THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, June 11, 1996 TAG: 9606110432
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 41 lines
The demand for tickets for the overnight cruise in November on the Carnival Destiny could fill the giant ship twice, CI Travel executives said Monday.
The Norfolk-based travel agency had sold out the ship around lunchtime Friday, just a day after tickets went on sale, said Travis MacSwain, the agency's senior vice president.
When it is completed by an Italian shipyard later this year, the Carnival Destiny will be the world's largest cruise ship. The ship will take its first cruise with paying customers from Hampton Roads on Nov. 15.
The 892-foot long, 101,000-ton ship is being built for Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines at a cost of about $400 million.
CI Travel, which has offices throughout the region, was overwhelmed by orders for tickets Thursday and Friday after television and newspaper reports in Hampton Roads of the planned cruise, a spokeswoman said.
The Destiny was built to sleep 2,642 passengers in half as many rooms.
The travel agency quickly sold out the limited number of rooms it had initially ordered, MacSwain said. CI Travel had to go back to Carnival Cruise Lines to buy more blocks of rooms, he said. Subsequent tickets cost as much as $219 per person, up from $139 to $179.
The demand at CI Travel offices could have filled the initial block of rooms it had 10 times, MacSwain said. There are about 2,000 people on a waiting list.
``CI Travel is at this time looking in to see if there's any way to obtain additional space to accommodate the demand,'' MacSwain said.
The overnight cruise was a marketing move by Carnival Cruise Lines to generate excitement for its newest ship, which will regularly provide seven-day cruises out of Miami in the Caribbean Sea. Carnival is the world's largest cruise line.
In cruise-minded Hampton Roads, the sellout can be partly attributed to the all-inclusive low prices, the opportunity to gamble in the ship's casino and to companies that purchased blocks of rooms for holiday parties, MacSwain said. by CNB