,400 kW, and Fincantieri lists a service speed of 18 knots.
Design and construction
The ship was ordered in April 2016 under Carnival Corporation's strategic programme with Fincantieri, as the first of two ships of about 135,500 GT built to expand Costa's fleet in Asia, with interiors designed around Italian traditions for Chinese guests. She was built at Fincantieri's Monfalcone yard, yard number 6271. Her name was announced at the coin ceremony on 1 November 2017, the date her keel was laid, and she was floated out on 22 June 2018 — the dataset's 2019 launch year is her delivery year. Sea trials ran in December 2018 and January 2019, and Fincantieri delivered her on 28 February 2019.
Structurally she is a Vista-class ship, the class Carnival had introduced with Carnival Vista in 2016, adapted by Costa with Venetian-themed interiors and features for the Asian market, including a retractable roof over the main pool area.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was christened as Costa Venezia at Trieste on 1 March 2019 by her godmother Gan Beiye, a Costa frequent cruiser — an unusual choice of sponsor that reflected the ship's intended market. A short vernissage cruise to Greece and Croatia followed on 3 March, and her official inaugural voyage was a 53-day positioning cruise from Trieste to Tokyo, after which she took up year-round homeporting at Shanghai from 18 May 2019.
Her second naming came after her transfer: renamed Carnival Venezia at a handover ceremony on 22 March 2023, she was christened for Carnival at New York on 14 June 2023 by her godfather, the comedian Jay Leno, having begun Carnival operations on 29 May 2023 with a transatlantic crossing from Barcelona.
Career by operator
| Years | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2019–2023 | Costa Venezia | Costa Cruises |
| 2023–present | Carnival Venezia | Carnival Cruise Line |
For Costa, her Shanghai career was cut short by the pandemic, and after a long period of inactivity she returned to service from Istanbul in the Mediterranean in May 2022, ending Costa service on 1 December 2022. The transfer had been announced on 22 June 2022, covering both Venezia and her sister Costa Firenze under the "Costa by Carnival" concept. In March 2023 she entered the Navantia yard at Cádiz for refit and rebranding; she joined the Carnival fleet formally on 22 March 2023, her registry moving from Genoa to Nassau, and left the yard in late May for her Carnival debut.
Onboard character
No Carnival ship looks less like one, by design. Venezia was styled as a floating evocation of Venice for Costa: her three-level atrium is modelled on the Piazza San Marco, complete with marble columns and a replica of the Lion of Venice; her main restaurant, Canal Grande, incorporates a gondola under a bridge; and the theatre was finished in the manner of an Italian opera house. Carnival's "Fun Italian Style" conversion deliberately preserved that character, adding Carnival venues and Italian-accented menus rather than erasing the Costa design, and she kept a Costa-yellow funnel within a hybrid livery. She was the first ship to carry the "Carnival Fun, Italian Style" slogan on her hull.
Major refits and incidents
The ship has had no major casualty or incident in the sources used for this guide. The significant events of her career are commercial rather than technical: the collapse of her intended China programme in the pandemic, her extended inactivity, and the March–May 2023 conversion at Cádiz, a rebranding refit rather than a rebuild — new livery, Carnival signage and venues, and adaptation for the American market, completed in a matter of weeks rather than the months her architecture would have required for structural change.
Sister ships and class
Her direct sister is Carnival Firenze (built as Costa Firenze, 2021), the second of the two Costa Asia ships, which followed her into the Carnival fleet in 2024; together Carnival classes them as the Venice class. As Vista-class hulls they are also close relations of Carnival Vista (2016), Carnival Horizon (2018) and Carnival Panorama (2019), and the same design underlies China's domestically built Adora Magic City.
Fate and where she is now
Carnival Venezia is in active service with Carnival Cruise Line, sailing under the "Carnival Fun Italian Style" concept as the lead ship of the Venice class — a Chinese-market Costa ship, remade as an Italian-themed American one, without ever having been structurally rebuilt.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Venezia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Venezia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vista-class_cruise_ship_(2016)