Time To For A Reality Check For Mr. Fain

[RDC1]

Ok Let Mr Fain take all his "eggs" to China. If the average American is anything like me... I have been losing interest in RCi. This is from a family who has cruised with RCI 2 to 6 times a year and has been(used to be) loyal to RCi since 2000. We still love cruising bu t RCI has gotten so gimmicky and the nickel and diming is ridiculous. RCi has lost interest in its loyalty members too. OKAY fine I understand its a big world out there......I have chosen to take my discretionary disposable income elsewhere.

 

RCL needs to reduce Caribbean capacity and increase their presence else where in the world if they want to effectively compete. Their concentration in the Caribbean (as a percentage of their total capacity) means that they are really hit by the need to discount.

[klingoncruiser]

Wow, well said!:D

[Maraprince]

The economic reality is FACT. When the prices dropped and the discount seekers and cheap cruisers came, onboard revenue dropped. It makes more sense to keep prices higher where people will and do spend money on board.

 

Those who bought at a discount, were not prepared and did not spend as before. This is a verifiable fact. It is not elitist to state reality. Richard Fain has been stating for years that cruise prices across the lines were artificially far too low for the value offered. As a shareholder, this is a brilliant strategy to end this discounting nonsense.

 

If I recall correctly, there were threads in which diamond and above level passengers bragged about booking either inside cabins or the lowest priced outside cabins. How would you classify these passengers?

 

Also, on one of RCL's member cruises, prices were raised to over $3,000 for a balcony cabin before it reached a point that prices began to fall back down. Part of the tremendous rise in prices was due to the higher rate of non-US passengers on board. Sure they could afford to pay the higher cruise price because in their currencies it was a bargain! Once on board, they did not tip since in their cultures, tips are included in the price. They took tours but not from RCL since a fair portion of the bookings were group bookings and English was not their first language. Some but not all of them did not mix at all with anyone outside their group.

 

MARAPRINCE

[Debde]

If I recall correctly, there were threads in which diamond and above level passengers bragged about booking either inside cabins or the lowest priced outside cabins. How would you classify these passengers?

MARAPRINCE

 

People that book the cheapest cabin on board.

[coldflame]

If I recall correctly, there were threads in which diamond and above level passengers bragged about booking either inside cabins or the lowest priced outside cabins. How would you classify these passengers?

 

Also, on one of RCL's member cruises, prices were raised to over $3,000 for a balcony cabin before it reached a point that prices began to fall back down. Part of the tremendous rise in prices was due to the higher rate of non-US passengers on board. Sure they could afford to pay the higher cruise price because in their currencies it was a bargain! Once on board, they did not tip since in their cultures, tips are included in the price. They took tours but not from RCL since a fair portion of the bookings were group bookings and English was not their first language. Some but not all of them did not mix at all with anyone outside their group.

 

MARAPRINCE

 

Most people in this thread seem to forget that, unlike forum wisdom would lead you to believe, cruise lines have their revenue models down to a science. They know exactly how much revenue per sailing they need to make a profit, they know how sales and other things affect the bottom line. They know a fair amount of people will not spend a dime extra on-board. They have historical data, they can tweak here and there to see how the market responds and how it compares to other epochs.

 

People making claims that the current CEO of RCCL doesn't know what he's doing are a bit myopic. A CEO would not put his or her ass on the line if they didn't have the data to back the changes up. The BoD would hand him his walking papers so fast, it wouldn't even be funny. He might be making moves that are not advantageous to you as a _consumer_, but he is taking a calculated risk in order to increase _shareholder_ value.

[RocketMan275]

If I recall correctly, there were threads in which diamond and above level passengers bragged about booking either inside cabins or the lowest priced outside cabins. How would you classify these passengers?

 

MARAPRINCE

 

And, if I recall correctly, one of the more popular pastimes on this forum has been complaining about having to pre-pay gratuities in MTD and DD. Many posters were irate that this would not allow them to use their OBC to pay for their gratuities. This implies that they have no plans for significant on-board spending.

