Multibillionaire Micky Arison’s cruise ships cannot currently visit Bar Harbor, but that doesn’t mean the chairman of the world’s largest cruise ship operator, Carnival Corp., can’t show up on his personal luxury super yacht.
Arison’s $90 million megayacht, the Sixth Sense, has been anchored off Mount Desert Island’s coastal town since Saturday, according to VesselFinder, an online live boating database.
Arison’s visit comes as Bar Harbor navigates the latest chapter in a yearslong dispute over the town’s controversial cruise ship passenger cap, which was ruled partially unconstitutional by a federal judge in May.
Carnival’s largest cruise ships, most of which carry more than 2,000 passengers, cannot dock in Bar Harbor during July and August, the town’s peak tourist season, because of the town’s 1,000-person passenger cap. Those limitations don’t apply to the corporation’s chairman, nor his 242-foot motor yacht.
Arison, 77, whose father Ted Arison founded Carnival in 1972, has a net worth of $9.7 billion. As the company’s chief executive for more than 34 years, Arison expanded Carnival’s fleet from a couple of vessels to more than 100 ships, according to Forbes.
Arison also owns the Miami Heat, the professional basketball team his father helped establish in South Florida in 1988.
The cruise ship tycoon’s mega yacht was built in 2019 by Amels, a Dutch shipyard. The vessel, which travels at a maximum speed of 16 knots, can accommodate up to 12 guests and 19 crew members. The luxury ship has a spa, beauty salon, swimming pool, hot tub and helicopter pad, according to the yachting database YachtBuyer.
Arison left the superyacht by tender around noon on Monday. The four-deck ship, which costs approximately $9 million annually to maintain, was visible from the town pier. Arison was seen cruising in the harbor on a tender but it was not clear on Monday afternoon if he came ashore.
The latest federal ruling in the town’s four-year cruise ship battle follows ongoing, long-running arguments over Bar Harbor’s 1,000 passenger cruise ship cap. The dispute has stirred sustained controversy between local business owners who oppose the limit, and voters who twice have approved the passenger cap.
U.S. District Judge Lance Walker ruled in May that the limit was only enforceable during shoulder months in the spring and fall, when the ships have a disproportionate impact on the number of tourists in town.
In the nine months preceding April 2026, the town spent about $111,838 on legal and regulatory expenses tied to the ongoing dispute, Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith previously told the Bangor Daily News.
Arison has been at the center of several controversial moments during his time leading Carnival. In 2019, serving as Carnival’s chairman after stepping down as CEO five years prior, Arison and other senior executives reached a $20 million settlement after federal prosecutors said the cruise line was polluting the ocean, in violation of probation conditions that stemmed from a 2017 criminal conviction, according to CBS News.
Princess Cruise Lines, whose parent company is Carnival, pleaded guilty in 2017 to environmental crimes for its “deliberate dumping of oil-contaminated waste from one of its vessels and intentional acts to cover it up,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2022, Carnival pleaded guilty to a second probation violation after failing to establish an independent investigative body. Arison was named in each plea agreement.