Carnival Paradise Profile, Photos, Menus and More

Let me begin by offering everyone best wishes for the New Year.

To begin the new year, we have a new cruise ship profile on Beyondships - - Carnival Paradise. It is the 106^th cruise ship profile to be added to Beyondships including 20 of Carnival Cruise Lines ships.

Carnival Paradise is one of the eight Fantasy class ships in the Carnival fleet. These ships are workhorses providing an affordable cruise experience, usually on a short itinerary (i.e. less than seven days). As a result, they are well-suited for young people and young families. Several are based outside of the major cruise ship ports and provide a convenient means of cruising for people living around the ports where these ships are based.

The Fantasy class ships are not new ships. Carnival Paradise is the youngest of them and she entered service in 1998. However, these ships have been constantly upgraded over the years. I was interested to see how well Carnival has been able to adapt them to new concepts developed and first implemented on Carnival's more recent ships. To illustrate, Paradise has a Serenity adults-only relaxation section, a tasting bar, and a comedy club.

When the Fantasy class ships first entered service, they were considered quite large at 70,000 gross tons. Today, they would be considered relatively small compared to say Carnival Breeze at 130,000 gross tons. While they may not have the space for all the facilities that the Breeze has, they do offer the compensation of being relatively intimate. Also, as above, Carnival has been clever in finding ways to fit size-appropriate versions of its new ideas into the Fantasy class ships.

The Paradise is one of the few ships in the Carnival fleet to have azipod propulsion. Most of her Fantasy class sisters and the newer Carnival ships have the traditional shafts and propellers. While the azipod concept did not catch on at Carnival Cruise Lines, it is preferred by many mariners. Indeed, sister company Cunard has nothing but azipod ships and all the newer ships at Holland America are azipod ships. So much for the notion that all of the Carnival companies move in lock-step.

I found Carnival Paradise to be well-maintained and efficiently run. A teenager but still a first tier cruise ship.

Our profile of Carnival Paradise is at http://beyondships.com/CarnivalParadise-Profile.html

The multi-page photo tour of the ship begins at http://beyondships.com/CarnivalParadise-Tour-1.html

We also have a menus page http://www.beyondships2.com/carnival-paradise-menus.html and a page with daily programs and other information distributed onboard. http://www.beyondships2.com/carnival-paradise-daily-programs.html

Finally, we have a short video showing the ship getting underway. http://www.beyondships2.com/carnival-paradise-video.html