New cruise ships for 2016: Carnival Vista

Six major cruise lines that market to North Americans are rolling out new ships this year. Here, Paste BN profiles one of the new offerings: Carnival Vista. For information on the year's other new vessels, click HERE to return to the main page of our Guide to the New Cruise Ships of 2016.

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CARNIVAL VISTA

Line: Carnival

Maiden voyage: May 1

Home ports: Barcelona, Athens, Miami

Size (in tons): 133,500

Passengers: 3,954

The buzz: Carnival's first new ship since 2012 will be its bigger ever but only by a tad. At 133,500 tons, the vessel will be about 4% larger than the four-year-old Carnival Breeze, on which its design is based and with which it shares many features.

New on the Carnival Vista will be an 800-foot-long sky ride around the top deck and an IMAX Theater -- both firsts for the industry. The ship also will have a pub with a working brewery on site -- a first for a line catering to North Americans (click through the carousel above for artist's drawings of these and other new features planned for the Carnival Vista).

Among other notable new features: A record size, 455-foot-long water tube attraction that will be part of the largest water park in the Carnival fleet. Passengers will be able to ride it on inflatable rafts.

Itineraries: An initial season of Europe cruises followed by six- and eight-night Caribbean cruises out of Miami. The six-night cruises will feature calls at Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and Cozumel, Mexico. The eight-night cruises will vary between several itineraries that stop in such islands as Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, Grand Turk, St. Kitts and St. Maarten.

Information: 800-764-7419; carnival.com.

For a deck-by-deck look at an existing Carnival vessel, click through the carousel below.