Carnival Cruise Lines to pull out of San Diego

Industry giant Carnival Cruise Lines is to pull out of San Diego effective early 2012.

Carnival Spirit’s final sailing out of San Diego will take place in April 2012. Carnival Spokesman Vance Gulliksen has said the line will not replace its last remaining ship in the city when the Spirit moves to Australia in 2012. The line also moved the Carnival Elation out of San Diego last year, but Carnival is not the only line repositioning, Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas is also leaving the region later this month.

Gulliksen said" All San Diego cruises through April 2012 will operate as scheduled, we do not currently have plans to replace the Carnival Spirit in San Diego due to the weaker relative financial performance for that program at present, However, we will consider basing a ship in San Diego in the future depending on market conditions and based on our very strong relationship with the Port of San Diego."

Gulliksen says that while Carnival has yet to announce its plans for Alaska in 2012 the line is "committed to maintaining our Alaska program in 2013 and beyond ... we are in the process of identifying which ship will operate our Alaska cruises."