Carnival gives construction update on Mardi Gras

Carnival Cruise's New build the Mardi Gras.

Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras is on schedule for a February 2021 debut, the line said on Monday.

Photos from the Meyer Turku shipyard in Turku, Finland, where the vessel is under construction, show the suspended track for the Bolt rollercoaster has been installed. The track will eventually encircle the ship’s upper decks and offer passengers a ride on the first rollercoaster at sea, with views from 187 feet above the water. 

The ship’s 2,600-plus cabins (including 180 suites) have been built and interiors are being outfitted. There are 11 stateroom categories.

The 5,282-passenger Mardi Gras will be Carnival’s largest ship and powered by liquefied natural gas. It will have six themed zones that include dining, beverage and entertainment options, including restaurants from Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri and Shaquille O’Neal. The 21-deck vessel will feature the Grand Central atrium with three-deck-high windows overlooking the sea.

The ship has twice been delayed. Last December, Carnival postponed the ship’s debut from Aug. 31 to Nov. 14 because of a construction delay at the shipyard in Finland. More recently, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the line rescheduled its maiden cruise until Feb. 6, 2021.  The ship will sail out of Florida’s Port Canaveral.

Meyer Turku Expanding and Hiring

With an order book stretching into 2024, Finnish shipyard Meyer Turku is investing €200 million in infrastructure improvements, new technologies, an expanded design team, and a sustained staffing ramp up for at least the next five years, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

A new 120-meter crane looms over the shipbuilder’s drydock, where crews are assembling TUI Cruises’ Mein Schiff 2 ahead of a 2019 delivery.

When the big blue crane goes online this summer, it will be able to lift 1,200 tons — twice that of the yard’s current lifter. 

Pieces of Costa’s Smeralda sit in open-sided warehouses within earshot of construction for new steel cutting lines. Half of a 500-meter hall is ripped apart while the new technology is installed.

Crews in blue coveralls craft steel sheets for Smeralda’s superstructure in the other side of the hall. When the plasma-cutting robots are ready the crews will move over and this side will be ripped up. There’s a joke around the yard that shipbuilding has gotten much easier: Robots do all the work while people are simply there to make them comfortable.

That’s far from true, of course. There’s plenty of people work to be done. There were some grumbles when the machines took over obvious jobs — ten men sandblasting is now two pushing buttons to start and stop their mechanical colleagues — but most humans are being retrained for other, more engaging work. Furthermore, Meyer Turku is on a hiring tear, looking to grow their in-house staff of around 1,900 to 4,000, said Tapani Mylly, the yard’s communications manager. It’s not an easy task as the working language at Meyer Turku is Finnish, one of the world’s less common tongues.

German shipbuilder Meyer Werft bought the facility from struggling Korean-owner STX Finland in 2014, acquiring 100 percent ownership a year later. With seven generations of shipbuilding know how the Meyer family has turned Turku’s fortune’s around considerably. “The previous owner was not interested in making investments,” Mylly said. “A family-owned company is able to make decisions very fast — around the breakfast table. ... When decisions need to be made there is no need to contact Korea.”

The yard is also adding steel treatment facilities, more panel lines and storage areas, further IT and automation, and enhanced in-house design capabilities to reduce reliance on subcontractors. That said, about 800 subcontractor companies work on each ship — so many that the city of Turku is considering zoning an industrial park outside the shipyard for them.

If it’s built, Meyer Turku CEO Jan Meyer would see his subcontractors each day when bicycling into work from the city centre.

STX Finland shipyard to be sold

By Jerry Limone

German shipbuilder Meyer Werft and the Finnish government have agreed to acquire STX Finland from South Korea-based STX Corp.

Meyer Werft will buy a 70% stake, the Finnish government 30%. The acquisition is subject to clearance by antitrust authorities and banks.

STX Finland has a shipyard in Turku; a shipyard in Rauma was sold to the Finnish town earlier this year. The plan is to rename the company Meyer Turku Shipyard.

The Turku yard built the Mein Schiff 3, a TUI Cruises ship that entered service in June. STX Finland is currently constructing the Mein Schiff 4, and TUI Cruises this week reached a deal for two more ships of the same class to be constructed at the Turku yard.

STX also has built many ships for the North American market, including Royal Caribbean's Oasis and Allure of the Seas.

Meyer Werft’s Papenburg yard built Celebrity’s Solstice-class and Norwegian Cruise Line’s Breakaway-class ships. The yard is constructing Norwegian’s Breakaway Plus and Royal Caribbean’s Quantum-class vessels.

