Sparky74

And let’s not forget that cruiselines are in business for one reason and one reason only. And it’s the same reason why the supermarkets, the banks, the lawn mowing service, and your Internet provider are in business. And it’s the same reason many get out of bed each morning and go to work. Cruiselines are in business to make money!

And investors naturally want to see a return on their investment. 
 

I think many of us are surprised to learn how slim the profit margins are. It’s no wonder that they just haemorrhaged money and took on huge debt during the lockdown. 

46 minutes ago, Cbtours said:

True! I had to make first one ever last year when we had to change all our travel plans due to my daughter being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer (side note after gruelling chemo and major surgery she is all clear🙏🏻).

I had westpac complimentary cc insurance and Frank had an annual policy with Qantas. Both paid out in full within 10 days 🥰

Glad to hear that your daughter is OK, Irene. I’m sure there was lots of prayer in addition to the chemo and surgery. 
 

We're hoping to rely on the complimentary Westpac insurance for our next few cruises but I need to delve into the T&Cs. It’s good to hear some positive feedback on it. 

The trouble with insurance is that you don’t know how good it is until you have to make a claim. 

41 minutes ago, Jean C said:

"barking day" - don't ya just love involuntary auto correct!

Sorry, that’s an intentional malapropism. 🤷‍♂️

I start the cruise with barking day and finish with disembowelling day. I make sure we complete our mustard drill and if I have any problems I go and talk to them at guess-who services. 
DW reckons I’m not right in the head. 🤪

14 minutes ago, ceeceeDee said:

I have a VERY vague recollection of choccies on the pillow on Pacific Dawn in 2016, but don't recall receiving them since.

I don’t remember chocolates but we started cruising in 2010 and stayed loyal to Royal for a number of years. I remember towel animals every night, spectacular carved fruit displays in the buffet, and ice carving demonstrations every cruise. 
Times change and I must admit that I join in with the moaning about cutbacks but in reality it’s either that or prices will increase even more. We are fortunate that (at the moment) we have a variety of cruise lines to choose from which offer different inclusions and different price points. 
DW & I celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary in November and have a week's leave up our sleeve. I’ve suggested a couple of different cruises as options but she wants to do something different for this special occasion. I’ve priced a few alternatives and I’m still convinced that cruising offers great value for money in spite of rising fares and diminishing inclusions. 
At the risk of going back "on topic" 🤣 we board the Pacific Encounter In three weeks. I wonder if the Waterfront will be open for lunch on barking day. 🤔

1 hour ago, Chiliburn said:

I found a nice video for you.

I have a mate who drives trains between Central and Lithgow (Blue Mts)/Bathurst. 

8 minutes ago, Mycruiseobsession said:

Yes of course.

 

Lot's of ifs.

 

If you bought today and it jumped next year to pre-covid values then sold them... $$

 

If you use the 100 shares to make you feel better about booking more cruises 🥕 💡

 

If, If, if....

And some people like to feel like they own part of the ship they’re sailing on. 
 

Come to think of it, over the years I’ve encountered quite a few passengers who act like they own the ship! 😱

19 minutes ago, arxcards said:

On today's price, you are looking at around $AU2500 to get the minimum number of 100 CCL shares. Dividends and growth aside, that is 50 short cruises to recoup the value in OBC. That is also money spent, not saved, although it does reduce your onboard spend if you were always going to spend that much regardless.

 

I have recovered a lot of my $1400 spent, but technically they haven't made me a cent. It will be nice to see some small dividends returning in the next year or so.

True but you still own the shares. If they cost you $1,400 and could now sell them for $2,500, then you’ve made a "profit" (capital gain) of $1,100. Of course you can only realise this if you sell your shares. 

2 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

As an investment the CCL shares may not be great for everyone, they are not paying dividends atm, and the stock perk can be withdrawn at anytime, and interest rates are at over 5%

However, they are fairly low and if you cruise a few times a year, they may well be a nice investment.

I wonder how it would affect the share price if they dropped the free OBC for shareholders. 🤔

Maybe a bunch of "mum & dad" investors would sell, their shares thus sending the price down. On the other hand if they moved the goalposts and required you to have say 200 shares to get the perk, maybe that would send the price up. 🤷‍♂️

9 hours ago, Mycruiseobsession said:

All this talk about stock OBC perks has given me FOMO 🤣

 

I always think about buying shares but that's where it stays. Usually I end up just spending on another  cruise 

 

8 hours ago, JJK2008 said:

…The OBC is a great perk and since we cruise often it is well worth it for us. Wish we had done this sooner.  

