Honolulu Blue

All's well that ends well, thanks to LLP's angels of mercy. 👼

I did a thread on this topic on the general board. No Golden Girls were mentioned, but there were some other interesting stories:

The one time I've seen a port added to my itinerary pre-cruise, it was to replace a port that was dropped. This wasn't on Princess, BTW.

I know each of them have fan clubs, perhaps including some of you. This is a rare opportunity for you to see them, hear them, and possibly interact with them. The rest of the press release is at CARNIVAL PRESIDENT CHRISTINE DUFFY AND CHIEF CULINARY OFFICER EMERIL LAGASSE TO WELCOME GUESTS ON CARNIVAL VENEZIA’S FIRST SAILING | Carnival Corporation & plc . I'll quote the first part of it as it has the details about their appearance (emphasis mine other than the headline): CARNIVAL PRESIDENT CHRISTINE DUFFY AND CHIEF CULINARY OFFICER EMERIL LAGASSE TO WELCOME GUESTS ON CARNIVAL VENEZIA’S FIRST SAILING MIAMI, March 29, 2023 – As it prepares for the debut of “Fun Italian Style,” Carnival Cruise Line announced today that its President Christine Duffy and Chief Culinary Officer Emeril Lagasse will welcome guests aboard Carnival Venezia’s first sailing departing Barcelona on May 29, 2023, and they will sail for the first part of the cruise. Guests will have the opportunity to meet and interact with them while experiencing all that Carnival’s new “Fun Italian Style” cruising has to offer. Programming highlights include a Sail Away Party and Captain’s Venetian Toast with Christine and Emeril, guest appearances on The Wave Morning Show, a special Fireside Chat, along with their participation in other events and entertainment. And of course, it wouldn’t be an Emeril sailing without a special cooking demonstration! Guests will have the opportunity to learn from the pro himself on the sailing’s first sea day. Spaces for the private cooking demonstration can be purchased once on board and will be filled on a first-come first-served basis. Proceeds will serve as a fundraiser for Carnival’s charitable partner St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “We are eagerly awaiting the debut of Carnival Venezia and so we wanted to welcome the ship with ‘BAM’ by having Emeril join me on board as we interact with guests and show off this beautiful ship,” said Duffy. “Together for the first part of Carnival Venezia’s first sailing, we’ll experience Carnival’s signature fun with a new Italian flair, exclusive onboard events and beautiful European destinations – I can’t wait!” The 15-day Transatlantic Carnival Journeys cruise from Barcelona will stop in Malaga, Spain; Gibraltar; Lisbon, Portugal; Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal; and Halifax, NS, Canada on the way to New York’s Manhattan Cruise Terminal. Carnival Venezia will sail year-round from New York’s Manhattan Cruise Terminal beginning June 15 and offer guests a wide range of sailing options, with 10 different cruise durations and 22 unique itineraries featuring visits to 25 ports across 14 countries. (the rest of the press release is just hype about the ship and Carnival itself that you probably know and don't need)

Carnival Corp. HAS cash - $8 billion or so according to their latest quarterly financial report. The problem, of course, is they also have $35 billion in debt to service.

I did this in 2018 on the Carnival Miracle. I agree it was nice and I'd like to do it again sometime. Cost and that painful flight back home remain issues.

You're welcome! I'm happy to find someone else who's interested in such things and capable of digesting what they mean. On the HMC pier, Mr. Weinstein certainly said it like it was a done deal that everyone knows about. It was news to me. I had heard rumors about a pier there, but nothing confirmed. I should put Mr. Heald's feet to the fire on this. 👺 Certainly Weinstein and Bernstein said some interesting things that you and I and perhaps others will be following in the coming years.

I have three notes on the splendor... First, its at or near the median age for a surviving Carnival ship at 15. Second, I've sailed on the Splendor twice. Carnival treats it like an ugly duckling and it often sails the odd routes that the other ships don't do. This causes me to like it and book it, though I recognize it's not for all tastes. And third, it's an early example of a ship that was "stolen" from Costa, as it was originally built for them. Costa may or may not be to blame for the interior design choices.

