Carnival Corporation plans to have 18 LNG-capable ships by 2033. The fuel changes exhaust emissions, but methane losses remain part of the climate calculation.
Deep inside an LNG-powered cruise ship, natural gas is stored as a liquid at roughly −162°C (−260°F). That cold fuel supplies energy for propulsion and the systems that keep a large passenger vessel running.
Carnival Corporation is expanding its use. In a June 2026 fact sheet, the group listed 11 LNG cruise ships operating as of November 2025 and a plan to reach 18 LNG-capable vessels by the end of 2033. It expects those ships to represent roughly a third of its passenger capacity.
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Carnival’s plan spans several cruise brands
The numbers cover Carnival Corporation’s group, not Carnival Cruise Line alone. Its LNG fleet includes vessels operating under AIDA, Costa, P&O Cruises and Princess, as well as Carnival Cruise Line.
The group’s timeline starts with AIDAnova in 2018 and lists Carnival Festivale for 2027 and Carnival Tropicale for 2028. These future entries are scheduled additions, not ships already counted in the November 2025 operating total.
CPG has previously explored AIDAnova’s LNG propulsion and onboard engineering, an early example of the technology at cruise-ship scale.
A cleaner exhaust is only part of the accounting
Comparisons can change depending on where the measurement begins. “Tank-to-wake” covers the fuel’s use aboard a vessel. “Well-to-wake” also includes the upstream chain that produces and delivers it.
The International Maritime Organization’s lifecycle framework considers carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. It combines upstream and onboard emissions rather than treating exhaust carbon dioxide as the whole climate footprint.
For LNG, one concern is methane slip: gas that passes through an engine without being burned. Carnival’s own fact sheet acknowledges the issue. An IMO-hosted technical study also describes unburned methane as an environmental drawback of some gas-engine configurations.
Methane losses can change the result
A ship’s ability to use LNG does not, by itself, establish a particular lifecycle emissions saving. That assessment needs information about fuel production, transport, engine technology and operating conditions.
As the fleet grows, the climate outcome will depend partly on how effectively engines burn the gas and how much methane escapes before the fuel reaches the ship. Counting LNG-capable vessels alone cannot answer those questions.
