tidecat

If you don't know, how can you be certain it isn't?

Probably. It sounds like Royal wants to build a beamier (wider) ship. The maximum beam on Oasis class is basically double that of the Vision-class, and Oasis-class has seven more decks. Of course if you make the ship too wide you may lose access to certain ports and canals even if draft and air draft are otherwise fine. The length of the ship can also be a limiting factor in terms of what ports can be accessed. Even aside from that making a ship too long can make for a ship that is not very stable. The other design choice that would have to be made is do you put lots of interior staterooms, or do you open up the middle? Even if the ship is as wide as Oasis, opening up the middle will reduce the potential passenger capacity and gross tonnage of the ship.

I am just going by public statements Michael Bayley has made referring to the bridge heights in Tampa and Baltimore, and the eminent aging out of their two oldest classes of ships. I had done a reply earlier with links to a couple of articles with those statements, but it's in some sort of unapproved State in this board. They were from fairly high up on the results on Google, though.

No inside information, but public statements by Michael Bayley referenced the bridge height in Baltimore and Tampa: https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Royal-Caribbean-Discovery-class as well as the two oldest classes aging out: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/discovery-class-smaller-cruise-ship

The answer to overbuilding is to cut the least profitable inventory. Discovery Class has one purpose: replace the Vision Class (and maybe the Radiance class as well). Royal needs their version of the Fantasy-class as they don't have multiple brands across the globe with smaller ships like Carnival Corporation does.

If Carnival Cruise Line is willing to use neoPanamax ships for Alaska and the Panama Canal, retiring the Fantasy-class would be keep the four Spirit-class in service between Tampa, Jacksonville, and Baltimore. Luminosa would still be on the bench to substitute for Carnival Spirit when her checkout time comes sometime in the early-to-mid 2030s. If Costa commits to the same they could transfer out Deliziosa to Carnival and that would be the backup for Carnival Pride. That would cover Carnival through at least 2032 when Legend turns the big 3-0, more likely 2035. Despite the recently announced refurbishment program, AIDA's Icarus class could also be an option beyond 2032 when Legend and Miracle inevitably reposition to Aliaga. Carnival doesn't need its answer to the Discovery class just yet.

You can certainly have a good time at Disney Springs, but I would recommend International Drive. There are tons of attractions up and down International Drive, although you could spend a fair amount of time at Icon Park with The Orlando Eye observation wheel and the adjacent aquarium and wax museum. It's a little bit further south on International Drive, but there's a chocolate museum and cafe that's pretty interesting and has lots of neat chocolate sculptures. The food in their cafe is good for light lunch or dinner (definitely save room for dessert!). If you or the kids want to do something water related, Seaworld has a nice water park called Aquatica located just off International Drive. Intentional Drive is also convenient from the airport as you can hop on the Beachline Expressway to get to the airport. If you can get a rental car in Port Canaveral, you actually could just take the Beachline straight from the port to wherever you decide to go. There's also trolley service along International Drive, so you could always take a shuttle to the airport, put your luggage in storage, take a rideshare to somewhere along International Drive, and use the trolley to move between attractions.

The air draft would be an issue for newer ships on the Panama Canal, as ships making a full transit must go under the Bridge of the Americas. It looks like though the Concordia class for Costa (and Splendor and Conquest classes for Carnival). They do nothing for Tampa, Baltimore, or Jacksonville, though. The only meaningful play would be to send Deliziosa to Carnival and add a new build to Costa. One of the Concordia class would then take over for Deliziosa. If Costa is getting a new ship in the 2027-29 timeframe it probably needs to be announced soon. Using the new locks would actually give Carnival more options for Alaska, as the Conquest class could work winters on the Gulf Coast or East Coast and serve Alaska during the summer. The Spirit class ships in Mobile and Galveston could then be deployed in Tampa and Jacksonville. In that case the transfer from Costa wouldn't be necessary.

The Costa transfers happened because Costa had a very large surplus in capacity as China continued to remain closed, coupled with the rapid expansion of Costa's European fleet in the decade prior. Venezia and Firenze were intended to sail in China. Carnival was fortunate enough that North America was able to absorb that capacity. Costa Magica (Sunshine-class equivalent) wound up getting cut entirely. Costa Deliziosa is the only ship left in Costa's fleet capable of running a world cruise. The Princess transfers to P&O Australia had always been planned, as P&O Australia never got new ships. Their transfer to Carnival is more about taking out the shoreside costs from maintaining two separate brands in the region. Australia was slow to reopen and New Zealand is making the cruise industry's life more difficult right now, so this is leading them to cut Pacific Explorer. AIDA has announced it will be refurbishing their older ships. I would not expect any more transfers in to Carnival's fleet beyond what has been scheduled.

Yes, Mobile was working on widening the turning basin so that ships would not have to be towed in/out of the Mobile River; iz is scheduled for completion in 2025. The cruise port was also scheduled to have its gangway replaced. Conquest and Triumph have docked at Mobile, but that was pre-shutdown. Many of the freight vessels that dock at Mobile have deeper drafts than Carnival's ships, which is driving the widening and dredging.