Nothing to do with what's been said in this thread so far (I haven't read most of it), and certainly of much more interest to me than anyone else, but I took some notes that I found interesting from Carnival's most recent earnings call transcript: (except for names, emphasis is mine) Daivd Bernstein, Carnival Corp. CFO: "...the absolute onboard spending on our European brands is less than that on our North American brands. Our European brand guests tend to drink a little bit more but gamble a lot less." "...as we continue to close the gap to 2019 occupancy, many of the remaining cabins left to be filled are inside cabins. As we fill our increasingly shrinking remaining inventory driving adjusted EBITDA higher, we will fill the last of our inside cabins, lowering our average net per diems." "...we remain nimble and continue to aggressively seek opportunities to accelerate our path back to strong profitability." "I feel great as I report that we are beyond the peak of our total debt. Total debt peaked at over $35 billion in the first quarter of 2023 when we drew on the export credit for P&O Cruises Arvia at the time of delivery. We believe with over $8 billion of liquidity, we are well positioned to pay down near-term debt maturities of $1.8 billion for the remainder of 2023 from excess liquidity. And by year-end, we expect our total debt to be down to approximately $33.5 billion." "...looking forward, I expect substantial increases in adjusted free cash flow in 2024 and beyond through durable revenue growth and gross margin improvement to drive down our debt balances on our path back to investment grade. And as a result, we have no intention to issue equity." From Josh Weistein, Carnival Corp. CEO, in response to a question: "...we feel real good about the fact that we’re over 70% booked for the remainder of the year. We’re tracking well, and wave has continued." Question from an analyst that was answered by both Josh W. and David B.: Steve Wieczynsk [analyst from financial company Stifel]i : ...Josh, you made it very clear in the press release that you believe the company is now in a very solid liquidity position and the use of equity won’t be needed moving forward. So you’ve sat in your seat now for not a year, but let’s call it over six months. Have you given any thought as to a time line now as to when Carnival, the corporation, could return to that important investment-grade status? Josh Weinstein : Our goal is certainly to get there. I’m a former treasurer, so that’s quite important for all of us. The trajectory is going to be driven by significant free cash flow over time. We are working on longer-term views of the world. This is our first quarter. We just gave a full year outlook. So give me a little more time. And we’ll certainly start talking about longer-term targets and initiatives going forward. David Bernstein : But remember that getting back to investment grade is twofold. It’s both improving EBITDA and paying down debt. And so as Josh mentioned in his prepared remarks, in 2024, we do expect to see considerably improved adjusted EBITDA as a result of the occupancy. And with the lower CapEx and only four ships on order and none for 2026, we do expect to be able to accelerate the paydown in debt." Question from Citibank analyst Fred Wightman: Fred Wightman : ...on the ship pipeline, zero ships for ’26, that’s consistent with what you guys have talked about previously. But I think there was also in the past to comment about expecting one or two ship deliveries annually for several years beyond that. Is that still sort of the cadence and plan?" Josh Weinstein : It will certainly be — that’s certainly the plan, one or two. Whether that starts in 2027 or it starts after 2027 is still a question mark. And so we’re very much focused, if you think about the pipeline over the next 4-plus years, it’s the lowest it’s ever been and it will continue to dwindle down as we get our way through the year. Questions from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley: Stephen Grambling : Just thinking about the ship pipeline. You talked about the gross adds, but the other side of the equation is any attrition. Are we now in the normal retirement cycle for the fleet where we should more or less expect maybe one to two per year? Or did you pull forward some retirements that could actually be lower going forward? Josh Weinstein : Yes, we definitely pulled forward some ships that could have been done at a later time. So not anticipating anything of significance over the next couple of years, and then we’ll probably pick back up the cadence that you’re talking about over time, but nothing imminent. Stephen Grambling : ...you talked about a few of the non-ship related projects, Grand Bahama, private islands, et cetera. Can you talk a bit more about how those could potentially impact yields and how the investments may compare to what you’ve done in the past? Josh Weinstein : Yes. Well, I mean, as a starting point, we have a phenomenal footprint in the Caribbean. I think I mentioned in my prepared remarks, Half Moon Cay being pretty much a jewel of the Caribbean in the Bahamas. With the ability for us to generate more differentiated experiences through Grand port, that will absolutely help the Carnival Cruise Line brand, not only on the yield side, but also on the cost side. We’re talking about being able to put another incredibly attractive destination in a very short distance from South Florida, the East Coast of the United States, which helps us tremendously on the cost side, on the carbon footprint side. And with what we’re doing on Half Moon Cay, by adding a pier, that will open up a lot more opportunity for us to bring bigger ships to that island, more guests, a better guest experience and more opportunity to generate not only enhanced ticket pricing because of that, but also onboard spend in the form of spending on board our destinations." The full Q&A is at https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/carnival-corporation-plc-nyseccl-q1-2023-earnings-call-transcript-1135799/#q-and-a-session if for some reason you want to follow along at home or want to go mining for the other interesting things that the executives had to say.

