Travel + Leisure Readers Rank Seabourn #1 In Annual World’s Best Awards

Carnival Cruise Line announced today that it has an agreement with the city of New Orleans and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide Carnival Glory for first responders housing through Sept. 18.

Related to this announcement, Carnival will cancel Glory’s cruise scheduled to depart on Sept. 12 and will plan to restart its guest operations with Carnival Glory from New Orleans on Sunday, Sept. 19.  Carnival had already canceled the Sept. 5 departure for Carnival Glory.

Carnival Glory arrived at the Port of New Orleans on Friday and underwent a required U.S. Coast Guard inspection.  The ship began provisioning food, water, and materials to prepare for up to 2,600 hospital workers, first responders, city and utility workers, and other emergency personnel to join the ship. The ship will stay in port and serve as emergency housing for frontline workers directly involved in the city’s infrastructure recovery and healthcare needs.

“While we want to provide the city of New Orleans with an economic boost by restarting guest operations, we want to first provide this critical housing support to address emergency needs and to get power restored to the region,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line.  “We appreciate the understanding of our guests, who we know love New Orleans as much as we do.”

Added Brandy D. Christian, President and CEO of Port NOLA, and CEO of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, “Port NOLA appreciates Carnival’s deployment of Carnival Glory to New Orleans. Her berths will accommodate the hardworking first responders and essential personnel working on storm recovery efforts in our region.  Port NOLA, our Federal, state, and local partner agencies all support those who are quickly restoring critical infrastructure in the city and helping to get cargo moving again.”

World’s Best Awards

On another side Seabourn, the ultra-luxury ocean and expedition cruise line have been named the top cruise line for 2021 by the readers of Travel + Leisure in the magazine’s annual World’s Best Awards. The brand won top honors in the ocean cruise line category for ships that carry 600 to 2,199 guests.

Seabourn was also awarded as a top choice for ocean cruise ships that carry 250 to 599 passengers, meaning the entire Seabourn fleet has been recognized in this year’s competition. The brand was also recognized as a World’s Best Awards Hall of Fame honoree in both categories, a designation that is bestowed on brands that have been voted onto specific World’s Best Awards lists for the past 10 years (consecutive).

The Travel + Leisure World’s Best honor comes two months after two Seabourn ships returned to service – Seabourn Ovation in Greece and Seabourn Odyssey in the southern Caribbean. The rest of the fleet is expected to return to service in spring/summer 2022.