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The Carnival Firenze, docked here in Long Beach, is one of the three ships that will be in San Diego for the Big Bay Boom. (Carnival Cruise Line)<\/p>\nNext year\u2019s Big Bay Boom, which will coincide with the nation\u2019s 250th birthday, will be getting some much-needed financial help from one of the country\u2019s largest cruise lines \u2014 Carnival.<\/p>\n
As the Port of San Diego prepares to launch its fundraising effort for what is the biggest fireworks show on the West Coast, it announced that it has secured Carnival Cruise Line as an exclusive event sponsor, which comes with a sizable financial contribution: $100,000.<\/p>\n
The sponsorship, say port officials, will go a long way toward defraying the cost of the annual show, which can run $500,000 to $700,000.<\/p>\n
While the port each year has a number of major sponsors who contribute thousands of dollars, no private company comes close to what Carnival is offering, said communications officer Job Nelson. The highest-paying sponsors, he said, typically don\u2019t exceed contributions of $20,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarnival is by far the largest private sponsor we\u2019ve ever had, so that\u2019s why they\u2019re treated a little bit differently, as an \u2018exclusive\u2019 sponsor,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re really getting ready to launch our fundraising campaign, and any time you can have that big a donor on the front end, it makes things easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically, Carnival is not among the many cruise lines that sail out of San Diego during the city\u2019s regular cruise season. But the company said it wanted to be a part of the Fourth of July event because of its plans to participate in 250th birthday celebrations on the West and East coasts.<\/p>\n
The Carnival Firenze, docked here in Long Beach, is one of the three ships that will be in San Diego for the Big Bay Boom. (Carnival Cruise Line)<\/p>\n
For the San Diego celebration, three Carnival ships that will be bound for cruises in Mexico will meet up and anchor in San Diego Bay on July 4 so that their passengers will have an opportunity to join nearly a half-million local spectators watching the Big Bay Boom, the cruise line said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarnival is known as America\u2019s cruise line, so to be included in America\u2019s 250th birthday celebration is very meaningful for us as a brand, and it\u2019s something we\u2019re planning to also do on the East Coast,\u201d said Julie Leonardi, a spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Line. \u201cAnd we know the Big Bay Boom is the largest fireworks display on the West Coast, so just partnering with San Diego allows us to celebrate the 250th in a big, visible way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time where we\u2019d be a part of something like this where our guests can watch the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting next month, fundraising efforts will officially launch, and the port is collaborating with the San Diego Fleet Week Foundation as the official nonprofit partner for raising funds. As the title sponsor, the San Diego Unified Port District will contribute a little more than $300,000, and it would like to raise an additional $300,000 from sponsorships and other donations, Nelson said.<\/p>\n
He noted that it was Carnival that had initially reached out to the port about both the sponsorship opportunity and the idea of anchoring its ships offshore for the viewing of the Big Bay Boom. While it\u2019s true that Carnival doesn\u2019t sail into or out of San Diego, its parent company, Carnival Corp., has two cruise lines that do \u2014 Holland America and Princess.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re really part of the same family, and we already have a very close relationship with the Carnival family of cruises,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cAnd because the Big Bay Boom is now such a big deal, this became bigger to them than the fact that Carnival Cruises doesn\u2019t visit San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next year\u2019s Big Bay Boom, which will coincide with the nation\u2019s 250th birthday, will be getting some much-needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,181,74,76,75,1696,5277],"class_list":{"0":"post-92693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-top-stories-sdut","14":"tag-tourism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}