tidecat

Agreed, if the market softens it will be the older and smaller ships that get offloaded first. In Carnival's case it may not necessarily be the oldest (Sunshine) or smallest (Elation/Paradise) Carnival uses a 30-year deprecation schedule for their ships and keeps a 15% residual value While the ships were paid for decades ago, Carnival still has to take a charge on its P&L when it sells the ship (either for scrap or to another operator). Obviously any secured debt can make a ship sale more complicated, but generally speaking it would be possible to substitute a comparable or more valuable vessel without a lien on it with the consent of the lender. Carnival has paid off some secured debt which has removed the lien from some vessels. Larger ships will always be more fuel efficient. Royal's Oasis-class actually uses less fuel in total, not just per passenger, than some of their older ships. The break even point on larger ships is also much lower than it is on older ships. Since Carnival Corporation doesn't publish financial results by brand, any figures you see include everything from Carnival Cruise Line to Seabourn. Royal has stated the break even point on the Oasis-class is actually around 35%, while older ships run closer to 50% (https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2021/08/new-royal-caribbean-ships-break-even-at-35-percent-occupancy/#:~:text=What occupancy does Royal Caribbean,executive vice president and CFO.) - I would expect Carnival sees a similar spread, even if the starting point is higher. About 10-12% of the cost of your cruise is the cost of the ship itself. The Excel class is around $183,000 per lower berth (2020 dollars). The Fantasy class, adjusted for inflation, is around $296,000. Even if all other costs are the same on a per-passenger basis, the Fantasy class ship might eke out a 5% profit instead of a 15% profit given the same fare. Except we know the costs likely aren't going to be the same; even if the captain on Mardi Gras makes considerably more than the Elation, a vacant lower berth on Mardi Gras means you're only missing 1/5300 of the Captain's salary instead of 1/2100 like you would on Elation or Paradise. Now consider that for every static position like an engineer, cruise director, HR director, etc. Then the passenger on the larger ship spends more because there are more places onboard for them to part with their money. The bigger ship wins every time.

Even if Carnival's 2027 and 2028 ships wind up being replacements instead of additional vessels, Carnival Cruise Line basically has to capture over 12% of the industry's growth worldwide, and that's assuming the new ship even does just week-long cruises (52 x (5,380 - 2,980) = 124,800 additional lower berths). By the time you throw in third and fourth passengers this is probably more like 15% or 16%. If Carnival winds up shifting inventory more towards shorter cruises, the requisite percentage could be higher still.

Not much left Costa can hand down that fits for the height restricted ports - just Deliziosa. I think Costa has the fleet they want for the foreseeable future to serve Europe, Asia (sans China), and Latin America. If they wanted to part with more ships it would have likely already happened. Now if a non-vertically challenged port needs a new ship, Costa could be used to free up a Spirit-class ship from Mobile, Brisbane, or Galveston. But sometime in the 2030s or 2040s, Baltimore, Jacksonville, and Tampa are going to run out of options without relocating their port or raising their bridges.

Depends on the itinerary of course, but typically the first call to an ABC island is a longer one with an evening departure. The second island is typically a shorter call since it is so far to the next port (or home port). I have seen some that stop at Aruba first and some that stop at Bonaire first.

I did it on the Elation. Other than the last several groups all being called at the same time (I chose the last possible group), it worked well.

If all of the Spirit class live to be 30-35, this will be an issue sometime next decade if not the early 2040s. Luminosa was built in 2009 and is presumably the last out for the height-restricted ports. Carnival has an option with the port of Jacksonville to stay there through 2030 when Elation will be 32 years old, so that should offer us some clue. Tampa and Jacksonville may ultimately get screwed by their proximity to Port Canaveral. Mainstream lines are not going to build smaller ships. The upmarket lines may come in behind them but they will have issues by the 2050s as they are also building progressively larger ships.

And then shortly after that a 5th Excel class for 2028.

They do, but look at the growth from s standpoint of passenger capacity, not the number of vessels. A 5,000 passenger ship can replace two ships with ~2,000 passengers each, and there is still an increase of 1,000 passengers per sailing. Remember that Norwegian will have four ships due between now and 2029 and then four more between 2030 and 2036. If capacity grows too quickly, prices fall and they don't make as much money. Carnival was able to do something similar coming out of the shutdown: Mardi Gras (5,300) > Fantasy (2,100) + Fascination (2,100) Venezia (4,200) = Imagination (2,100) + Inspiration (2,100) Celebration (5,300) > Ecstasy (2,100) + Sensation (2,100) That gave Carnival about 2,200 more lower berths with 3 fewer vessels. That's not even counting the additions of Luminosa (2,200), Jubilee (5,300), or Firenze (4,200). Norwegian may be faced with a similar consolidation as older ships near end-of-life status.

It's probably going to happen at some point during this contract, and it may even start before the first ship on this order enters service in 2030, as there are still four ships left on the current order. Spirit entered service in 1998, Sky in 1999, and both Sun and Star in 2001. Ships over 30 years old are much more difficult to maintain. Norwegian might even retire two ships each nearly simultaneously in 2030 and 2032 as each of the newbuilds has a capacity that is more than double that of their four smallest ships.

