tidecat

I sent my request by e-mail on 12/23. It was added to my cruise the morning of 12/26.

Carnival Jubilee, Sun Princess, and Queen Anne all enter service in FY 2024 (which began December 1). That's actually a pretty decent capacity increase at around 11,500 lower berths.

I was replying to your "zombie company" comment.

Carnival made money in Q3 to the tune of $1.07 billion. The net loss for the full year was only $74 million, and the adjusted net income was $1 million. The Q3 2023 result is essentially 99% of what Carnival forecasts in profit for all of FY 2024. Carnival does have some seasonality in their business, and the timing of a few drydocks or a marketing spend can swing the results for a quarter. A lot of things won't repeat between 2023 and 2024, namely the interest on the debt Carnival paid off. All of the fleet has resumed sailing and all of the ships scheduled for disposal have been liquidated. Carnival also took a small loss to exit their position in what is now Adora Cruises.

The only cruise I've had a time change on was the Mexican Riviera, and even then we generally weren't in line with the time ashore. Mexico has since changed its DST rules.

If Carnival's placing an order at the end of 2024, a 2026 delivery would be unlikely what is now Carnival Vista was ordered in 2012 and construction did not start until 2014. Unless if Carnival is going to build an exact (or nearly exact) copy of an Excel-class ship, 2026 is out of the question and 2027 may be pushing it. I would not be surprised to see a 2027 or even 2028 delivery have an order placed by March 2024. I'd expect it to be three ships (one each for Miami, Galveston, and Canaveral) with deliveries between 2027-2030.

With Sunshine going to drydock in early 2025, this resets the clock on any ship retirements. I would expect a replacement in late 2027 or early 2028. To me the bigger question mark is the Australia/New Zealand market. Can Carnival Corp grow either the P&O or Carnival Cruise Line brand (or even Princess) in that market?

Unless if you've booked the cruise today, you are past the final payment deadline for a January 6 sailing. You also should have an e-mail confirmation for every payment you made on your cruise. It will show the balance on those.

There is a promo code for spa treatments over $150. CSPA23 gets you 20% to 30% off. It expires at 11:59 PM Eastern on 11/28.

Park West and/or could try to pursue a civil matter for damages in Baltimore, which likely would not be worth the lawyer's fees, but the criminal matter may very well be under Bahamian jurisdiction as Legend is registered in Nassau. Probably just easier to ban the couple across all brands in the corporate umbrella and move on.

Carnival Corporation exited their position in Adora in September 2023. Carnival would have had to buy the ship back.

Both Ecstasy and Sensation (which was also due for drydock) needed really expensive engine overhauls. Between the shutdown itself and China not reopening until late this year, there wasn't enough work to justify keeping either of them around. If the shutdown never happened, Venezia and Firenze, would be doing Chinese cruises for Costa. I think Luminosa still comes over, as does Magica to manage Costa's capacity in Europe. Of course Costa could have sent newer ships (like two from the Concordia class) if Carnival still wanted to do the Italian style concept. At the minimum we would need to save one Fantasy class ship to meet the current level of service, possibly more depending on what Carnival deploys to Alaska and Europe. I think Fascination would have been year-round in Mobile, but likely beached in 2026. Maybe if the engine overhaul happens with her 2023 drydock she stays around until 2029. Magica and Luminosa would be in place of Venezia and Firenze. Sunrise gets sent Down Under in place of Luminosa, and stays there year-round. Miami keeps a Fantasy class vessel for the 3-4 day cruises. I still think Radiance transitions to Long Beach to consolidate the 3-4 day routes ran by Imagination and Inspiration, especially with Jubilee coming to Galveston. The four other Spirit class vessels run one of the following platoons: Seattle/Miami, Europe/Tampa, San Francisco/Galveston, and Seattle/San Diego. I still think we would see some consolidation between 2025-2028 as the Fantasy class ships age, although if Carnival were to overhaul Imagination and Inspiration by 2023 they might dodge that bullet. A new ship in the 2025-2027 range would also help (especially with a Fantasy class vessel in Miami), but we probably still eventually gravitate towards something looking like today's lineup.

