Carnival Cruise Line christened the new Carnival Firenze on Wednesday at its new home, the Long Beach Cruise Terminal.
Hollywood actor Jonathan Bennett served as the ship's godfather, and he and Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy celebrated all things Italian with the help of a Broadway star, a Puccini aria, and a Catholic priest who jumped on stage to impart a blessing.
The Carnival Fun Italian Style, with a capacity for 5,000 passengers, sails year-round from the Port of Long Beach, capitalizing on the popularity of Carnival cruises by adding significant capacity and joining the two Carnival ships currently sailing year-round: the Carnival Panorama, with a capacity for 5,100 passengers, and the Carnival Radiance, with a capacity for nearly 4,000 passengers.
Launched just before the summer travel season, and amid the growing popularity of cruise vacations, Carnival Firenze is part of an expansion that has added five ships to the Carnival fleet in the last 18 months. Next year, Carnival will embark more than 750,000 guests from Long Beach on over 200 sailings.
“We transport more guests than any other cruise line from California, and now this ship gives us the opportunity to offer more fun to more people sailing from Long Beach,” said Duffy. “The recipe that combines this ship’s beautiful Italian theming with the familiar hospitality of our friendly crew is, in a word, perfect!”
Bennett was named an honorary Italian during the fun-filled evening, which included a performance of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” by Carnival’s Playlist Productions cast, an Italian blessing by Father Charbel Grbavac of Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, and culminated with a performance by Leslie Kritzer, Bennett’s co-star in the recent Broadway revival of “Spamalot”.
Like its sister ship Carnival Venezia, the ship features new concepts and experiences that add a touch of Italian style to Carnival staples for guests to enjoy.
Carnival Firenze, however, is the first ship in the fleet to incorporate the new technology and leverage artificial intelligence to create optimal route guides that save energy on every trip.
The ship's captain and officers will be the first to use this updated travel efficiency system, before the cruise line begins rolling it out across the fleet later this year.
The ship is also the latest in the Carnival fleet to use electrical power on land and joins Carnival Panorama and Carnival Radiance in connecting to the electrical grid while docked in Long Beach instead of running its engines.
The Carnival Firenze has just completed a 49-day dry dock in Cadiz, Spain, in which the features of the Carnival Fun Italian Style into the ship's design.
Among the ship's most notable new features is the specialty restaurant Il Viaggio, which in Italian means "The Journey," a very fitting name since its menu promises a trip through Italy via the country's rich and varied cuisine. Special programming, such as the Festa Italiana, a "street party" on the upper deck, reinforces the Italian theme.
The ship will sail on itineraries of varying lengths, with cruises of three to seven days through Baja Mexico and the Mexican Riviera, on sale now until spring 2026.
It will set sail on a seven-day cruise to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán and Cabo San Lucas on Thursday afternoon.
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