Not on embarkation day. Your lunch choices will be on the Lido Deck, Deck 17 (Guy's Burger Joint), or on Deck 8. Embarkation day is actually a good time to try the deli and pizza places on Deck 8 before most of the passengers discover them

The draft should be measured on a ship at full capacity (passengers and crew) including fuel and provisions/cargo. The people on board would be about 650,000 pounds, which makes a difference of less than a foot given the ship is about 10,000,000 cubic feet in volume.

How much more do you pay for a Viking Cruise, though?

There is another bridge between the Key Bridge and the open ocean with a virtually identical clearance, so it might be a very long time before ships that large dock in Baltimore. But if you have to rebuild a bridge, you might as well make it future-proof.

Cheers for embarkation day would end at 6:00 AM the following morning. If you're on board by 3:00 PM you still have 15 hours. Obviously not as good a deal as boarding at 11:00 AM, which would give you 19 hours. Of course in those ports debarkation morning would essentially be "free" aside from the sales tax and possibly limited menu, which allows you to claw back about 3 hours from the shorter embarkation day.

The last scheduled drydock was in October 2023. Presumably Freedom would get her wings back by October 2026.

Easier to run cables for data. Long-distance wireless communications aren't always a given, especially for places that aren't actually a separate island like Celebration Key or Princess Cays.

Even with a pier at HMC or Princess Cays, ultimately it is still not Carnival Cruise Line's island. I'm not sure how interoperable any point-of-sale hardware would be between Carnival, Princess, Holland America, and possibly even Costa and AIDA. Princess at least has setup Medallion Pay with select merchants ashore in Alaska, Mexico, and the Carribean, so in theory this should be possible.

The credit card is also run by a third party. Trying to tie it into the VIFP program would likely be a prohibitive level of complexity. I can get at least 2% back on all my purchases, not just ones with Carnival, with other cards anyway. Then of course buying discounted gift cards at 10% below face value (and getting 2% cash back on that) winds up being the better deal for me personally.

This look is so 2022: Carnival Ship Debuts New Funnel After Fire [PHOTOS] (cruiseradio.net)

Technically Half Moon Cay and Princess Cays don't belong to Carnival Cruise Line. They belong to Holland America and Princess. It will be interesting to see if Carnival builds any integration for the Sail and Sign network into Celebration Key. Right now Carnival has to manually process any Sail and Sign charges once the receipts are brought back to the ship when Carnival stops at Half Moon Cay or Princess Cays.

I'm not sure Carnival can drop Mobile. Spirit needs somewhere to work during the winter, and the only way New Orleans could accommodate a third ship is to stagger it a week from the existing 4 & 5 day cruises, or have it do 7-day cruises during the winter, which would likely push the 4 & 5 day cruises to Monday/Friday/Wednesday cycle, at least for the winter. The lack of a 3-day itinerary option in New Orleans (and for that matter, Mobile and Galveston) really ties Carnival's hands here. I guess the relevant question is if the price difference between New Orleans sailings and other comparable sailings high enough to justify at least a 23% increase in capacity (i.e., Conquest class to Dream class)?

Norfolk only has a handful of ships calling this summer. Royal Caribbean uses Bayonne (NJ), so any ships relocating there will have to juggle around what is scheduled. New York has multiple piers, but multiple cruise lines call there. Norfolk had the greatest availability and ships out of Baltimore basically have to pass it anyway.

Agreement extended to 2026 with options to extend to 2030: https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/03/jaxport-and-carnival-cruise-line-extend-cruise-service-agreement/ This probably also means the Fantasy class will be around until 2030 if not beyond. Elation is scheduled for a drydock in January 2026, and presumably would follow up in 2029. Elation will be 32 years old in 2030. Carnival Paradise (Tampa) has no 2026 drydock date yet, but had her 2023 visit about nine months after Elation.

The main issue is that Mardi Gras to New Orleans would be an 80% increase in capacity for either 4-5 day or 7 day cruises. If the New Orleans market was that underserved, Carnival would have already done something about it. LNG supply also be an issue, especially with the optics of having LNG in a densely populated area.

2027: Excel 4 to Port Canaveral Freedom from Port Canaveral to Mobile Spirit from Seattle (summer)/Mobile (winter) to Seattle/Norfolk (winter 2027-28 only) Mardi Gras stays in Port Canaveral, takes short cruises from Glory; Glory assumes Freedom's 4-5 day program Sunshine retired 2028: Excel 5 to Miami Celebration stays in Miami, takes short cruise program from Conquest Conquest from Miami to Norfolk Spirit from Seattle/Norfolk to Seattle/New York (New York gets year round service) Capacity changes (lower berths) in summary: Port Canaveral: Long cruises +0, short cruises +2302 Miami: Long cruises +0, Short cruises +2394 Mobile: +2980 (summer)/+856 (winter) New York: +0 (summer)/+2124 (winter) Norfolk: -22 (temporary decrease of -878 for winter 2027-28)