Carnival Will Spend Over $300M to Make Ships More Dependable and Regain Client Trust

In the aftermath of their numerous disasters over the past couple of years, Carnival Cruise Lines realized that to regain the trust of their cliental, they needed to make their vessels safe and to do that, they will end up spending more than $300 million to upgrade its ships to prevent a repeat of what happened on the Triumph and the Concordia.

"The fleet-wide overhaul at the world's largest cruise operator will include a significant enhancement of emergency power capabilities on all 24 Carnival vessels as well as changes that will add more redundancy to operating systems, the line announced today, via press release.

This includes new fire safety technology.

"The actions by Carnival Cruise Lines will expand the availability of hotel services for the comfort of its guests in the rare instance of a shipboard event that involves the loss of main power," Carnival president and CEO Gerry Cahill said in a statement accompanying the announcement. "In addition, the plan will reinforce key shipboard operating systems to further prevent a potential loss of primary power," reported USA Today.

The want to fix these issues comes two months after an engine room fire knocked out the Carnival Triumph's main power as it was sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving the 2,758-passenger ship dead in the water.

"The improvement plan is a result of an operational review begun immediately after the Feb. 10 fire and overseen by its parent company, Carnival Corp. The parent company also will be making changes to some ships at its other brands, which include Princess Cruises, Holland America, Seabourn and Cunard," according to today's announcement.

However, Cahill wants his potential and returning passengers to know that the ship's improvements have nothing to do with making an unsafe ship safe--the ships have always been safe.

"It is not a safety issue. Carnival always will operate ships that are entirely safe," Cahill says. Instead, the overhaul is about making sure passengers never have to experience the uncomfortable conditions that they experienced on the Carnival Triumph, he said, to USA Today.