Mardi Gras Déjà Vu?

The ships couldn’t be more different, but the return of the Mardi Gras name to Carnival’s fleet may just bring revolution and renaissance to the line and industry all the same.

Who could have possibly known that when the original Mardi Gras embarked on March 11, 1972, it and its sister-ships would revolutionize the onboard experience, propel an upstart line into a cruising behemoth, perfect the paradise-probing possibilities the world over, and basically change everything this planet knows and loves about 71 percent of its surface?

Who could have known, you ask? Probably not those aboard the maiden voyage, because shortly after it sailed away, Mardi Gras ran aground.

Despite that immediate tumble out of the gates, Mardi Gras truly did send the cruise industry on a trajectory no one could have imagined, all the more poetic as Carnival’s newest ship, also named Mardi Gras, is facing unforeseen hurdles of its own as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to delay its inaugural cruise. But just as the industry boomed once Mardi Gras escaped that sandbar in the ’70s, the sky is the limit on the new Mardi Gras and the industry waiting with bated breath to welcome it.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS