Carnival Cruise Line Trivia
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48 free Carnival Cruise Line trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free Carnival Cruise Line trivia questions with answers. Carnival carries more passengers than any other cruise line on Earth, and this quiz is for anyone who has ever queued for a Guy's burger on the Lido deck. Forty questions cover the whole voyage: Ted Arison founding the line in 1972 with a second-hand liner called Mardi Gras, Joe Farcus and the winged whale-tail funnel, Kathie Lee Gifford's commercials, the Fantasy class, Carnival Destiny breaking the 100,000-ton barrier, the world's first non-smoking ship, the first Azipods, the Splendor and Triumph fires and the 'Poop Cruise', the LNG-powered Mardi Gras of 2021 with Bolt, the first roller coaster at sea, the Fun Italian Style ships, Half Moon Cay and the ships that call Galveston and Long Beach home. Easy questions ask where the company is headquartered and what shape its funnel is; hard ones want the Finnish yard that built Mardi Gras, the godmother of Carnival Destiny and the year the line went public. Perfect for sail-away trivia in the atrium. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the line, its parent company and its ships, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Carnival's first ship did what on its maiden voyage?
Ran aground
Ran aground leaving port, with several hundred passengers aboard: an awkward start for a one-ship line that grew into the world's largest cruise company.
Q 02Which businessman founded Carnival Cruise Line?
Ted Arison
Ted Arison, a Tel Aviv-born shipping man, started with a single second-hand liner; in 1990 he gave up his US citizenship and moved back to Israel.
Q 03Carnival's founder was a founding owner of which NBA expansion team?
Miami Heat
Miami Heat. The founder's son took control of the team in 1995 and hired Pat Riley, and three NBA championships followed.
Q 04From which company did Carnival buy its very first ship, the former liner Mardi Gras?
Canadian Pacific Line
Canadian Pacific Line had run her as the Empress of Canada between Liverpool and Canada; Carnival, short of cash, sent her cruising with almost no refit.
Q 05Carnival's logo and funnel are shaped like what?
A whale's tail
A whale's tail: the winged funnel arrived in 1982 on the first ship built for the line, and every ship built for it since has carried one.
Q 06Which was Carnival's first purpose-built ship, introduced in 1982?
Tropicale
Tropicale later had a scare of its own: a 1999 engine-room fire left it without propulsion in the Gulf of Mexico as Tropical Storm Harvey closed in.
Q 07Which TV personality fronted Carnival's ads from 1984 and christened one of its ships in 1991?
Kathie Lee Gifford
Kathie Lee Gifford sang the 1920s standard 'Ain't We Got Fun' in those ads, a national television campaign made to sell the line's 'Fun Ships'.
Q 08In 2025, Carnival Cruise Line had its headquarters in which city?
Doral, Florida
Doral, Florida, was still home in 2025, the year the company announced it would leave for a new campus in Miami-Dade's Waterford Business District in 2028.
Q 09After its 1987 share sale, Carnival first bought which Alaska cruise line?
Holland America Line
Holland America Line cost $625 million and came with Windstar's sailing ships and an Alaskan tour business, giving the Caribbean line a summer stronghold in the north.
Q 10P&O Princess had agreed to merge with which rival before Carnival's hostile bid won it instead?
Royal Caribbean
Royal Caribbean fought for the deal for a year and left with only a break-up fee, after Carnival won over P&O Princess with a richer offer.
Q 11After its 2003 merger with P&O Princess, Carnival's shares traded in New York and which other city?
London
London: Carnival clinched the deal by agreeing to a dual listing, so P&O Princess lived on as the British-listed Carnival plc alongside the New York company.
Q 12Which 1990 ship launched Carnival's eight-vessel class of near-identical 70,000-ton ships?
Fantasy
Fantasy came out of a Helsinki shipyard, and its plans were reused for seven sisters from the same yard over the next eight years.
Q 13Which 1996 Carnival ship was the first passenger vessel ever to exceed 100,000 gross tons?
Destiny
Destiny took the size record that Cunard's Queen Elizabeth had held for more than fifty years, then lost it within two years to a bigger newcomer.
