Safety enhancements delay Carnival dry-dock and cancel two cruises

The £100 million refit of cruise ship Carnival Sunshine is to be extended by two weeks in order to incorporate safety enhancements as a result of the recent fires and power failures on other vessels in the company’s fleet.
Two Mediterranean cruises have been cancelled and the ship – formerly Carnival Destiny – will not now be back in service until May 5.
The extra work will address problems highlighted by the loss of power after a fire last month on board Carnival Triumph and the electrical shortcomings which came to light during testing of an emergency generator on Carnival Dream last week.
The first result of a wide-ranging review of operations is to provide additional back-up electrical power and to increase the scope of hotel services, from catering to bathrooms, which can run on emergency power. In addition, fire prevention, detection and suppression systems will be beefed up.
Carnival say the time required to source materials and install the improvements mean Sunshine’s dry-dock in the Fincantieri yard at Monfalcone, near Trieste, will not now be completed to the original 49-day schedule.
Similar work will be carried out on Carnival Triumph, which remains in port at Mobile, Alabama, after being towed back from a Caribbean cruise. The ship will be out of service until June 3, after the cancellation of a total of 10 cruises.
“We sincerely regret cancelling these cruises and disrupting our guests’ vacation plans,” said Gerry Cahill, Carnival Cruise Lines’ president and CEO. “We are fully committed to applying the recommendations stemming from our fleetwide review and to make whatever investments are needed despite the difficult decision to impact people’s vacations.
“Our team of experts has worked virtually around the clock to determine the best set of solutions and rapidly develop an effective implementation plan for both of these ships. Moving forward, we will have the ability to source materials and schedule improvements much more expediently, thus minimizing the scheduling impact on other vessels.
“I would like to provide continued assurances that all of our vessels have fully effective safety systems, equipment and training in place. Additionally, our ships receive regular inspections from the United States Coast Guard and other regulatory authorities. The changes we are implementing are focused primarily on improvements to better support continued power and hotel services should unexpected issues arise. In addition, we are applying new learnings and making enhancements in the area of fire suppression and extinguishing. Going forward, the review will focus on the balance of our fleet. While this process will take time, it is our highest priority and has the full support and resources of Carnival Cruise Lines and Carnival Corporation,” Cahill said.
Carnival Sunshine is scheduled to operate a series of nine and 12-day Mediterranean cruises from May 5 to October 20, 2013, round-trip from Barcelona or sailing between Barcelona and Venice. The ship will sail on a 16-day Transatlantic crossing from Barcelona to New Orleans from November 1-17, positioning the vessel for year-round seven-day Caribbean service from New Orleans.
Carnival Triumph operates year-round four and five-day Mexico cruises from Galveston, Texas.