[Maraprince]

And, if I recall correctly, one of the more popular pastimes on this forum has been complaining about having to pre-pay gratuities in MTD and DD. Many posters were irate that this would not allow them to use their OBC to pay for their gratuities. This implies that they have no plans for significant on-board spending.

 

My point exactly along with how to smuggle liquor on board.

 

MARAPRINCE

[Maraprince]

Most people in this thread seem to forget that, unlike forum wisdom would lead you to believe, cruise lines have their revenue models down to a science. They know exactly how much revenue per sailing they need to make a profit, they know how sales and other things affect the bottom line. They know a fair amount of people will not spend a dime extra on-board. They have historical data, they can tweak here and there to see how the market responds and how it compares to other epochs.

 

People making claims that the current CEO of RCCL doesn't know what he's doing are a bit myopic. A CEO would not put his or her ass on the line if they didn't have the data to back the changes up. The BoD would hand him his walking papers so fast, it wouldn't even be funny. He might be making moves that are not advantageous to you as a _consumer_, but he is taking a calculated risk in order to increase _shareholder_ value.

 

 

 

He has to say this to avoid a big stock sell off. It's the company line that is meant to re-assure stockholders that they will get a big dividend. RCL has all these new ships to pay for and that will take years to do.

 

 

MARAPRINCE

[orville99]

Ok Let Mr Fain take all his "eggs" to China. If the average American is anything like me... I have been losing interest in RCi. This is from a family who has cruised with RCI 2 to 6 times a year and has been(used to be) loyal to RCi since 2000. We still love cruising bu t RCI has gotten so gimmicky and the nickel and diming is ridiculous. RCi has lost interest in its loyalty members too. OKAY fine I understand its a big world out there......I have chosen to take my discretionary disposable income elsewhere.

 

 

We're going down the same road. We've been doing 5-6 RCL cruises a year for the past five years. We're on Disney in two weeks, and plan to book three more DCL cruises while on board. We also have eyes on two interesting CCL itineraries (one of them is a Bermuda cruise out of PC next May, and the other one is an island-hopping southern route to places we've never visited). We'll probably still do 1-2 RCL cruises a year, but only if the timing and price line up right.

[poncho1973]

Understood, my comment was an attempt to state that it is possible to exceed 100%. ;)

 

But you can never give more of yourself than 100% effort, which was mine.

[poncho1973]

If the average American is anything like me... I have been losing interest in RCi.

 

The numbers posted in this thread seem to show that they aren't.

[RDC1]

Most people in this thread seem to forget that, unlike forum wisdom would lead you to believe, cruise lines have their revenue models down to a science. They know exactly how much revenue per sailing they need to make a profit, they know how sales and other things affect the bottom line. They know a fair amount of people will not spend a dime extra on-board. They have historical data, they can tweak here and there to see how the market responds and how it compares to other epochs.

 

People making claims that the current CEO of RCCL doesn't know what he's doing are a bit myopic. A CEO would not put his or her ass on the line if they didn't have the data to back the changes up. The BoD would hand him his walking papers so fast, it wouldn't even be funny. He might be making moves that are not advantageous to you as a _consumer_, but he is taking a calculated risk in order to increase _shareholder_ value.

 

Yes and No.

 

Yes in that the cruise lines have lots of data and run very sophisticated pricing models. They can use that data to run all kinds of projections.

 

No in that the models have limits. They tell what response was in a given market, with whatever existed at that time with state of the economy, competition, capacity, features, etc.

 

So they work very well when it comes times to apply discounts. Estimating the value of on board spending vs ticket prices.

 

What they do not do well is to determine market reaction to changes. You can do all kinds of work such as focus groups, surveys, etc., but that still comes down to a degree of guess work (more of an art then a science). In other words the systems can identify and quantify trends, that you can react to, but does not allow you to get in front of them.

 

Airlines also have very sophisticated models (probably even more so then the cruise lines) yet look at all of the mistakes they have made in their competitive environment. Especially when it comes to looking at pricing power and the ability to raise price. Many airlines have made the attempt to reduce discounts and improve services. Most have failed when it comes to the majority of tickets (some success in business and first class, but none in coach). The only reason airlines have been able to lately has been due to reductions in capacity, which when one looks at the number of large ships being built is clearly not the focus of cruise lines.

