So, remember when the Carnival Triumph was arrested in the Port of Galveston last Saturday? Well, in the case filing the plaintiff wanted to hold the Carnival Triumph just because it is the only cruise ship in the Carnival Fleet that is owned both by Carnival Corporation and Utopia Cruises. Now this is where it gets really confusing. After tracking down articles on Google from 1999 (when the Carnival Triumph entered service) I was able to find Carnival Corporations 10-K forms from 2001 and it shows that Carnival Corporation owns Utopia Cruises Inc.
Now, Utopia Cruises Inc. is not even an active company today and for some reason only owns the Carnival Triumph in “name only.” This is the only Carnival ship that is owned by an outside company. It even says that the Triumph is owned by Utopia in the official case documents….
“Utopia Cruises, Inc., nominal owner of the MS Carnival Triumph.” “Defendant Utopia Cruises, Inc., is a foreign entity duly organized, created and existing pursuant to the laws of Panama, and at all material times was the owner of the MS Carnival Triumph.”
So why does Utopia Cruises Inc. own the Carnival Triumph, it almost feels like Carnival is either hiding something or is trying to cover something up. After hours of searching the internet for any more information on Utopia, this is all I could find. It seems this company is almost made up and for some unknown reason owns the Carnival Triumph. Now, here is the second weird thing about the Carnival Triumph. I recently got a tip from a passenger who sailed on board the Carnival Triumph on the cruise where it was arrested in Galveston. Bob Sims of Sims Family Travel emailed me a video of the registry and name painted onto the side of the Carnival Triumph. From a distance it reads “Carnival Triumph” and below that “Nassau,” but when you look closely you can see the old imprint of the word Panama underneath the word Nassau. I have highlighted the letters so that you can kinda see them better.
So I obviously continued to look up why the Triumph changed its port of registry. I went back to articles from 1999 and I found out that when the Carnival Triumph entered service in 1999, that she was actually registered in BOTH the Ports of Panama City and Nassau. Why? I have no idea. I have not been able to find any more information than that, but the point is that when she entered service she was registered under 2 ports and now she is only registered in 1. Also, besides the Fantasy Class of ships she is the only Carnival ship to be registered in Nassau. Strange. I actually contacted Carnival about this matter, but at this time they have not responded. If they do, I will make sure to post an update with their statement. So that about does it for me today, I have now been researching this matter for about 3 hours now and I will continue to search for things, but as of right now it looks like that Utopia Cruises Inc. is a fake company that own the Carnival Triumph and that the Carnival Triumph has changed registries. The Carnival Triumph truly is Carnival’s mystery ship.
-Mikey
One reply on “What Is Up With Carnival Triumph & Utopia Cruises?”
Good reporting Mikey!
Allan