New Seabourn president doing Q and A on Facebook 8/20 at 4:15ESt

[wesport]

[cruisr]

Excellent.  Kudos to him for doing this and not hiding or not communicating as most other cruise line Presidents are doing.

[cruiseej]

9 hours ago, cruisr said:

Excellent.  Kudos to him for doing this and not hiding or not communicating as most other cruise line Presidents are doing.

 

Well, let's see if he conveys useful information or if this is just a PR show. 😉

[whogo]

Is this a one-way "conversation" or will there be questions?

[wesport]

38 minutes ago, whogo said:

Is this a one-way "conversation" or will there be questions?

You have to enter your queston via Facebook. 

[wesport]

In the comment bar.

[whogo]

6 hours ago, wesport said:

You have to enter your queston via Facebook. 

Thank you, wesport. I will not be joining Facebook to take part.

[robertmartha]

I stole a half hour out of my work day to watch...enjoyed it very much.

Josh came across as engaging and genuine - really down to earth in my opinion.

Believe he was as honest as he could be with the on-going COVID situation and future deployments and the information he could share / questions he could answer!  You could see he is very passionate about the cruising experience...at least I thought so!

 

Bob

[tjcox9]

Agree, but nothing new added to the ongoing situation in which we find them and ourselves. Nice effort though. 

[wesport]

The word that caught my attention was we have to be patient. 

[jjs217]

So, I'm assuming no mention was made about the rest of the 2020 cruise season?  (Not that there are very many cruises left on the books right now.)

[robertmartha]

JJS - no mention on remaining sailings. They did discuss the cancellation of the world cruise "this early" - but stated logistically under the current circumstances it made more sense to cancel now - this far in advance.

Anyone's guess when sailings will resume.....

[MightyQuinn]

I'm not on Facebook but I was still able to watch the session with Josh Leibowitz.  I found his presentation sincere and believable. 

He clearly stated that, contrary to rumour, Seabourn are not selling ships but they are "cocooning" and preparing to sail when the time is right.  He said they had a long runway and could go well into 2021 even without revenue.  He also addressed refunds and noted that nearly all the internal work to get their refund process up to speed is done and they are now almost completely caught up.  He urged anyone who still has refunds outstanding to reach out directly.  Apparently they were going to post additional contact info on FB.

There was also discussion on Venture and Leibowitz acknowledged he doesn't know when the ship will launch but he's committed to sharing info as it becomes available.  He also talked about cancelling the upcoming World Cruise.  He said there were enough signals that offering it in Jan 2021 was sufficiently in doubt, so execs made the bold decision to operate with the best info at hand. 

Overall, I thought it was 30 minutes well spent.

[cruiseej]

Thanks for the reports. One comment about the Venture… It's hard to fathom that the president of the cruise line says he doesn't know about the progress of his company's latest ship under construction. I imagine they get weekly reports from the shipyard. Things could be behind and still catch up, or be on schedule and still fall behind, but he should certainly know where things stand as of today. Saying he doesn't seems ingenuous. The skeptic in me thinks he just doesn't want people to cancel their cruises that are 12-18 months away, so he's feigning lack of knowledge to keep bookings and money.

[jjs217]

22 hours ago, robertmartha said:

JJS - no mention on remaining sailings. They did discuss the cancellation of the world cruise "this early" - but stated logistically under the current circumstances it made more sense to cancel now - this far in advance.

Anyone's guess when sailings will resume.....

Okay - thanks.  I'm still holding out for my Dec 2020 Antarctica Expedition - although it isn't looking good.

[MightyQuinn]

13 hours ago, cruiseej said:

Thanks for the reports. One comment about the Venture… It's hard to fathom that the president of the cruise line says he doesn't know about the progress of his company's latest ship under construction. I imagine they get weekly reports from the shipyard. Things could be behind and still catch up, or be on schedule and still fall behind, but he should certainly know where things stand as of today. Saying he doesn't seems ingenuous. The skeptic in me thinks he just doesn't want people to cancel their cruises that are 12-18 months away, so he's feigning lack of knowledge to keep bookings and money.

 

As I posted above, Leibowitz acknowledged he doesn't know when Venture will launch but he's committed to sharing info as it becomes available.  That was my quick summary of the FB discussion. 

