The Carnival Liberty, a Conquest-class vessel that entered service in 2005, is known for breaking new ground.
It was the first in the Carnival Cruise Lines fleet to call at Dubrovnik, Croatia, which has emerged as a wildly popular port on Eastern Mediterranean cruises.
It was the first in the fleet to install a Seaside Theater, a huge, outdoor LED screen used for various entertainment purposes and positioned above the pool deck.
And now it’s the first to debut a half-dozen new dining and lounge spaces and one retail space, all conceived under the line’s $500 million Fun Ship 2.0 enhancement program announced earlier this fall.
For agents, the new spaces translate into selling points that the line hopes will help close prospective sales. Two dining options and four lounge areas were added to the Carnival Liberty last month, and these and other Fun Ship 2.0 features will roll out on more Carnival ships through 2015.
Guy’s Burger Joint, created in partnership with Food Network celebrity chef Guy Fieri, seems to be Carnival’s answer to “where’s the beef?”, the question posed in the classic 1984 TV commercial that entered the vernacular as a challenge to empty promises.
The beef’s been found. It’s on Lido Deck midship, where Guy’s Burger Joint was serving up more than 1,000 burgers a day on this cruise. Guests are raving about them. One enthusiast was seen devouring his fourth burger on just the third day of the sailing.
A selection of Fieri’s sauces and spicy hand-cut french fries rounded out the plates being carried away to nearby tables, as the burger joint is not so much a restaurant as a boardwalk-style counter.
The Lido Deck is home to three other Fun Ship 2.0 innovations. The Blue Iguana Cantina serves custom-made tacos and burritos, while the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar and the RedFrog Rum Bar sell exotic cocktails at their outdoor locations on either side of the main pool.
The Alchemy Bar, on Promenade Deck, was designed to look like an old-fashioned pharmacy, or apothecary, and it specializes in martinis. The theme at this indoor space is: Relief for what ails you.
The EA Sports Bar, also on the Promenade Deck, is geared to guests who don’t want to give up watching their favorite games just because they’re on vacation. Sixteen big-screen TVs form its backdrop.
The retail space, Cherry on Top, looks like a candy store but also sells gifts such as flower bouquets. It appeared to be doing a brisk business on this cruise, thanks to wide-eyed youngsters who steer their parents inside.
“We bit off a big project here,” said Lania Rittenhouse, Carnival's vice president of product development. “We want to make sure we do it well.”
Rittenhouse, who oversees long-term planning for refurbishments, detailed the Fun Ship 2.0 project during a news conference on this seven-day Western Caribbean cruise that departed Miami on Dec. 3.
The RedFrog Rum Bar, she noted, is an offshoot of the hugely popular RedFrog Pub that debuted on the Carnival Magic last spring.
“We started thinking about Fun Ship 2.0 while we were in the throes of introducing the Magic,” Rittenhouse said. “Through our research we had found that guests wanted a pub, so we created the RedFrog, and we’re building on that success with the RedFrog Rum Bar.”
She said it is much easier to add an outdoor bar to an existing ship than it is to convert a big indoor space. On the Magic, the pub is a sprawling area with ind
oor and outdoor seating.
The overall objective of Fun Ship 2.0, Rittenhouse said, is to provide “more memorable experiences while continuing to deliver value.”
Neither Guy’s Burger Joint nor the Blue Iguana Cantina charge an alternative-dining fee.
Some Fun Ship 2.0 innovations will have an impact on entertainment. The most notable is a partnership with comedian George Lopez, the line’s creative director for comedy, who’s helping Carnival source acts for a fleetwide Punchline Comedy Club.
Another partnership, with game manufacturer Hasbro, will bring a series of interactive games for children and adults to Carnival’s ships. The line is also working with the music celebrity DJ Irie, who will ramp up music presentations across the fleet and train the line’s disc jockeys.
Not all Carnival ships will receive all Fun Ship 2.0 initiatives.
“Every ship will be looked at specifically to determine which of the concepts should go onto which ships,” Rittenhouse said.
The Carnival Conquest is slated to receive several of the additions in 2012, followed by other vessels in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The Carnival Breeze, due to enter service in June, will have many of the Fun Ship 2.0 features, she said, along with more sports options and a couple of new venues not tied to Fun Ship 2.0.
Rittenhouse said the rollout of the Carnival Liberty’s new dining and drinking options has been a big success.
“We’re always asking, ‘What else can we do to make our onboard experiences more inviting?’ For the bars, we brought in expert mixologists,” she said. “There’s nothing worse than going to a bar that doesn’t have personality.”
Follow Donna Tunney on Twitter @dttravelweekly.