I think we have 8-10 years before we see start seeing reductions in service from Carnival Cruise Line due to height (air draft) limitations. Getting Luminosa out of Brisbane and one of the seasonal Spirit class vessels out of Mobile or Galveston by 2028-29 will help Baltimore, Tampa, and Jacksonville persist. Brisbane and Mobile/Galveston can use Conquest-class or larger vessels to run the routes currently served by their current ships. Elation and Paradise also have firm dates for dry docks in 2026. They aren't going anywhere yet, and their younger sisters in the Spirit class should stick around after the Fantasy class departs.

The press release is counting the Costa transfers that have already happened (Luminosa, Venezia, Firenze). Carnival Cruise Line will have added 10 ships since the restart (5 transfers, 5 newbuilds) by 2033 that will be at least 55,000 additional lower berths. Even if you count all of the pandemic-related disposals, only about 13,000 lower berths were lost with the six Fantasy-class vessels), which means Carnival may be up as many as 42,000 lower berths by 2033.

I'm not sure what debt Royal could pay off right now. The dividend will only cost about $100 million. The USD portion of the loan for Harmony only has an interest rate of 2.53%. The "B" trianches on both Utopia and Ascent combined are about $72 million, but I don't know if they're connected to the "A" trianches that are much larger. For $137.5 million they could have paid off Silver Moon, which is due June 2028 and is at SOFR + 210 basis points, which would be around 7.5% right now. That would have saved 10.3 million a year for nearly 3 years, net of any prepayment penalties. Operating cash flow for the year should be over $5 billion, and maybe even closer to $6 billion; it was over $4 billion for 2023, and Royal has nearly matched last year's income per share for 2023 in just two quarters. If that holds going forward, even if Royal pays $400-500 million of dividends, that should still leave north of $4 billion each year for debt repayment. That easily outstrips the scheduled maturities for 2025-2030.

Nova is "not going" in both Spanish and Portuguese, so Nova is likely out. Probably not an issue for AIDA given their specific focus on Germany.

I guess if you want to stick with the star theme, something like Carnival Galaxy or Carnival Solaris could work. The entire Excel class so far uses recycled names. Reusing Holiday would completely reuse the Holiday class. Not sure if any of the "ale" names (Carnivale, Festivale, Tropicale) would get reused, but Tropicale would be the most likely as it was Carnival's first newbuild. So far Carnival has not reused any other names. I guess Carnival Destiny could be on the table, especially if Sunshine sunsets in 2027 or 2028. In some ways it makes sense as Destiny was the first cruise ship over 100,000 GT, and a new Destiny could be the largest cruise ship by passenger capacity. The names of the entire Fantasy class may also be available by then as well.

Seems to be going OK for AIDA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDAnova

Thr Barbados embarkation was targeted at those coming from Europe. There are threads on here about some of the unique experiences related to that on the San Juan turnaround days.

With five new builds on the way, what do you think the new ships will be named? Here's my guess: 2027 - Carnival Holiday 2028 - Carnival Fiesta 2029 - Carnival Stella 2031 - Carnival Aurora 2033 - Carnival Nova

Carnival Cruise Line is getting two new Excel ships in 2027 and 2028 in addition to these three. Don't be surprised to see one or more of the Excel or "Pinnacle" class on short cruises similar to what Royal Caribbean is doing with Utopia of the Seas.

Maybe Carnival Corp needs to work on "graduating" some cruisers to Princess and Holland America. Easier to hide the higher costs of a smaller ship in a luxury product. I actually think rebooting Holland America as an adults-only line might have some merit. If nothing else, Carnival Corp could hurt Virgin by beating Virgin on price.

The Excel-class design is from Meyer. Fincantieri is ultimately basing theirs on Project Mille, which has been used by MSC (Seaside and Seaside EVO classes) and Norwegian (Prima class).

This was only a few months ago when it sold, so no. If they wanted to keep it they wouldn't have sold it.

That was on the Project Pinnacle prototype Fincantieri pitched back in the early 2000s. Disney Cruise Line's Aquaduck was initially planned as a lazy river, but there was concern about how much deck space it would take up, so it became the elevated water coaster we know today.

Atlantica is a year older (2000) than Carnival Spirit and Pacific/Carnival Adventure (2001). This isn't much help in terms of replacing older ships. You also have to remember one of the popular features of the Spirit-class - the extra space per passenger - doesn't necessarily make a cruise line money Atlantica was actually sold to CSSC, now Adora Cruises, which was a joint venture between Carnival and the Chinese government. It appears Carnival took the ship back when they exited the joint venture, and then turned around and made an immediate sale - no cruises to cancel, no future cruise credits to issue, and no renovation to perform. Based on the proceeds from ship sales reported for that quarter, they likely made about as much money from selling the ship as they would have in five years of sailings had they decided to operate it. That's a nice boost, especially when you're $27 billion in debt.

There certainly will be some retirements by 2033. The height restricted ports (Baltimore, Jacksonville, part of Sydney Tampa) should be able to hang on between the four Spirit class ships, Luminosa, and the two P&O ships. This may require a different deployment to Alaska given that some of those ships are currently deployed to Alaska. Sunshine class is probably gone by 2033 as Radiance would be 33, Sunrise 34, and Sunshine 37.