Port Ends Great Season With Carnival Cruise Line

The Port of Dover has ended its season with Carnival Pride after the ship made 10 total sailings from the UK homeport, offering a range of European sailings through the summer months.

Thousands of passengers have sailed on the ship this season, creating amazing experiences with the cruise line’s distinctive FUN voyages to a variety of remarkable ports of call.

Dover Bids Farewell to Carnival Ship

Carnival Pride sailed away from Dover, UK for the last time on September 10, 2023, and the port has now been able to verify that the ship’s 10 sailings from the homeport have been a brilliant success. In fact, 2023 has been the port’s most successful season ever with Carnival Cruise Line.

“It’s been an amazing season with Carnival Pride. We have loved seeing her take pride of place in front of the White Cliffs week after week and her guests’ embarking on their holiday of a lifetime,” said Sonia Limbrick, Head of Cruise at the Port of Dover.

The 88,500-gross-ton, Spirit-class Carnival Pride visited diverse European ports of call during her season from Dover, including destinations in Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and more.

This year’s sailings of Carnival Pride continue the long-standing partnership between the Port of Dover and Carnival Cruise Line, a collaboration that both parties are eager to continue.

“15 years since our first visit from Carnival Splendor, I’m proud to see our brilliant relationship with Carnival reach a new level of success. We eagerly await their return in June 2024 and are already preparing more world class travel experiences for their passengers,” said Limbrick.

Carnival Pride is now spending a short autumn season offering sailings from Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy, covering top eastern Mediterranean ports in Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Montenegro, and Italy. On October 28, the ship will depart Europe on a 15-night transatlantic sailing that will bring her to Tampa, Florida to spend the winter offering Caribbean sailings before she moves to Baltimore, Maryland in April 2024.

Carnival Legend in 2024

Up next for Dover will be Carnival Legend, sister ship to Carnival Pride, scheduled to begin sailing from the UK homeport in June 2024 with a short series of longer European sailings through August.

“Carnival Pride’s sailings this season have given thousands of guests great memories to look back on, and now we are planning to create more special experiences for Carnival Legend’s deployment during our next European season in 2024,” said Sarah Beth Reno, Senior Vice President of Guest Operations at Carnival Cruise Line.

Carnival Legend will offer four 9-night sailings from Dover in 2024, all of which will be roundtrip voyages except the August 18 departure that will be a one-way trip to Rome. Three longer, 12-night cruises are also on offer, two of which will go to Iceland and the third, departing Dover on July 28, 2024, which will visit Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Scotland.

As both Spirit-class ships, Carnival Pride and Carnival Legend can each welcome 2,124 guests per cruise at double occupancy, and onboard are approximately 900 international crew members to provide the cruise line’s distinctive service.

In addition to Carnival Cruise Line, other lines that feature Dover as a port visit or homeport include TUI Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, Princess Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, and more. The port is also a leading operator for cargo and ferry traffic, handling one-third of the UK’s cargo trade with the European Union and more than 11 million passengers annually.