Thanks for the report. My next cruise on an M-class ship is next year (maybe), so I'll have to keep these notes in mind. It'll likely be in steerage, so that limits my dining options quite a bit. ☹️

There's a lot of politics involved in getting to the top of any corporation of any size, so this conduct doesn't surprise me in the least.

While I respect your opinions, I disagree with you both on your conclusions. I appreciated the opportunity to be heard and the opportunity to potentially get answers to thorny questions from executives at the highest level. I encourage those at CC to try try again next year, and as many years as they hold these shindigs.

It sounds you bought tickets with no reserved seats that you need to check in for to reserve your place in line. The super ultra cheapo lines here like Spirit and Frontier do something like this. I like reserving seats in advance because I like knowing where I'm going to sit, but this obviously has a cost that some are not willing to pay.

Thanks for sharing. This seems both necessary and wrong at the same time by all parties involved. I hope sometime soon we get past such behavior. That's all I'll say.

@CCAubs Thank you for doing this! And thank you for the write up. Though my questions weren't directly addressed (congrats to those that made the cut), there were some interesting responses with nuggets of information. I thought Mr. Del Rio's answer about older ships was most interesting; I assume his plans and philosophy are shared by Mr. Sommer.

Following because I'm interested in the answers you'll get. For now, just some notes. For the major U.S. airlines that ARE NOT Southwest, there's no penalty for not checking in exactly 24 hours beforehand. It's more a convenience for them that you do so ASAP. So for those airlines, I'd just check in at the airport. I've done this several times. For Southwest, of course, the later the check in, the worse the boarding number you'll get. And the worse your boarding number, the later you'll board and the worse the seat you'll end up with. There are a couple of workarounds for this - (1) have someone on land check you in as close to 24 hours as possible, or (2) get EarlyBird, which automatically checks you in 36 hours before, which all but ensures a favorable boarding slot, but costs $15-30. I favor the latter even when I have Internet access and/or cell data.

I've mostly done the Caribbean and two ports there stand out for me as having some sights to see and always promising a fun time - Sint Maarten in the east and Key West in the west (yeah, I know KW isn't in the Caribbean - sue me). I don't have any recent pictures of SXM, but I was in KW last month and they had a random concert for us!*

I sometimes have the opposite problem... I'm usually up and out of the cabin by 8 AM and MDR brunches sometimes don't start until 8:30 (Carnival) or 9 (Royal). Then again, I haven't had a breakfast or brunch in the MDR in any of my 200+ days at sea. Maybe I'll try it sometime. Or maybe not.

I'm glad you asked. He was the captain of my trip on the Millennium in November. He seemed like a fine captain. I went to his navigation lecture on the cruises last full day. I'm glad I went. Here's my report on it:

Following. Special thanks to those that replied that sailed on the Ruby. I'll be on that ship in a couple of weeks.

I wasn't planning to go (yes, I bookmarked it, but I bookmark lots of things that I'm only slightly interested in), but since you asked nicely... why not? It's a sea day on the way to Cozumel. I'll probably have eaten breakfast by then and will need things to kill time until the afternoon. I'll let others do the Zumba thing. Maybe I'll learn something. P.S. If they schedule an 80s Pop Stars Music Trivia session for this time, I'm dumping this class for that. Forgive me in advance. 🤪

I got a small but nice upgrade on my upcoming 80s themed cruise on the Ruby Princess. I went from a basic interior closet to an obstructed OV. I've been upgraded for free on all of my Princess cruises so far. I guess they like me. 🙂

That's different than what happened to us, but our circumstances were different - we weren't in the same cabin, our bookings weren't linked, and we dined together nightly on an ad hoc basis - either we'd meet up and go in together, or one of us would grab a table and the other would stop by and join. I'll conclude this diversion with my sincere hope that everyone who needs or wants special dining arrangements gets treated as well as my buddy did or @caribill and their party did, whether on Princess, Carnival, or any other cruise line.

On the two Princess cruises I've had, there's actually been a Medallion class. It's similar to what's listed for my current cruise... I doubt they'll discuss IPs, VPNs, or LMNOPs, but you should be able to get some of your questions answered there. I haven't attended any of them, so I don't know for sure.

Thanks for sharing. I had a Carnival cruise a few years ago and dined in the MDR with a cruise buddy with special dining needs. She had someone cater to her (I think it was one of our three waiters, but it could have been someone separate), including offering special menus a day in advance. I thought this was standard procedure on all cruise lines. Maybe it isn't. Maybe the others just hide it more than they should. As for your second paragraph, it offers me a few places to go if I dared, but I just want to thank you for stating your perception of the truth on Princess.