UPDATE THURSDAY: I found the original source of the rumor. According to them, the deal is done. If so stay tuned to CruiseInd as we will be following this extremely closely. This is the biggest news story so far for the year.
It seems the deal was finalized last week at Cruise Shipping Miami. They were going to announce it, but then the attacks in Tunisia happened and that put a damper on things. According to the source, the deal could be announced as soon as today.
Talks of the Chinese yard have faded, and it may be that ships would be build in Europe for a Chinese line that Carnival Corp. intend to start up.
Here’s probably the craziest rumor we’ve ever reported on. Cruise Industry News is reporting that according to their sources in the Italian media, Carnival is about to place a 10 ship order that could fill their order books through 2028. The order would be at both Fincantieri and Meyer Werft [Germany or Finland] with talk of a Chinese yard involved. All ships in the order would be above the 150,000gt range and this would include more ships, and a new design, for Costa.
This would be their largest order yet. The Fantasy class was 8 ships.
This is just a rumor so far, and no one’s commenting yet.