Carnival Cruise Line Celebrates Half a Million Guests

Carnival Cruise Line has marked up an impressive milestone, welcoming half a million passengers onto its Australia-based ships Carnival Spirit and Carnival Legend since its debut Down Under in 2012.

To celebrate the achievement, which took place during Carnival Spirit’s current 11-night New Caledonia cruise, Carnival arranged a special welcome for first time cruisers, the Anderson family who tipped the cruise line over the magic 500,000 number.

Briohney and Matt Anderson, both personal trainers from the Sydney suburb of Davidson, had been looking forward to their first cruise with their sons Taylor (8) and Ollie (6) but never dreamed their trip would see them sailing into the history books as Carnival’s 500,000th Australian guests.

“I’ve always wanted to do a cruise and I had heard great things about Carnival – it was the only choice for me really!” Briohney said. “The slides on Carnival Spirit caught my eye, so we didn’t look at anything else.”

Briohney said while the family was surprised, the fuss made by the Carnival crew to celebrate the half a million milestone, including a “lovely cake” and balloons, had made them feel special.

Carnival Cruise Line Vice President Australasia Jennifer Vandekreeke said reaching the landmark less than four years after the cruise line’s local debut was testament to the line’s growing popularity among Australian cruisers, as well as the role of local travel agents.

“Over the last few years we’ve developed strong and supportive partnerships with the travel agent community here in Australia,” Ms Vandekreeke said.

“They embraced our free-spirited, fun-loving ethos right from the beginning, so they have played a big part in helping us reach this great milestone.”