It’s a lot of money, even for the Carnival Cruise Line.
The company is reportedly going to spend between $600 and $700 million dollars to upgrade 101 vessels across its 10 major cruise ship brands including Princess Cruises, Holland America Lines, Cunard and Costa Cruises.
The company is positioning the financial commitment as a “reliability and guest comfort” effort.
According to a CNN report, upgrading the 24 ships in its flagship Carnival line alone will cost $300 million. The total cost represents 35% to 45% of its projected profit for this year, but only about 4% of forecasted revenue.
The company claims its ships are safe even without the upgrades, but says it will be able to improve reliability of the on-board systems with the new technologies.
Carnival said the initial phase of the upgrade should be completed in the coming months, but couldn’t say when the entire upgrade will be finished.
This upgrade effort is in response to the past few months challenges that Carnival has had with its ships operating correctly from mechanical and engineering perspectives. A number of recent failures in ship operations and other operating procedures have many questioning whether Carnival has put the appropriate resources toward making its fleet of ships as safe and reliable as they are fun and enjoyable.
Numerous passengers who traveled on the Carnival cruise ships that incurred incidents at sea have file legal actions against the cruise line.
