Carnival Operates out of the Limelight But in the Money

If you blinked, you might have missed it: Carnival Cruise Lines this month christened the Carnival Dream, its newest and largest ship, in a New York ceremony that was subdued yet unmistakably Carnival.

Despite the presence of the Dream’s godmother, Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden, and although the ship offered a twist on christening traditions by having a 9-year-old girl name its water slide, the Dream’s arrival was accompanied by nothing close to the level of hoopla that has surrounded other ships debuting this year and next.

It’s not easy to compete with Royal Caribbean International’s 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas, the largest and most expensive cruise ship ever built. The Oasis debuted only a week after the Dream, complete with coverage on “Good Morning America.”

And Norwegian Cruise Line’s upcoming, 4,200-passenger Norwegian Epic has become as talked about for the features it won’t have (no main dining room) as for such innovations as cabins with curved walls.

Even the other Dream, the one being built by Disney and slated to debut in 2011, has managed to steal headlines this fall with a four-deck-high water coaster and virtual portholes in its inside cabins.

The company has remained true to its core strategy: building ships that it can fill at low prices. It’s a strategy that the line’s CEO, Gerry Cahill, said has left Carnival in a better financial position than most of its competitors right now.

Calling 2009 “a challenging year in the travel industry and the cruise industry,” Cahill said: “We fared better than probably just about everyone in North America. All of a sudden, consumers are in love with value, even the rich. That has played to our strength.

By keeping its building costs down, Carnival has avoided some of the headlines that NCL and Royal Caribbean would rather not have had regarding concerns on the part of investors and analysts about financing their shipbuilding.

But as a comparison of ticket prices demonstrates, the Dream does not command the prices that the Oasis does, and it possibly never will. Looking at each ship’s Jan. 9 departures, an inside cabin on the Dream starts at $729; on the Oasis, prices begin at $1,229.