Contract runs through 2028, with option to extend to 2030: https://www.cbs42.com/alabama-news/carnival-cruise-set-to-sail-out-of-mobile-for-the-next-5-years/ Also keep in mind as Charleston signs off in January 2025, Mobile will be the closest port for a number of people in Georgia - even closer than Jacksonville. With Jacksonville's height issues, Mobile is more likely to go to year round service than go away completely. I don't see much in the way of downsizing before 2030. Luminosa (Brisbane) and whatever Spirit class ship is wintering in Galveston by then will be available to take Elation and Paradise's spots should they depart. I think the Spirit Class likely lives to see 33 years of age given Carnival's current strategy for Alaska and Europe.

I think this is to make up for when the items were not available during the sailing.

I have read a report from someone saying they smell fuel/fumes throughout the lower decks of the ship. Anyone on board who can confirm this?

April 2026 is only 2 1/2 years from now. Although we do hope you will stick around for 2027 and beyond.

Given how long Atlantica had been laid up, I would think that the decor is going to be largely redone out of necessity.

I did for my first cruise in 2017. It is easier if you are booked directly with Carnival, though.

The entire Spirit class can sail from Tampa. But even in spite of you being off by five ships, Carnival still has limited inventory that can sail out of Tampa, Jacksonville, and Baltimore.

Elation had additional staterooms added in 2018 that replaced the Cole Porter Lounge. Presumably the Queen Mary Lounge on Paradise would be toast.

It went down the day earnings came out, but started going up the next day before peaking at $19.04 in early July.

Most sites use trailing twelve months (TTM) to look at metrics like Price/Earnings ratio (PE). In this case, Carnival had a loss of $0.65 per share in Q3 2022 and replaced it with a profit of $0.79 per share. For Q4 we should see a loss of around $0.10 to $0.18/share, compared to a $1.27 per share in Q4 2022. Unfortunately the first two quarters of 2023 were losses totaling $0.87/share, so the TTM earnings will still be below zero. This should be fixed by Q1 2024, as Carnival would be rolling off a loss of $0.55/share and presumably replacing it with a profit or a much smaller loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. There are plenty of things that could cause you to steer clear of an individual stock, but relying solely on P/E can be dangerous: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/03/16/why-the-pe-ratio-might-be-useless.aspx

It is the highest quarter ever across all quarters in terms of revenue. Carnival's revenue tends to be seasonal, and Q3 (June-August) tends to capture the summer vacation crowds in North America and Europe. The previous high was $6.53 Billion in Q3 2019. You can see this on the second graph on this page, which has not been updated for the most recent quarter: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CCL/carnival/revenue

Yes, the cash on hand has dropped considerably. It was $7 billion at the end of Q3 2022, compares to $2.87 billion at 8/31/23. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as that cash is paying down debt or being invested in ships that will one day make money (and technically are brining in ones now in terms of deposits) Q4 may see some further erosion in cash on hand. Depreciation expense for Q4 will be a little over $500 million, but the actual cash spend on new builds is only $267 million for Q4. Carnival is scheduled to repay around $462 million in principal. So that only represents a burn of about $200 million plus or minus the net income/loss. Even a $0.20/share net loss will only be about $260 million, so Carnival should end the year with about $2.4 Billion in cash on hand. They do have a short-term borrowing facility if they need it, but I don't see them needing it. Q1 2024 should be profitable even before adding back depreciation (it was in 2019), and the debt and shipbuilding burdens are similar to Q3 and Q4 2023. Obviously if Q2 and Q3 2024 perform similarly to Q3 2023, that would be over $1 Billion of cash being generated even after making principal and shipbuilding payments.

Fuel hedging makes sense only if you expect to save more than what you are paying in interest on the hedge. Given prime is at 8.5%, Carnival would need at least 10% fuel savings to safely break even, and would need more like 15-20% to see any meaningful net savings. Carnival's fuel expense was $200 Million lower in Q3 2023 than in Q3 2022. Even for the nine months, Carnival's fuel expense is $85 Million lower in FY 2023, even in spite of revenues being up nearly 100%. Even when you factor in the increase Available Lower Berth Days, which are up a little over 10% for the quarter, and about 33% though nine months versus last fiscal year, that is a rather impressive result.