New Video Series From Carnival Featuring Country Music Superstar Carrie Underwood Highlights Military Families Of Honor. Family. Fun. Initiative Benefiting Operation Homefront

MIAMI, April 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Cruise Line today released the first in a new video series featuring heartwarming meet-and-greet opportunities between seven-time GRAMMY-award winning country superstar Carrie Underwood and U.S. military families recognized through the Honor. Family. Fun. program benefiting Operation Homefront. The video can be viewed here.

In the first video, Underwood surprises the Vaughn family, whose patriarch Phillip served in the U.S. Army, at a pre-concert event in Washington, D.C., during her Storyteller Tour.  Underwood thanked Vaughn for his service to our country and invited his family, which includes his wife Jung Sun and kids Tara and Jeremy, to her special private concert for military families pierside aboard Carnival Vista in New York on Nov. 4, 2016. Carnival Cruise Director Butch Begovich then awarded the Vaughn family a free Carnival cruise.

"This initiative with Carrie and Operation Homefront has been extremely rewarding and this first video in the series featuring the Vaughn family shows how Honor. Family. Fun. is positively affecting so many people," said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. "The men and women of our military deserve our respect and admiration and we hope that Carnival's small role in their lives will show them how much we value what they do for our country," she added.

Carnival and Underwood have partnered on the year-long Honor. Family. Fun. initiative which is designed to support U.S. military families through Operation Homefront, the national nonprofit that builds strong, stable and secure military families.  

The Vaughns are among dozens of military families recognized during 10 stops on Underwood's Storyteller Tour. During the pre-concert events, military families, chosen in partnership with Operation Homefront, were treated to a personal meet-and-greet with Underwood who then invited them to her exclusive concert aboard Carnival Vista.  

"Meeting the Vaughn family was touching for me and I hope they are as excited to come to my concert in New York as I was to surprise them with the invitation," said Underwood. "This program has afforded me the opportunity to personally thank these soldiers for all that they do, and I am grateful to be a part of something so positive and rewarding."

Driving the effort to raise funds for Operation Homefront, supporters will have the opportunity to donate by clicking on the "Donate Now" button on carnival.com/HonorFamilyFun. Commemorative dog tags also are also available for purchase at merchandise stands at all The Storyteller Tour stops as well as throughout Carnival's fleet with all proceeds going to Operation Homefront.

Carnival has also launched a new shipboard military appreciation program. Each ship is hosting a special event onboard to recognize active and retired military personnel and their families and kicks off with a welcome video featuring Underwood.  The country music superstar also will join the Carnival LIVE! roster of artists in early 2017, with further details to be announced at a later date.

Carnival's most family-friendly ship, Carnival Vista, will set sail in Europe in May 2016 and make her stateside debut in New York in November before repositioning to Miami for year-round service later that month. 

About Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival, a unit of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), is "The World's Most Popular Cruise Line®" with 24 ships operating three- to 16-day voyages to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Bermuda, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.  The company currently has two new 133,500-ton ships on order--Carnival Vista, set to debut in 2016, and an as-yet-unnamed vessel scheduled to enter service in 2018.

About Operation Homefront 
A national nonprofit, Operation Homefront builds strong, stable, and secure military families so that they can thrive in the communities they have worked so hard to protect. With more than 3,200 volunteers nationwide, Operation Homefront has provided assistance to tens of thousands of military families its inception shortly after 9/11. Recognized for superior performance by leading independent charity oversight groups, 92 percent of Operation Homefront's expenditures go directly to programs that provide support to our military families. For more information, go to www.OperationHomefront.net.

About Carrie Underwood
About Carrie Underwood:  Carrie Underwood emerged from the promise of her 2005 American Idol win to become a true multi-format, multi-media superstar, spanning achievements in music, television, and film.  A seven-time GRAMMY® Award winner, she has amassed nearly 100 major honors, sold 58 million records worldwide, and recorded 23 #1 singles, 13 of which she co-wrote, with a catalog of songs that have been streamed more than 1.5 billion times worldwide.  The first female artist to be twice named the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year, Underwood was recognized as Pollstar's top female country touring artist for her headlining tours in 2008, 2010, and 2012.  Her first four studio albums, Some Hearts, Carnival Ride, Play On, and Blown Away – each certified multi-Platinum or Platinum, and each an American Music Awards winner as Country Album of the Year – tallied an incredible 38 weeks at #1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart.  In 2013, Underwood starred as Maria von Trapp in NBC's three-hour holiday blockbuster, the Emmy®-winning The Sound of Music Live!, whose airings attracted 44 million viewers.  In December of 2014, the Grand Ole Opry member released her first hits collection, Greatest Hits: Decade #1.  Billboard's best-selling hits album of 2015, the chart-topping package was certified Platinum in January of 2016, making Underwood the only country artist – and one of only six all-genre artists – to launch an album to Platinum success since the time of its release in December of 2014.  Celebrating her first 10 years of music, the collection's 25 songs included two new #1 hits co-written by Underwood: the Platinum-certified, GRAMMY-winning "Something in the Water," as well as the Gold-certified "Little Toy Guns."  In 2015, she began her third season as the voice of primetime television's #1 program, Sunday Night Football, and returned for an eighth consecutive year as co-host of the CMA Awards. Underwood's chart-topping, Gold-certified fifth studio album, Storyteller, has produced two #1 singles with "Smoke Break" and "Heartbeat."

SOURCE Carnival Cruise Line

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