Carnival Cruise Line adding Mexico short cruise capacity at Galveston, New Orleans

Seeing rising demand in the market, Carnival Cruise Line will expand capacity on sailings to Mexico out of Galveston and New Orleans in 2019.

Carnival Dream will operate four- and five-day cruises to Mexico year-round from the Port of Galveston starting on May 23, 2019, becoming the newest and largest vessel on a short cruise program from the Texas port.

Deployment of the 3,646-passenger Dream represents a 22% increase in capacity on this program.

The Dream will join the Carnival Freedom and Carnival Vista serving the port during 2019 and combined the three ships are expected to carry nearly 650,000 passengers annually.

Carnival Valor, currently serving Galveston, will shift to New Orleans for year-round four- and five-day cruises at the same time.

That will also be the largest ship on a year-round short cruise schedule from New Orleans.

Four day long weekend sailings will call at Cozumel and Progreso while some five-day cruises from Galveston include Cozumel and Costa Maya.    

"Galveston and New Orleans are two of our most popular and fastest-growing homeports and Carnival Dream and Carnival Valor provide wonderful short cruise options in these markets," said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line.