Carnival's 'The Next Course' Brings New Restaurants, Bars and Express Dining
If you sail on Carnival's existing 29-ship fleet, you can already look for adjusted dining times that suit earlier eaters and Express Dining, a shorter three-course dinner for busy evenings. If you want the new restaurants such as Emeril's Coastal Seafood or Bistro Musicale, you will need to book the Excel-class Festivale (2027) or Tropicale (2028). Longer cruises will carry extra comfort-food choices like fried chicken sandwiches and loaded mac and cheese, so check menus for your itinerary.
My read is that Carnival is using its size as a dining advantage. Fernandez says scale and food-waste reduction help fund culinary upgrades while managing costs, and the menus are guided by data from more than 100 million meals served each year. The winners are guests on the existing 29 ships, who get Express Dining and earlier dining times now rather than waiting for new hulls. The Festivale (2027) and Tropicale (2028) get the showpiece venues, such as Emeril's Coastal Seafood and a guitar-shaped bar at The Spark, so the best new dining is tied to ships that don't exist yet. The dry irony is a Mediterranean concept named Fetaccine. The "delicious, approachable, timely, consistent" mantra reads as a bet on reliability over novelty, and that suits Carnival's core customer. I would try Express Dining on my next sailing before judging the rest, and I'd hold off booking an Excel-class ship purely for the restaurants until dates firm up.