Carnival Destiny, the 1996-built 101,353 gross ton cruise liner of Carnival Cruise Lines, will undergo an extensive refit in early 2013 that will involve both outer decks and indoor spaces on board the ship. The dry docking itself is scheduled to take over a month.

The Lido deck is to be completely refurbished and as part of this the magrodome in the stern of the vessel will be removed. The space here will be occupied by new restaurants, Camp Carnival and the WaterWorks with water slide will be relocated from the front of the ship to the aft. The WaterWorks will be upgraded and it will be an evolution of that on the Fantasy class of the company: a pool with two parts will be built, whikle a third pool will be added as well. On the software side, the youth programme at Camp Carnival will also be upgraded.

Carnival Destiny is now 15 years old and it was the first cruise ship in excess of 100,000 gross tons in size, and it is the "mother" to many ships that have followed – such as the sister ships Carnival Triumph, and Carnival Victory, that followed in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Both of these were built with an additional deck. The Conquest class of Carnival Cruise Lines and the Concordia class vessels of sister company Costa Crociere are developments of Carnival Destiny’s deign.

Indoors, an opening in the middle of the two deck high Galaxy dining room on decks 3 and 4 will be closed and a steak house plus an Italian restaurant will be built in the area on deck 4. There will be a charge for dining in both of these and passengers can have their dinner any time during the opening hours of the restaurants. 

On the lower level of the Galaxy dining room, deck 3 meals will be served on the basis of the Your Time dining concept of the company.

All cabins will receive a facelift and the entire spa area will be modernized as well.

When a ship reaches 15 years of age, it has come to the midpoint of its expected life cycle and in many cases ships will be completely refitted at this point. This is to keep up with requirements of the market that has chaned in that time. Consequently, similar refurbishment will be carried out on all of the Destiny class ships when they reach the age of 15 years: together there are three ships of this type. The refurbishment itself is an evolution of work carried out on board units of the 1990s built Fantasy-class ships.

Cruise Business Review's Christer Gorschelnik recently sailed on the Destiny and will provide his report in the August issue of Cruise Business Review.