 

CEO's can pretty much pull out whatever data they need to support the direction they want to go in. Some end up proving correct, some end up not proving correct. RCL has probably been making the most changes of any of the cruise lines. They seem to be very chaotic in their implementations. Interesting that their occupancy rate is as high as it is (probably due to percentage of capacity allocated to RCI compared to the other RCL lines and its focus on families), that revenue is impacted as much as it is. Would be interesting to see the breakout by each of RCLs lines instead of composite numbers.

Edited April 23, 2015 by RDC1

[Big_G]

RCL needs to reduce Caribbean capacity and increase their presence else where in the world if they want to effectively compete. Their concentration in the Caribbean (as a percentage of their total capacity) means that they are really hit by the need to discount.

 

Very true. A more extreme example is Carnival Cruise Lines. They pulled out of Europe and have over-saturated the Caribbean market with ships. Pick any month of the year on their cruise finder and count the number of ships in the Caribbean. The last time I did it was for August 2014 and there were 18 Carnival ships sailing the Caribbean. There's your reason why Carnival's prices are so low. They're competing against themselves.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Big_G

[RDC1]

Very true. A more extreme example is Carnival Cruise Lines. They pulled out of Europe and have over-saturated the Caribbean market with ships. Pick any month of the year on their cruise finder and count the number of ships in the Caribbean. The last time I did it was for August 2014 and there were 18 Carnival ships sailing the Caribbean. There's your reason why Carnival's prices are so low. They're competing against themselves.

 

There is a big difference though. The RCL lines have a much higher percentage of its capacity in the Caribbean, then CCL does. While Carnival cruise line might have a lot of its capacity there, the other CCL lines: Princess, HAL, Cunard, P&O, etc. are far more distributed. End result is less CCL reliance on the Caribbean market compared with RCL.

[aimish]

RCL needs to reduce Caribbean capacity and increase their presence else where in the world if they want to effectively compete. Their concentration in the Caribbean (as a percentage of their total capacity) means that they are really hit by the need to discount.

 

Strange that Royal Caribbean would be mainly

focused on the Caribbean. :D

[JohnSnowGOT]

Most people in this thread seem to forget that, unlike forum wisdom would lead you to believe, cruise lines have their revenue models down to a science. They know exactly how much revenue per sailing they need to make a profit, they know how sales and other things affect the bottom line. They know a fair amount of people will not spend a dime extra on-board. They have historical data, they can tweak here and there to see how the market responds and how it compares to other epochs.

 

People making claims that the current CEO of RCCL doesn't know what he's doing are a bit myopic. A CEO would not put his or her ass on the line if they didn't have the data to back the changes up. The BoD would hand him his walking papers so fast, it wouldn't even be funny. He might be making moves that are not advantageous to you as a _consumer_, but he is taking a calculated risk in order to increase _shareholder_ value.

 

 

OH YE of small brain and short memory!!!

Remember RON JOHNSON??? the failed savoir of JC Penny???

An otherwise great and accomplished CEO... he went down in brilliant flames and almost took JC penny with him.

[RocketMan275]

My point exactly along with how to smuggle liquor on board.

 

MARAPRINCE

 

Despite all the 'outrage', the posters to this thread have established the fact that there are a lot of 'cheap cruisers' on this forum.

 

As Mom used to say: "The more you complain about being called 'cheap', the 'cheaper' you probably are."

[RocketMan275]

OH YE of small brain and short memory!!!

Remember RON JOHNSON??? the failed savoir of JC Penny???

An otherwise great and accomplished CEO... he went down in brilliant flames and almost took JC penny with him.

 

But the point was, the CEO does base his assessments and strategies upon data. He's not flying 'seat of the pants'. If he's wrong, he's gone. Every day, he's playing a game called "you bet your sweet ass".

 

Posters seem to think that the CEO should base his decisions on reducing their costs and not upon improving his companies profitability.

