| IMO | 9781865 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 183,858 GT |
| Length | 337.0 m |
| Beam | 42.0 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 6600 |
| Service speed | 17 knots |
| Builder | Meyer Werft |
| Hull number | S.696 |
| Launched | 2018 |
| Maiden voyage | 2018 |
| Class | Excellence-class cruise ship |
| Operator | AIDA Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
AIDAnova is the ship that changed what a large cruise ship could burn. Delivered by Meyer Werft in December 2018, she was the world's first cruise ship able to run entirely on liquefied natural gas (LNG) both at sea and in port, and at the time the largest cruise ship ever built in Germany. She is the first of Carnival Corporation's Excellence class — the shared platform that also produced ships for Costa, P&O Cruises (UK) and Carnival Cruise Line — and she remains, with her sister AIDAcosma, the largest ship in the AIDA Cruises fleet.
Her recorded tonnage varies slightly by source: the dataset gives 183,200 GT, AIDA's fleet table gives 183,858 GT, and delivery reporting commonly rounded the figure to 183,900 GT. The differences are small and are logged in the batch notes; they do not affect her standing as a roughly 183,000-ton, 337-metre ship carrying about 5,200 guests at standard occupancy and up to about 6,600 at maximum.
Key specifications
The dataset records 183,200 GT, a length of 337.0 m and a beam of 42.0 m, with a maximum capacity figure of 5,200. Her speed field is blank in the dataset; delivery-era reporting gives a service speed of about 17 knots, modest for her size and typical of the Excellence design, which trades speed for hotel capacity. She has 20 decks and 2,626 cabins in 21 categories, according to the technical reporting of her delivery.
Her machinery is the headline specification. Four Caterpillar MaK dual-fuel engines, with a total output of about 61,760 kW, can run on LNG or marine diesel, and were designed to operate on gas full-time. The LNG is stored in three tanks built by Neptun Werft — two of about 1,550 cubic metres and one of about 520 cubic metres — giving roughly ten days to two weeks of operation between bunkerings. The engine-room unit itself, a hull module about 120 m long, was built at Neptun Werft in Warnemünde and barged to Papenburg for assembly into the ship.
Design and construction
AIDAnova was built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg as yard number S.696. Externally she develops the design of the Mitsubishi-built AIDAprima and AIDAperla, with the same near-vertical bow and covered forecastle, scaled up by roughly half as much tonnage again. Internally she carries forward the AIDA signatures — Theatrium, Beach Club, Four Elements activity deck — inside a much larger hull.
Construction was modular to a degree that matched the ship's novelty. The two engine-room blocks containing the dual-fuel plant were completed at Rostock in autumn 2017 and transported through the Kiel Canal to Papenburg, where the hull was assembled around them in the covered building dock. Keel laying took place in 2017 and the completed ship was floated out on 21 August 2018. Because the LNG systems were new to everyone involved — yard, owner, class and suppliers — her delivery slipped by about a month while testing was completed, and her first planned sailings had to be cancelled or rebooked.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
AIDAnova was floated out at Papenburg on 21 August 2018 and christened at the yard ten days later, on 31 August 2018, in an open-air ceremony in front of some 25,000 spectators, combined with a concert — the first time in more than twenty years that a cruise ship had been named at Meyer Werft. In a break with single-godmother tradition, the ship was named by a family: Sonja and Asad Mirza and their two young children, with Sonja Mirza speaking the blessing.
After her October 2018 conveyance down the River Ems and sea trials in November, she was delivered at Bremerhaven on 12 December 2018. Her first guests boarded at Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 19 December 2018 for a seven-night inaugural cruise around the Canary Islands and Madeira — the postponed maiden voyage, moved from the originally planned 2 December departure because of the delayed delivery.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018–present | AIDAnova | AIDA Cruises | First Excellence-class ship; delivered 12 December 2018 |
AIDAnova has served only AIDA Cruises, in the deployment pattern AIDA planned for her from the start: Canary Islands seasons in winter and western Mediterranean seasons in summer in her early years, with northern European seasons from German ports added later. Her operational milestones are mostly about her fuel. In 2019 she became the first ship of the class to bunker LNG in the Mediterranean, supplied by Shell at Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca, the ports from which her Mediterranean season was run. She also became the testbed for further Carnival environmental technology, including a fuel-cell installation trialled aboard the ship in the early 2020s.
Onboard character
Scale is the character. AIDAnova carried the AIDA club-ship idea to a size the line had never operated: 17 restaurants and 23 bars at delivery, a redesigned Theatrium with 360-degree views and LED walls, a television studio — a first for the fleet — and the Four Elements deck with climbing garden, waterslides and a retractable roof. Her Body & Soul spa, at about 3,500 square metres over two decks, was among the largest at sea.
Yet the layout is recognisably an evolution rather than a reinvention: the same central Theatrium organising public life, the same informal open dining, the same German-language resort programme, rebuilt at Excellence-class volume. Cabin design made the same point in miniature, running to 21 categories including two-deck penthouse suites and a notably large number of single cabins — a response to the solo-traveller demand AIDA had cultivated since the Sphinx class.
Major refits and incidents
AIDAnova has had no major refit and no serious casualty in the sources used. The notable episode of her early life was pre-delivery: the postponement of her handover from the planned mid-November 2018 date to 12 December 2018 while the yard completed testing of the novel LNG plant, which forced the cancellation of her first scheduled cruises and the rescheduling of the maiden voyage to 19 December. It is a useful measure of the ship's novelty that the delay was caused not by the hull but by the fuel system the whole industry was watching. Routine drydockings since delivery are not documented in the sources consulted here.
Sister ships and class
AIDAnova is the prototype of the Excellence class, Carnival Corporation's common LNG platform built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg and Meyer Turku in Finland. Her only full sister in the same fleet is AIDAcosma (2021), identical in recorded tonnage. The same basic design, adapted to each brand, produced Costa Smeralda and Costa Toscana for Costa Cruises, Iona and Arvia for P&O Cruises (UK), and Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration and Carnival Jubilee for Carnival Cruise Line. A third AIDA ship of the class was planned for 2023 but was not built as an AIDA vessel, leaving AIDAnova and AIDAcosma as the pair that define the class in German service.
Fate and where she is now
AIDAnova remains in active service with AIDA Cruises, status "Operating" in the dataset, with no announced transfer or retirement. As the prototype LNG cruise ship she has a historical significance out of proportion to her age: every LNG-fuelled cruise ship ordered by Carnival Corporation and its competitors after 2018 was designed in the space she opened.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://maritime-executive.com/article/carnival-takes-delivery-of-first-lng-fueled-cruise-ship, https://www.marinelog.com/news/aida-cruises-takes-delivery-of-worlds-first-lng-fueled-cruise-ship/