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Carnival Cruise Line Announces They Will Stop Sailing to Europe in 2014

Posted May 15, 2013
Carnival Cruise Lines recently announced that they will not sail in Europe for 2014, all ships will depart from U.S. homeports.

This is due, Carnival says, to the fact that a majority of their guests come from North America and increasing trans-Atlantic airfares have hurt demand.

"We anticipate that airfares to Europe will remain high, and we believe our North American passengers will continue to prefer more affordable vacation options closer to home as we move into next year," Carnival says in a statement. "Therefore we have decided to keep ships in North America during this period rather than place capacity in Europe in 2014."

This summer Carnival has two ships operating in Europe: the 2,124-passenger Carnival Legend and the 3,006-passenger Carnival Sunshine that recently went under a massive renovation.

Carnival's 2014 itineraries have yet to be released but the Carnival Sunshine is scheduled sail to the Caribbean out of New Orleans. Details on where the Carnival Legend will go next summer will be announced at a later date. Carnival Cruise Line did state that they hope to return to Europe in 2015.

This statement from Carnival comes not long after Royal Caribbean's announcement that in 2014 it would send seven ships to Europe in 2014, down from nine this year and eleven in 2012.