Lane Hog

I still have our mason jar cups from 1997... They do last almost forever.

Hogwash. 3-5 cruises counts as experienced in my book, depending on the length... 17 cruises is probably more than a month at sea combined. How much more do you really need?

Nope, Real ID is not proof of citizenship. It's simply proof of legal residency. Non-US citizens who are here on green cards or visas can get a Real ID if they've been issued a SSN. People who overstay their visa or who entered illegally cannot get a Real ID, which will present a bit of a problem for "undocumented migrants" once the mandate is finally imposed.

I'm on a cruise for the food, entertainment and hopefully to see someplace I've never been before. How often the towels and sheets get changed out is nowhere on my list of things to worry about. I lived in hotels for about seven years, and only wanted service every 2-4 days. They gave me extra guest points for that before it was a thing, and staff were always willing to leave extra towels if I asked. This is a nothing burger.

I'm sure dozens will be inconvenienced...

At this rate, I'll be retired before Real ID passes, which is fine with me.

When you're asleep or in the bathroom, all cabins look the same. The food and excursions also feel and taste the same. I'd rather have an inside near the stairs and elevator than a balcony halfway in between them... For those who need the view, there's also the virtual balcony option.

Depends on the cruise... We've done both on Carnival. We're taking RCL to Alaska next summer and having been there before, I can't sleep when it's still light outside, so we're in what they offer as a virtual balcony. It's an interior with a partial video wall with a current sea view you can turn off. Haven't done one yet, but it seemed worth trying.

That makes it a lot easier to name any new terminals that might be built over time. Terminal One is located approximately at Pier 25-26 and Terminal Two is approximately at Pier 27-28. Terminal Three is at Pier 10. It's going to confuse longtime customers and limo drivers for about ten minutes. Then everyone will be fine...

VA requires masks. My father in law tested positive for Covid so we called to cancel his appointment. They said he could come in anyways. It's just security theater at this point.

The difference between that Florida family and an emergency disembarking?... the emergency. All the fear mongering from well intended people giving advice is just that... fear mongering advice that validates their own experiences of being told that the passport is the only thing that will save you from being stranded somewhere horrible like Canada...

At this stage of life, a pair of Crocs and a pair of sneakers seems to work for us....

Categorically not true that you NEED a passport to fly out of Canada in the event of an emergency. If anything, it's easier to return from Canada without a passport because of how re-entry to the US is handled at the airports. Departing Canada, if you don't have the docs, you're able to present yourself to a US immigration officer who can make the decision to admit you. That's not possible in Mexico or most of the Caribbean. I've seen US CBP makes exceptions for this almost daily due to things like lost documents while traveling, or people simply being complete idiots and forgetting to bring them at all... If you've been in the hospital unexpectedly and have the paperwork, they're not going to fine you for that.

We can fly standby as airline employees, so packing light has been a 35+ year practice that we've applied to our cruising. Caribbean and Mexico cruises have always been one roller each plus our backpacks. Alaska is different, but that works out to one extra shared bag. It helps we don't need snorkel or beach gear, but layers still require a little more room.

Kids may be the driver. There's a reason schools do fire drills more than once a year, while most businesses only do them every couple years or so if at all. I'd been in the workforce for 28 years before I had my first at-work drill. My current employer seems to do them twice a year, so maybe they see us as schoolchildren?..

How many people had to make sure that bottle was there for the bartender to grab?... How about the people who have to wash the glassware and dispose of the empty recyclables? You're focused only on the transaction that you see. There's always a lot more behind it.

It is a lot... I hit it in less than seven years with AA, flying internationally once a month or so in business class. Lifetime Gold really isn't worth much aside from better free seat availability and no bag fees. But it's better than no recognition at all. My wife and have never cruised apart so its a moot point, but I do like that our kids get a leg up as second generation cruisers.

Sorry, but the testing ship has sailed so to speak....

Nibble at the edges and you will find differences. Take it down to the fundamentals and it's not too dissimilar.

Airlines are the closest comparable industry to look at as a benchmark because they're capex heavy, portable assets, historically carry similar debt to equity ratios, and increasingly have a high dependence on leisure travel to generate cash. Comparing two big cruiselines doesn't really room leave much room for a comparison.

You're not wrong about the capacity. It was advantageous for the majors that Trans States and ExpressJet took themselves out of the contracts vs. the other way around. Every other airline made it work thru the crisis phase -- those two plus Ravn had far more serious structural issues prior to COVID that called their long term viability into question. The same holds up with overseas airlines. Some who were already financially shaky didn't do very well. Those who were healthy did. My point goes to the larger issue i.e. the huge increase in debt at the majors didn't result in bankruptcies. Nobody is seriously discussing either American or United declaring bankruptcy or liquidating. The same holds for Carnival and Royal. Yes, they currently have a lot of debt relative to their assets, but they also generate a lot of cash when the market isn't being artificially restrained by government mandates that block them from conducting their businesses...

Most of those airlines shut down or declared because of a lack of pilots and an inability to meet performance requirements... Trans States had already announced their wind down in Feb 2020 before anyone knew what Covid was. Ravn shut down after a fatal accident with PenAir took out one of their five airplane fleet, but admittedly used Covid as an excuse (and resumed flying eight months later). The bigger point is that they're now all generating cash. United has a debt to equity of 6.4x, compared to 4.6x for American, 6.8 for RCL and 4.0x for CCL.

Death spiral? Hogwash. By your logic, every airline and hotel chain in North America should be out of business. And yet zero declared bankruptcy as a result of Covid... Preserving cash in the immediate future by pushing out the date for when some of the debt is due is not a bad move if you're concerned about a recession delaying financial recovery from Covid. Corporations routinely kick debt down the road a few years at a time. Would you rather see it come due at the peak of a recession or afterward?

I'm sure that there's probably also some tax benefits by having this be between two separate entities under the Carnival umbrella. Had this been an operating lease, there would have been some degree of tax benefits, and typically if there would be a tax advantage to using a non-affiliated third party, it can be applied between two entities in the same corporation.

Oh, the hand wringing. Anyone look at their 401K's lately?... Junk rating or not, anything that pay 10% are going to be popular when other investments are in double digit negatives. Carnival's operating margin was 20-30% prior to COVID. Assuming that cruising bounces back as well as airlines seem to be, I doubt Carnival will have a problem generating the cash to cover the interest on this debt restructuring. The fact they were able to double the offering based on interest is a sign that people are willing to park some money with Carnival for the next six years instead of elsewhere. And... unlike a stock offering, this won't threaten ownership or give anyone a voice in the boardroom.