The Carnival Fascination had 31,000 guests booked during the
period that Carnival Cruise Line has agreed to charter the ship to the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, CEO Arnold Donald said.
The ship is being used for hurricane relief efforts in the
U.S. Virgin Islands through mid-February.
Chartering the ship leaves Carnival without a regular
seven-day ship based in San Juan until that ship returns to service.
Donald said the charter was done at FEMA's request. "FEMA
needed the beds," for relief and disaster aid workers, he said.
The charter contract was designed to allow Carnival to
neither lose nor make money compared with the revenue it would have received by
operating cruises on the ship for the period.
Donald said he didn't know the exact value of the contract, but said "four
months of a sold-out ship is a significant amount."
Carnival is in the process of rebooking guests who had
cabins on the Fascination. "It's a lot of extra work for our team to manage
all of those guests," Donald said.
"Obviously, we're going to do everything possible to
give them the same or even an enhanced experience. We felt we could
re-accommodate our guests, that they would be understanding. There's lots of
other ships we can put them on and there are other days they can go on that
particular vessel."
Carnival chartered three of its ships for emergency housing
in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Revenue to Carnival from that
six-month agreement was $236 million.