 

But to clarify, Leibowitz said he hasn't gotten the final delivery report on Venture from the shipyard.  He did say, however, that he is getting daily and weekly updates on its progress.  He also mentioned that it's reasonable to expect some delay and he'll share an update as soon as he has clarity on the final launch date.

 

[sananda]

On 8/21/2020 at 11:31 PM, cruiseej said:

Thanks for the reports. One comment about the Venture… It's hard to fathom that the president of the cruise line says he doesn't know about the progress of his company's latest ship under construction. I imagine they get weekly reports from the shipyard. Things could be behind and still catch up, or be on schedule and still fall behind, but he should certainly know where things stand as of today. Saying he doesn't seems ingenuous. The skeptic in me thinks he just doesn't want people to cancel their cruises that are 12-18 months away, so he's feigning lack of knowledge to keep bookings and money.

Maybe he is hiding an unpleasant truth or maybe Mr. Leibowitz wasn't paying attention to his boss when the corporate wide delays and cancellations for new ship deliveries were discussed with investors.  

 

Carnival Corporation has announced plans to sell 13 of its' ships in 2020 to deal with the Covid pandemic losses (4.4 billion in losses during the second quarter).

 

More to the point about the Venture (originally scheduled for a June 2021 delivery), Carnival said that only four of the nine ships that were scheduled to be acquired in 2020 and 2021 will now be delivered before the end of the fiscal year 2021.  The ship deliveries scheduled for the fiscal year 2022 and 2023 have been delayed indefinitely.

 

Quoting Carnival Corporation president and CEO Arnold Donald "We have been transitioning the fleet into a prolonged pause and right-sizing our shoreside operations. We have already reduced operating costs by over $7bn on an annualised basis and reduced capital expenditures also by more than $5bn over the next 18 months. We have secured over $10bn of additional liquidity to sustain another full year with additional flexibility remaining. We have aggressively shed assets while actively deferring new ship deliveries."

 

In order to take delivery of the four new ships that are still a go for fiscal 2021,  Carnival needs a lot of cash to make final payment.  Carnival also needs even more cash to restart fleet operations.  Seabourn has always been a feather in the cap for Carnival, but it has never been a big money maker.  Given Carnival's dire financial situation, I would hope that they concentrate their resources on the lines that make big money until the cruise and travel market stabilizes and their cash flow improves.

[cruiseej]

I don't know anything about ship-building contracts, but I imagine a ship that's already well along in construction, like the Venture, would be hard to back out of now. Could they pay for all the work that's been done and supplies ordered, and then just pause future work for awhile? I'd guess so, but stopping, storage and maintenance, and restarting just drives up the cost of the new ship; it may not make financial sense to halt work because they'd still have to pay a lot of the sunk costs and drive up the final cost a year or two down the road. And if they think they will be able to put the Venture into profitable service next summer or fall or winter, it may be worth continuing to move ahead. And if the shipyards are operating at less-than-full speed due to coronavirus work conditions, then the cruise line can stretch out their payments for a later delivery schedule without defaulting or driving up their costs.

[sananda]

Carnival has not made the ship purchase contracts publicly available, but we know that they do not have enough money to complete the nine 2020 and 2021 deliveries.  Trust me, Carnival corporation did not want to sell 13 ships in 2020, lay off most of their personnel and borrow an additional 10 billion dollars.  They did these things to raise cash so that they could survive.

 

The Seabourn Venture is not named as one of the four ships they intend to complete at this point.  They want the first to be delivered to be the Carnival Mardi Gras.  A lot is going to depend on Carnival's cash flow going forward.  Looking at their burn rate, I don't see how they will be able to take delivery of the other three any time soon.  Carnival is counting on a lot of things to go very well for them during the remainder of 2020.

 

Also, you have to take the shipyards into consideration.  Are they still idle?  Do they have enough cash on hand to restart operations?  Are they financially secure enough to survive?  The Venture is being built by T Mariotti, which I have no information on.  However, Carnival builds most of its ships at Fincantieri which is still idle.

 

At this point we have to hope for the best, take whatever cruises they make available and not worry about what new ships may or may not get delivered.