Carnival Corporation & PLC is the parent company of Carnival Cruise Line, the world's largest cruise line. It also owns other cruise lines such as Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises (Australia), Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, P&O Cruises (United Kingdom) and Cunard. With more than 20 ships in its fleet, Carnival Cruise Line is Carnival Corporation's largest line. It can be a bit confusing to try to figure out which company owns which cruise lines, so this post will answer which other cruise lines are owned by Carnival Corporation's parent company & PLC.
Carnival Corporation & PLC is the world's largest cruise line operator, carrying more than 12 million passengers a year on more than 100 cruise ships. The brand that started it all was Carnival Cruise Line, which was founded in 1972 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1987. In 1993, management decided to change the company's general name to Carnival Corporation, leaving Carnival Cruise Line as the name of the cruise line that created everything alone. Holland America Line is used by Carnival to offer first-class cruise experiences both in Europe and across the Atlantic. The line is made up of 11 cruise ships, one of the most recent being the MS Rotterdam.
The Seabourn fleet, a smaller line, currently consists of only five ships, with two ships under construction, Seabourn Venture and Seabourn Pursuit. Seabourn is still known as an ultra-luxury small-ship cruise line and consistently receives praise from travel publications such as Conde Nast Traveler and Travel & Leisure. Costa Cruises was founded in Italy and originally focused only on transporting cargo, mainly olives and textiles. It wasn't until the mid-20th century that Costa introduced passenger services between Europe and South America. Today, the Costa Cruises line continues to provide services mainly to the European market.
There are a dozen ships in Costa's fleet, and work is under way on another, Costa Toscana. Cunard is even older than Costa Cruises, making it Carnival's second oldest cruise line with one of the richest stories. Founded by Samuel Cunard in 1839, the Cunard Line began when Samuel received a contract to transport mail to Great Britain across the Atlantic. Together with partners in Glasgow, it expanded its services to transport mail between Liverpool, Halifax and Boston. At the time of its merger with Carnival Corporation in 2000, Carnival also acquired P&O Cruises, P&O Cruises Australia and AIDA Cruises. In total, Carnival Corporation owns nine different cruise lines, with a collection of more than 100 cruise ships. Carnival may be synonymous with its eponymous cruise line but it is much more than just that.
It has managed to amass a large collection of cruise lines that offer a variety of experiences for travelers around the world.
