Carnival Cruise Line was started in 1972 by Ted Arison and Meshulam Riklis, and by 1974 it was so deep in debt that Riklis sold his stake to Arison for $1. Arison restructured, and in the early 1980s the company commissioned its first new ship, the Tropicale, followed by the Holiday, Jubilee and Celebration. A 1987 IPO selling 20 percent of the stock raised about $400 million, which Carnival spent buying heritage lines: Holland America, rooted in Rotterdam in 1871; Costa, an Italian cargo firm from 1854; and Cunard, founded in 1840. A 1993 holding company structure kept each brand separate, and in the early 2000s Carnival took P&O Princess Cruises from Royal Caribbean with a hostile bid, then kept it as a dual-listed company in London for 23 years.
By its 2023 restructuring Carnival ran nine brands and 93 ships, plus private destinations such as Half Moon Cay, Amber Cove and Celebration Key on Grand Bahama. The episode also covers its failures: the Costa Concordia grounding off Tuscany in January 2012, which killed 32 people and sent the captain to prison for 16 years, and repeated pollution cases. COVID-19 halted sailing in March 2020, revenue fell from nearly $21 billion in 2019 to $5.6 billion in 2020, and the company built a $9.5 billion cash reserve to survive. On May 7, 2026, Carnival unified its shares, delisted from London and reincorporated in Bermuda for its tax benefits.
- In 2002 Carnival pleaded guilty to falsifying records of oily bilge water dumped from six ships and paid an $18 million fine.
- Princess Cruise Lines paid a $40 million fine in 2016, then called the largest criminal penalty for intentional vessel pollution, after an engineer exposed a bypass pipe.
- Probation violations in 2019, including plastic discharges in Bahamian waters, cost another $20 million.
- In Q3 2020 Carnival reported a $2.9 billion GAAP net loss and announced plans to dispose of 18 ships.
- Its North American headquarters is moving from Doral to a new Miami-Dade campus scheduled to open in 2028.
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