I'm new to the world of investing but came into a small inheritance that needed to be put somewhere to help fund our retirement. A relative urged me to buy shares so that’s what I ended up doing with some of it. The Carnival Corporation shares were the first ones I bought and yes, it was daunting. A little more complex as they are international shares. As with many things the thought of doing it was worse than actually doing it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta rip off the bandaid!.

I'm no day-trader and have no plans to sell my measly 100 shares while we’re able to keep cruising (hopefully another 30 years or so) and while they keep paying onboard credit. Hopefully by the time we sell they will have appreciated in value considerably. Unlike Royal Caribbean shares, the Carnival Corporation share price has not yet recovered from the hit it took during the industry lockdown. 
 

For us (YMMV) I think it’s worth owning the shares. We tend to take a couple of cruises a year so are getting a decent return and are confident that the shares will appreciate in time. JMHO

There's some discussion on share prices on the Cruise Ship Profits thread:

Just goes to show how volatile the industry is and how quickly the situation can change. 

19 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

Welcome to cruise critic.

 

I haven’t been on Carnival but have on P&O . Friends tell me Carnival Australia is the pits and P&O are better ,At least they have a cap on Kids .

And yet others will tell you the opposite. 🤷‍♂️
It’s all very subjective. 
After our initial P&O cruise on the Pacific Eden in 2019 I wasn’t keen on returning to them and even joked that P&O stood for Poor & 'Orrible. 
We were underwhelmed with our cruise on the Carnival Splendor in 2022 but delighted with the Pacific Encounter when we boarded the day after debarking the Carnival Splendor. We’ve returned to P&O several twice since then with another two cruises with them in the next couple of months. We’ve not been back to Carnival but we will try again sometime.

Suffice it to say that two people can be on the same cruise and have completely different experiences. 

All reviews should come with the caveat, JMHO YMMV.

One more story. On one of our RCI cruises, DW's parents were also sailing with us. They were doing B2B having been on the previous cruise. They were astonished at the difference between the two cruises and said that the service and the food had been far superior on the first cruise. Go figure. 🤷‍♂️
 

As Adrian @The Cruise and Travel Guy said, we'll have to wait and see how this develops over the next 9-12 months. 
 

😎

3 hours ago, Dididi said:

…Sparky, yes, I read that you and your wife are on the same PNG cruise as us, and that this is definitely not the first time you tried to do this itinerary.  Same for us. I enjoyed reading your "Are We Mad?" thread and wish you had finished the saga.  If you see a jet lagged 60-year old desperately waiting for the buffet to open at 6am so she can dash to the coffee machine, that will be me. The photo is from our Star Princess (now Pacific Encounter) December 2019 cruise to Hawaii.  Back then we were in a Lido inside cabin; this time we got fancy and chose a balcony down the hall.

 

Rather than derail this thread(!) I’ve started a Roll Call for the PNG cruise. 
 

I wonder how long it will be before they transfer the P&O ships to the Carnival website. Surely maintaining two seperate websites isn’t going to be cost effective. 
Perhaps once the the Carnival Encounter and the Carnival Adventure are on the Carnival website the "guest experience" and charges will be alined with theatre of the Carnival Splendor and the Carnival Luminosa. 
This is pure speculation on my part. 🤷‍♂️

I sent a copy of statement to my TA and she arranges it. 🤷‍♂️

37 minutes ago, Jim_P said:

I read somewhere that by 2026 Australian cruising capacity will have reduced by 30%. Worse still is that that particular report didn't even include the loss of Cunard and Virgin, so it's even more than that.  

 

Given the popularity of cruising in Australia which has only been growing, much higher prices and less deals are inevitable. 

I wonder if the higher prices will then drive down demand. 🤔

33 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

Carnival needs money to build new fuel efficient ships . 

I wonder why there appears to be much stronger investor confidence in RCCL than the other two. 
 

Recently we’ve been enjoying shareholder OBC on our P&O cruises. I figure it’s a pretty good return on our investment in 100 shares even though they’re not paying an actual dividend. The share price doesn’t particularly bother me inasmuch as we probably won’t sell the shares while we're able to keep cruising, hopefully for another 30 years!

