| IMO | 9236389 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 110,000 GT |
| Length | 290.2 m |
| Beam | 35.3 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 2980 |
| Service speed | 21.0 knots |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 6082 |
| Launched | 2004 |
| Maiden voyage | 2004-12-19 |
| Class | Conquest-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Carnival Cruise Line |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Carnival Valor is a Conquest-class cruise ship operated by Carnival Cruise Line, the third ship in the class after Carnival Conquest and Carnival Glory. Built by Fincantieri at Monfalcone, Italy, she was floated out on 27 March 2004 and entered service that December, becoming at the time the largest "Fun Ship" ever based at Miami. Like her sisters she is a post-Panamax, 110,000 GT ship built for high-capacity, week-long Caribbean cruising from US homeports.
Her career has been entirely with Carnival under her original name. That continuity is itself the story for most Conquest-class hulls: unlike older tonnage that passed through several owners and names, these ships were built for one operator's system — its homeports, its hotel product and its drydock cycle — and have stayed inside it. Valor's record is therefore one of deployments, refits, health inspections, charter-theme sailings and the operational incidents that punctuate any large ship's working life, rather than of sales or renamings.
Key specifications
The dataset records Carnival Valor at 110,000 GT, 290.2 metres long and 35.3 metres in beam, hull number 6082, IMO 9236389, maximum capacity 2,980 passengers and speed 21.0 knots. Her own article gives the same length and beam in imperial form — 952 feet by 116 feet — a tonnage of 110,000 GT, capacity of 2,974 passengers and crew of 1,180, with 13 decks. The small differences between the dataset maximum of 2,980 and the article's 2,974 reflect the familiar distinction in fleet tables between a rounded class capacity and the ship's particulars; both are noted here and the dataset figure is retained in the spec box.
Installed power is recorded in her article at 63,400 kW, with diesel-electric propulsion on two shafts — a different arrangement from the Azipod Spirit class that preceded her in Carnival service. Her published speed in the article is 22.5 knots, against the dataset's 21.0 knots; the dataset figure is likely a service speed and the article figure a maximum, a common source split that is logged in the batch notes rather than resolved by assertion. Crew is blank in the dataset by design; the article figure of about 1,180 is given here for scale only.
She is described in her article as a post-Panamax ship, which is the defining dimensional fact of the Conquest class: at 35.3 metres beam she could not use the original Panama Canal locks and was designed from the outset for Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf deployment.
Design and construction
Valor was built at Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the yard that built the whole Conquest class. The design repeats the class formula: a broad hull, extensive balcony superstructure, a central atrium, main show lounge forward, dining aft, and a Lido deck with pools, buffet and outdoor entertainment space. At a reported cost of US $500 million she cost the same, in headline terms, as her sister Carnival Liberty.
Float-out on 27 March 2004 began the fitting-out period alongside at Monfalcone, after which she was delivered for a December entry into service. The build sequence — steel assembly in blocks, float-out, outfitting, sea trials, delivery — was the standard Fincantieri large-cruise-ship routine by the mid-2000s, repeated across five Conquest hulls in six years. That repetition is the industrial point of the class: Carnival and Fincantieri were running a production line for 110,000 GT ships, not designing each hull from scratch.
Her interior theme, in the Joe Farcus tradition for Carnival ships of the period, drew on heroic and patriotic motifs suited to the name Valor, with public-room names referencing historic figures and episodes. The theme has been softened by later refits, as on all Farcus-era ships, but the original decorative programme is part of the ship's design history.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
Valor — valour in American spelling — sits in the Conquest class's set of martial and civic virtue names alongside Conquest, Glory, Liberty and Freedom. She was sponsored by American journalist Katie Couric and christened by her in Miami on 17 December 2004.
Her maiden voyage is recorded in the dataset as 19 December 2004, two days after the christening, when she began year-round seven-day service from Miami. Contemporary Carnival history summaries describe that debut the same way: a third 110,000-ton Conquest-class ship beginning weekly service from Miami on 19 December and becoming the largest Fun Ship ever based at that port at the time. Launch in the dataset sense is the 2004 float-out on 27 March; the December dates are naming and entry into service, and the guide keeps those three events distinct.
Career by operator
One operator, one name, for the whole hull life to date.
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2004–present | Carnival Valor | Carnival Cruise Line |
In February 2020 she hosted the ShipRocked rock-music themed charter sailing, with performers including Halestorm, Alter Bridge and Beartooth — an example of the full-ship music charter market that large Carnival ships regularly serve in winter. None of these deployments changed her ownership, name or Panama registry.
Onboard character
Valor's onboard character is the Conquest-class character: a large, informal, entertainment-dense ship designed to move nearly 3,000 guests between a show lounge, casino, multiple dining rooms, bars and an open Lido without any single space having to carry the whole evening. The Farcus-era themed decoration, the multi-deck atrium and the poolside outdoor screen concept that the class popularised are the era-defining elements. A ropes course and waterslide are among the outdoor features added or emphasised in the class's later life, but amenity lists change with every refit and are not catalogued here.
Major refits and incidents
The documented refit anchor is the April–May 2016 drydock noted above. Like her sisters, Valor has been through periodic drydocks for technical maintenance, hotel refresh and fleet-programme additions, including a further refurbishment reported in 2025 in ship databases; detail beyond the sourced 2016 work is not asserted here.
Sister ships and class
The Conquest class comprises Carnival Conquest (2002), Carnival Glory (2003), Carnival Valor (2004), Carnival Liberty (2005) and Carnival Freedom (2007), all built by Fincantieri at Monfalcone at about 110,000 GT. Valor is the middle ship of the five. The class succeeded the Spirit class in capacity terms while abandoning its Panamax flexibility, and it in turn led to the larger Dream class from 2009.
For a directory, the class context explains Valor's otherwise unremarkable career: she was built as one unit of a proven, repeatable design for a single operator, and her value has always lain in reliable capacity rather than in novelty.
Fate and where she is now
Carnival Valor remains in active Carnival Cruise Line service under her original name, IMO 9236389, status "Operating" in the dataset. No sale, lay-up, rename or retirement is recorded for the hull. Her seasonal homeport and itinerary are deliberately omitted as non-evergreen information. Her fixed historical facts — Monfalcone-built, Katie Couric-christened, Miami-debut Conquest-class ship of December 2004 — are complete as they stand.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Valor