[Big_G]

There is a big difference though. The RCL lines have a much higher percentage of its capacity in the Caribbean, then CCL does. While Carnival cruise line might have a lot of its capacity there, the other CCL lines: Princess, HAL, Cunard, P&O, etc. are far more distributed. End result is less CCL reliance on the Caribbean market compared with RCL.

 

I understand what you're saying but I wasn't referring to the corporations. I was referring to the individual lines. That's why those subsidiaries of Carnival Corp. (Princess and Holland) have better pricing power for their Caribbean cruises than Carnival the cruise line. Do you follow me? I'm just talking cruise line pricing here and not corporate earnings. If we're just talking RCCL v. CCL, I believe CCL has the higher Caribbean capacity and therefore competing against itself because they have saturated that market.

[RDC1]

I understand what you're saying but I wasn't referring to the corporations. I was referring to the individual lines. That's why those subsidiaries of Carnival Corp. (Princess and Holland) have better pricing power for their Caribbean cruises than Carnival the cruise line. Do you follow me? I'm just talking cruise line pricing here and not corporate earnings. If we're just talking RCCL v. CCL, I believe CCL has the higher Caribbean capacity and therefore competing against itself because they have saturated that market.

 

Keep in mind that the individual in the title of this Topic Richard Fain is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the parent company, not just the individual line. Do you follow me?

 

The post you responded to was talking about RCL which is the stock symbol for the parent company. Do you follow me?

 

The financials are reported for the entire company, not for each individual line. Do you follow me? Since they do report in those fashion one really needs to look across all of the lines to look at the competitive aspect. RCCL is by far the largest share of RCL. Where as Carnival is not the largest share of CCL.

 

Just figure I would respond to your post in the same way your responded to mine. Do you follow me?

Edited April 24, 2015 by RDC1

[Big_G]

Keep in mind that the individual in the title of this Topic Richard Fain is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the parent company, not just the individual line. Do you follow me?

 

The post you responded to was talking about RCL which is the stock symbol for the parent company. Do you follow me?

 

The financials are reported for the entire company, not for each individual line. Do you follow me? Since they do report in those fashion one really needs to look across all of the lines to look at the competitive aspect. RCCL is by far the largest share of RCL. Where as Carnival is not the largest share of CCL.

 

Just figure I would respond to your post in the same way your responded to mine. Do you follow me?

 

 

Really??? Easily offended much? I wasn't sure you understood my original comment and was just trying to explain myself. Sorry you got your undies in a bundle.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited April 24, 2015 by Big_G

[RDC1]

Really??? Easily offended much? I wasn't sure you understood my original comment and was just trying to explain myself. Sorry you got your undies in a bundle.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Just wanted to make sure about how that comment which did not add anything to your posting comes across. The post was quite clear without it and its purpose would have been equally clear. With the phrase the response became annoying.

Edited April 24, 2015 by RDC1

[Big_G]

Just wanted to make sure about how that comment which did not add anything to your posting comes across. The post was quite clear without it and its purpose would have been equally clear. With the phrase the response became annoying.

 

 

Like I said, sorry your undies got twisted over a simple question.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[JohnSnowGOT]

Well folks I am just a consumer. We are educated past masters level and take 5 vacation weeks each year, with a good bit of discretionary income. I enjoy RCi's product but yes I have been offended by the recent changes. We normally spend an average of 2 to 4 thousand dollars per 7day cruise. Even more on a holiday or birthday cruise. We have felt the D+ snub and no longer seek to become pinnacle. Go ahead MR Fain cater to the great unwashed. Good luck

Edited April 24, 2015 by JohnSnowGOT

[coldflame]

OH YE of small brain and short memory!!!

Remember RON JOHNSON??? the failed savoir of JC Penny???

An otherwise great and accomplished CEO... he went down in brilliant flames and almost took JC penny with him.

 

So I get you're trying to backhandedly call me stupid, but you just made my whole point: if a CEO starts making calls out of their asses, they get sacked, fast. No shareholder will allow their investment to go to hell in a hand basket.

Edited April 24, 2015 by coldflame