I wish I’d bought some RCCL shares when they were low although we’re not cruising so much with them these days as DW prefers mid-sized ships. But I guess all investors look at prices and wish they’d bought various shares when they were low. 🤣

It’s also interesting to compare the share price of the big three: Carnival Corp, RCCL, and NCL. 

They all too a massive hit in 2020. While Royal Caribbean shares have recovered, the other two are yet to do so. 

With recent changes to the numbers of ships sailing from Australia ports as well as the impending rebranding of the P&O ships, not to mention the deletion of the Pacific Explorer, one can’t help but wonder how this will affect local cruise prices. Will reduced supply drive up the prices or will increased prices drive down demand? Time will tell. 
Someone pointed me in the direction of this article. 
https://sherwood.news/business/the-economics-of-a-carnival-corp-cruise/

We know that the cruise lines haemorrhaged money and took on massive debt during the lockdown but I didn’t realise how slim the margins are on a cruise ship. No wonder they continue to dial back services and increase prices while positioning ships in areas of the world which will give a slightly better return.  

3 hours ago, windsor26 said:

When we were on the Splendor there were loads of Americans on board and after speaking to a fair few we know why  They had a free cruise and just had to pay their air fares 

1 hour ago, cruiser3775 said:

Yes, I met a few like that, who were using up their cruise credits from the pandemic shutdowns. I imagine most of those are now used up, so more passengers are actually paying the going rate to cruise.

51 minutes ago, windsor26 said:

The ones we spoke with were all Casino free offers   and they did say they mostly were not HIGH rollers  and the free cruise also gave them casino drinks and obc for the casino

When we did the transPacific on Splendor there were LOTS of Americans on the Roll Call who were sailing on a casino offer. 
That was until they worked out how much it was for an airfare home, and a passport, and… Many of them decided they couldn’t afford the "free" cruise but there was still plenty on board.
I don’t even buy raffle tickets but I'm an early riser, even on holidays. The casino was open 24 hours a day and no matter what time I walked through there was always dozens playing the pokies. Even at 4am! And I don’t think that they were earlier risers; they were still there from the previous night! 😱

9 hours ago, Dididi said:

…We're flying to Brisbane to join the Pacific Encounter's August PNG cruise…

DW & I will also be on that cruise! 😁

1 minute ago, CDaze71 said:

Those bloody Yanks can stop rubbing their hands together and get their dirty mitts off our ships. They have enough choice over there, sooooo many ships. 

I love telling Americans that all Australians get 4 weeks paid vacation each year. After seeing their jaws drop I add, "And you thought the USA was the greatest country in the world!" 🤣

But I’m now reflecting on how many ships they might need over there if they DID get proper holidays like we do here. 😱

When DW read the P&O email she queried if "unimpacted" is a word. I suggested that it’s a dental diagnosis. 😬

5 minutes ago, Mycruiseobsession said:

The Carnival Media release says

 

"P&O Cruises Australia guests will also be invited to participate in Carnival’s loyalty program and promotional offerings specific to Carnival ships sailing in the region.” 

 

I am going to guess (hope) that it means past P&O cruises will  count towards VIFP once P&O ceases in 2025 rather than just being invited  to start again!

Yes, when I read that I wondered if Cruislings would have their points transferred across to VIFP or if they’d be invited to start from scratch. 🤔

And what if those of us who have earned points in both systems. I wonder if we can add our Cruisling points to our VIFP points. 🤔
 

Of course, the problem with any loyalty program is that there are eventually too many people in the upper tiers and they have to either water down the benefits or move the goalposts. Either way there are winners and losers and people get upset. 🤷‍♂️

But as Gilbert and Sullivan said, “If everybody’s somebody, nobody’s anybody!"

14 minutes ago, Over from NZ said:

This is the key to it - "However, given the strategic reality of the South Pacific's small population and significantly higher operating and regulatory costs, we're adjusting our approach," he said.

 

That's coded for - Down under is a small market and not as profitable. Add to that, NZ is becoming problematic for them and other regulatory issues.. and Aus is the backwater where they want to squeeze a better return out of with less ships. Expect fewer options and increased fares I would think. 

This is my biggest fear.