Meyer Werft combines forces with STX Finland - and confirms my ship 5 and 6

Meyer Werft combines forces with STX Finland - and confirms my ship 5 and 6

The Meyer Werft is combining forces with STX Finland: After numerous talks on closer cooperation with the cruise shipyard STX Finland in Turku now a stake in Papenburg shipbuilders agreed.

 

With its 70% share the Meyer Werft takes over the operational management of the Finnish shipyard. In Finland, currently about 1300 directly employed people work at the cruise ship Mein Schiff 4 for the German shipping company TUI Cruises.

 

The Hamburg shipping company TUI Cruises, a joint venture between TUI and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.. (RCCL), now announced two more ships of this class also has to be ordered (My ship 5 & 6) in Turku. STX Finland is a proven specialist for cruise ships and a shipyard with very high technological know-how. 
Positive effects are given by a higher flexibility to the customers.

 

Even with a future even stronger, common approach in the area of ​​research and development in the cruise market, and mutual learning among the workflows positive synergies are possible. "We are strengthening all sites equally.Positive effects are given by a higher flexibility to the customers.

 

Even with a future even stronger common approach in the area of ​​research and development in the cruise market, and mutual learning among the workflows positive synergies are possible. A staff reduction in Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or in Finland are not an issue, "says CEO Dr. Jan Meyer.

 

With the Land a contract to secure sites in Papenburg is even being discussed. This makes it very clear that it is not about a shift from capacity, but to a significant strengthening of the bundled competence in the European cruise industry. The acquisition is currently subject to confirmation by the participating financial institutions as well as the approval of the Federal Cartel Office.

Thin order books for cruise shipbuilders

By Tom Stieghorst

The slowdown in new cruise ship orders is starting to bring consequences for the shipyards.

Two of the yards that churn out big cruise ships are on the market, according to a spokesman for STX Corp., the Korean shipping conglomerate that owns them.

A downturn in the shipbuilding and shipping sectors has left STX heavily in debt, and a spokesman said it plans to pare its focus to domestic shipbuilding by divesting overseas assets.
In 2008, when STX acquired yards in Saint Nazaire, France and Turku, Finland, the cruise industry was already putting the brakes on its headlong construction of ships. The surge that culminated with delivery of the $1 billion Oasis and Allure of the Seas ships left the industry with enough berth supply that it was difficult to keep prices moving upwards.

Cruise chiefs since then have hewn to a strategy of measured capacity growth. Carnival Corp., for example, has said it plans to order only two to three ships across its 10 major brands each year. The result for shipyards is that they compete for fewer, larger ship contracts than in the past, raising the stakes for each order.

One recent example involved a third copy of the Oasis-class sought by Royal Caribbean International. First crack went to the STX Finland yard that built the Oasis and the Allure, but when the desired level of financing guarantees wasn’t forthcoming from the Finnish government, Royal instead turned to STX France.

As a result, the Finnish shipyard’s order book has just two cruise ships in it for delivery in 2014 and 2015. The Finnish government has already agreed to buy the Turku shipyard site from STX.  Further restructuring may be coming in the second half of the year, STX says.

Germany's Meyer Werft has four ships in the pipeline, including Norwegian Getaway and Quantum of the Seas. In Italy, Fincantieri has seven, including Regal Princess and Costa Diadema.

In 1989, after the Finnish shipyard fell into bankruptcy, Carnival Corp. had to step in and buy part of it to assure completion of the Fantasy and Ecstasy ships.  Carnival sold the stake two years later.

No one knows if that kind of rescue might be needed again. But until cruise lines step up the pace of new orders, European ship builders are going to have to be creative and flexible to stay in the game.

By Tom Stieghorst

Royal Caribbean orders third Oasis ship from STX France

Royal Caribbean finalized a long negotiation by ordering a third ship in the 5,400-passenger Oasis class from the STX France shipyard.

The ship will be the same size as the Oasis and Allure of the Seas, and is intended for delivery in mid-2016.

Royal Caribbean had been negotiating with STX Finland, but financial support from the Finnish government apparently could not be worked out.

Royal Caribbean did not divulge the cost of the new ship. It said its capital spending for the next few years would be $1.3 billion in 2012, $700 million in 2013, $1.2 billion in 2014, $1.2 billion in 2015 and $1.3 billion in 2016, when the third Oasis ship is scheduled to be delivered.

When Royal Caribbean confirmed in November that it was negotiating for a third Oasis-class vessel, it said the price per berth would be less than the original two ships.

Royal Caribbean has a one-year option to build a fourth Oasis-class ship from STX France.

The contract with STX France includes the transfer of Pullmantur's Atlantic Star as part of the consideration.