Q 21Which former NBA star's fried-chicken restaurant, Big Chicken, sails aboard Carnival ships?
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal was already the line's 'Chief Fun Officer' when his first Big Chicken opened in Las Vegas in 2018, and a branch at sea was announced within weeks.
Q 22Which celebrity chef partnered with Carnival in 2011 to put his burger joint on every ship?
Guy Fieri
Guy Fieri's burgers cost passengers nothing extra: the joint began on one ship, Carnival Liberty, as a free venue and spread through the fleet refit by refit.
Q 23Which Italian city hosted the maiden voyage of Carnival Vista in May 2016?
Trieste
Fincantieri built her at Monfalcone; Miss USA Deshauna Barber christened her in New York.
Q 14Which 1998 Carnival ship was the world's first completely non-smoking cruise ship?
Paradise
Paradise sailed with 'No smoking' signs on its hull and put offenders ashore at the next port, but poor revenue ended the experiment within a few years.
Q 15Which Carnival ship was the first cruise ship fitted with Azipod propulsion, in 1998?
Elation
Elation's pods swivel to point their thrust in any direction, so it handles more nimbly than the six older sisters that kept fixed propeller shafts.
Q 16A 1998 fire aboard a Carnival ship leaving Miami for Key West started where?
The main laundry room
The main laundry room: investigators found that crew members welding there without permission had ignited lint built up in the ventilation ducts.
Q 17Which Dame christened the Carnival Legend in Harwich in 2002, needing three swings to break the bottle?
Judi Dench
Judi Dench broke the bottle at the third attempt and was covered in champagne for her trouble, a soaking one newspaper headlined 'Dame Judi Drench'.
Q 18After the 2010 Carnival Splendor fire, which US Navy aircraft carrier sent helicopters with supplies?
USS Ronald Reagan
USS Ronald Reagan's helicopters flew in rations because the fire had knocked out refrigeration as well as the engines, and the ship had to be towed to San Diego.
Q 19Which Carnival ship's 2013 engine-room fire led to what the media dubbed 'The Poop Cruise'?
Triumph
Triumph drifted for four days in the Gulf of Mexico with 3,143 passengers aboard after the fire cut power and sewage backed up; refitted, it now sails as Carnival Sunrise.
Q 20To which port was the stricken 'Poop Cruise' ship finally towed in February 2013?
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama, was not the plan: the ship was to be towed to Progreso in Mexico, but currents carried her north while she waited for seagoing tugs.
Q 24Which Grammy-winning singer and actress is the godmother of Carnival Horizon?
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah had won TV's Lip Sync Battle, which helped get her the job, and after naming the ship she took on an NFL player in its shipboard version.
Q 25What replaced the IMAX theatre on Carnival Panorama, the third Vista-class ship?
A Sky Zone trampoline park
A Sky Zone trampoline park took the cinema's place, and Carnival trailed the idea before launch with a Rose Parade float that carried trampolines of its own.
Q 26What is the name of the world's first roller coaster at sea, aboard the 2021 Mardi Gras?
Bolt
Bolt sits in the top-deck Ultimate Playground zone beside a water park, and the idea travelled: the next ship of the class was built with a Bolt of its own.
Q 27What fuel powers the Excel-class ships Mardi Gras, Celebration and Jubilee, a first for North America?
Liquefied natural gas
Liquefied natural gas is meant to make the ships cleaner than diesel-powered ones, but being first with the fuel had a price: the early ships of the design all arrived late.
Q 28At which Finnish shipyard was the 2021 Mardi Gras built?
Meyer Turku
Meyer Turku pushed a sister brand's ship back a year to fit the order in, and still handed Mardi Gras over months late, in December 2020.
Q 29On which TV game show was the name of Carnival's new flagship Mardi Gras revealed in 2018?
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune's hosts announced it as 'Carnival Mardi Gras', and the line had to clarify afterwards that the name is simply Mardi Gras.
Q 30From which Florida harbour did the 2021 Mardi Gras begin sailing in July 2021?
Port Canaveral
Port Canaveral built a new terminal for the ship, the largest project in the port's history, then waited months past her planned debut for that first sailing.