| IMO | 9172648 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 101,509 GT |
| Length | 272.82 m |
| Beam | 35.3 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 2764 |
| Service speed | 21.0 knots |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 6045 |
| Launched | 2000 |
| Maiden voyage | 2000-10-15 |
| Class | Destiny-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Carnival Cruise Line |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Carnival Radiance is not a new ship, whatever her 2021 debut date suggests. She is the former Carnival Victory, a Destiny-class ship of 2000, rebuilt so extensively in a $200 million refit that Carnival gave her a new name — the third and final ship to go through this transformation programme, following Carnival Destiny into Carnival Sunshine and Carnival Triumph into Carnival Sunrise. Carnival now groups the three rebuilt ships as its Sunshine class.
As Victory, she was the third ship of the Destiny class, the class that had made cruising history in 1996 when Carnival Destiny became the first passenger ship ever built exceeding 100,000 GT. At her debut in 2000 she was among the largest cruise ships in the world.
Key specifications
The dataset records the ship at 101,509 GT, 272.82 m long and 35.3 m in the beam, with a maximum capacity of 2,764 passengers and a speed of 21.0 knots. Post-refit published figures give her 1,492 guest staterooms and a crew of about 1,108. Her diesel-electric plant drives two controllable-pitch propellers.
The figures tell the ship's double story: the hull, tonnage and machinery are those of a 2000 Destiny-class vessel, while the accommodation and public spaces above that hull are substantially the product of the 2020–21 rebuild.
Design and construction
The ship was ordered by Carnival in 1997 and built by Fincantieri at its Monfalcone yard in north-east Italy, yard number 6045. She was launched on 31 December 1998 — the dataset's 2000 launch year is the year she entered service — and christened by Mary Frank, wife of Carnival's then vice-chairman Howard Frank.
The Destiny class was Carnival's breakthrough design of the 1990s: the first cruise ships over 100,000 GT, arranged around a soaring multi-deck atrium with glass elevators and a show lounge stacked over three decks. As the third of the three sisters, Victory repeated a proven design rather than innovating on it, and she was delivered into a fleet where her class defined what a big cruise ship was.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She entered service as Carnival Victory, sailing her maiden voyage on 15 October 2000, the date recorded in the dataset. Her second naming came twenty-one years later: she was officially renamed Carnival Radiance in September 2021, while still in the shipyard in Spain, and was christened under the new name at Long Beach, California, on 12 December 2021 by her godmother Lucille O'Neal, mother of Carnival brand ambassador Shaquille O'Neal. She began sailing as Radiance the following day, 13 December 2021, on a four-day inaugural cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada.
Career by operator
The ship has served a single operator under two names:
| Years | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2000–2021 | Carnival Victory | Carnival Cruise Line |
| 2021–present | Carnival Radiance | Carnival Cruise Line |
As Victory she spent most of two decades on Caribbean itineraries, based principally at Miami — the standard employment for a big Carnival ship of her generation. Her final sailing as Victory ended in early March 2020, days before the pandemic shut cruising down, and she sailed for Spain on 4 March 2020 to begin a refit that the pandemic then stretched from a planned six weeks into a nineteen-month rebuild. As Radiance she was assigned to the US West Coast, repositioning from Cádiz through the Panama Canal to Long Beach in autumn 2021.
Onboard character
The original Victory embodied Carnival's late-1990s house style: the Destiny class's nine-deck atrium with its glass elevators, a three-deck-high show lounge seating around 1,500, and themed interior decoration of the exuberant kind Carnival was then known for.
The rebuild systematically replaced that character. Carnival describes the Sunshine-class transformations as bow-to-stern: public areas were reconfigured and rebuilt to the line's current design standard, additional balcony cabins were created including on the Lido deck, and the ship received the new blue hull livery first seen on Mardi Gras. What survived intact was the Destiny-class skeleton — hull, atrium volume and general arrangement — inside an effectively new ship. That is precisely why Carnival judged a new name justified: Radiance is a 2000 hull wearing a 2021 ship.
Major refits and incidents
The 2020–21 refit dominates this ship's record. Announced in October 2018 as the final phase of Carnival's fleet renovation programme, the $200 million drydock at the Navantia yard in Cádiz, Spain, was due to begin in March 2020. The pandemic paused work at the yard and the project slipped by more than a year. The ship was renamed in September 2021, left Cádiz in mid-October, and the refit was completed that month at a reported cost of $200 million — against an original build cost of about $410 million for the ship as Victory.
No comparably major incident marks her years as Victory in the sources used for this guide; her career before 2020 was routine Caribbean service, ended not by casualty but by the industry-wide pandemic shutdown that folded directly into her rebuild.
Sister ships and class
Her Destiny-class sisters are Carnival Sunshine (1996, built as Carnival Destiny) and Carnival Sunrise (1999, built as Carnival Triumph), both rebuilt and renamed on the same model and now marketed with her as the Sunshine class. The wider design family also includes two near-sisters built for Costa, Costa Fortuna and Costa Magica (2003–04).
Fate and where she is now
Carnival Radiance is in active service with Carnival Cruise Line. The last of the three Destiny-class transformations, she is expected to give her 2000 hull a substantially extended career — the entire economic point of a $200 million rebuild on a ship that cost not much more than twice that to build new.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Victory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny-class_cruise_ship, https://www.bairdmaritime.com/passenger/cruise/vessel-refit-carnival-radiance-carnival-cruise-lines-third-destiny-class-ship-rejoins-fleet-following-bow-to-stern-upgrades