CCL's stock price

[Shawn5]

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you. Try calling them with a simple request or question and you'll get nowhere.  Perhaps they should provide better customer service to those who are spending $3k, $5k, or maybe over $10k on a cruise instead of "escalating" your question or issue to a different person or department that may or most likely will not resolve your problem.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Shawn5

[Geoffa30]

Think the recent fall is due to the earnings call for another line recently which wasn’t great. Believe it was Norwegian but not 100%. Carnival’s earnings are tomorrow so will be interesting to see how it plays out. Obviously the current banking crisis et al isn’t helping.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, Shawn5 said:

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you. Try calling them with a simple request or question and you'll get nowhere.  Perhaps they should provide better customer service to those who are spending $3k, $5k, or maybe over $10k on a cruise instead of "escalating" your question or issue to a different person or department that may or most likely will not resolve your problem.

The impact of customer service on the share price is exactky nil, in the sense that individual shareholders have so few shares, that they cannot influence the share price.

The major institutional investors who are the ones who matter,  will only care if negative opinions feed through to the profitability of the operation. 

[Jadn13]

I wish there was a correlation but 2023 will have more to do with Inflation the Fed and now the banking crisis. 

[Grego]

4 hours ago, Shawn5 said:

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you. Try calling them with a simple request or question and you'll get nowhere.  Perhaps they should provide better customer service to those who are spending $3k, $5k, or maybe over $10k on a cruise instead of "escalating" your question or issue to a different person or department that may or most likely will not resolve your problem.

The price has nothing to do with your views but rather a situation that was caused by the nearly two years of pandemic that impacted the entire industry compounded by a need to look for other sources of funds that would keep the corporation together until the economies returned.

Remember that Carnival Corp is a group of many different cruise lines which have been impacted by industry wide issues getting human resources back to work.  There are good signs of a recovery and until then I will continue to invest in the product I love to use the most.

[billco]

Princess customer service wasn't that great before the pandemic when CCL stock was in the $60s.

Even with the lousy customer service Princess ships are sailing full again.

[chicgotgame]

5 hours ago, Shawn5 said:

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you. Try calling them with a simple request or question and you'll get nowhere.  Perhaps they should provide better customer service to those who are spending $3k, $5k, or maybe over $10k on a cruise instead of "escalating" your question or issue to a different person or department that may or most likely will not resolve your problem.

It doesn’t help to be elite when trying to get help from customer service, they still put you on hold for hours and won’t address requests/needs. 

[JoRoy218]

57 minutes ago, chicgotgame said:

It doesn’t help to be elite when trying to get help from customer service, they still put you on hold for hours and won’t address requests/needs. 

Absolutely! Same here. Have had to be persistent and assertive on several occasions. They recognize the Loyalty level but seems to not make a difference. I believe one factor is the influx of relatively inexperienced staff. Phone call this past week, had to be “elevated” to a more senior staff, got the action I needed in less than 5 min. 🤨

[Princessfan20]

7 hours ago, Shawn5 said:

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you. Try calling them with a simple request or question and you'll get nowhere.  Perhaps they should provide better customer service to those who are spending $3k, $5k, or maybe over $10k on a cruise instead of "escalating" your question or issue to a different person or department that may or most likely will not resolve your problem.

 

 

It really has to do with a number of factors and it probably is not going to go back to pre-Covid levels by most estimates:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4576537-carnival-corporation-no-recovery-upside-left-massive-downside

[cruzin4us]

It doesn't matter if you are elite or not......the customer service stinks and so does the Casino Booking Dept.   We all experience the lack of good customer support no matter what the loyalty level.

[skynight]

Stock price is related to earnings, not customer service. Carnival Corp. has 10 brands which contribute to the earnings. The corporation also incurred large debt to pay its expenses during the shutdown period when they had no income. I can imagine that paying off that debt is a burden on quartely earnings which is directly related to the stock price.

Customer service is a factor in generating repeat and new customers. In the longer run this may effect business and earnings.

In any case Princess must get its customer service in order and solve its customer technology issues. If they don't address this problem they will probably see many more one & dones or after 40 Princess cruises I'm done with them.

[ED49404]

22 minutes ago, skynight said:

Stock price is related to earnings, not customer service. Carnival Corp. has 10 brands which contribute to the earnings. The corporation also incurred large debt to pay its expenses during the shutdown period when they had no income. I can imagine that paying off that debt is a burden on quartely earnings which is directly related to the stock price.

Customer service is a factor in generating repeat and new customers. In the longer run this may effect business and earnings.

In any case Princess must get its customer service in order and solve its customer technology issues. If they don't address this problem they will probably see many more one & dones or after 40 Princess cruises I'm done with them.

I agree with your last paragraph.  Since COVID, I do see some improvement however; it is still SLOW.

[neverbeenhere]

As for the stock price of CCL, I say bet Red 13.

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, cruzin4us said:

It doesn't matter if you are elite or not......the customer service stinks and so does the Casino Booking Dept.   We all experience the lack of good customer support no matter what the loyalty level.

Thank you. There seems to be some who believe that only they should get decent customer service because of their loyalty level. As for the rest of us, I guess they think we deserve to be treated like rubbish.

[mowogo]

Very simple, Carnival had to take a lot of debt during the pandemic to stay afloat and that debt is getting more expensive to refinance.  And then when you look at the lines, Costa is doing poorly enough where Carnival is spending millions to convert them for Carnival usage. They’ve announced that debt is high enough that there are no more new ships to be announced, and they aren’t looking at ordering anything for years.

 

And these same forces are hitting every publicly traded cruise line.  It is very likely that we are going to see some cruise lines shut down in the next few years because the overall market dynamics are unsustainable, likely to be made even worse if stricter environmental protocols are passed into law.

[Guest ldtr]

11 hours ago, Shawn5 said:

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you. Try calling them with a simple request or question and you'll get nowhere.  Perhaps they should provide better customer service to those who are spending $3k, $5k, or maybe over $10k on a cruise instead of "escalating" your question or issue to a different person or department that may or most likely will not resolve your problem.

The stock price is mostly a factor of the number of additional shares issued (dilution), as well as the large amount of debt.  When those two factors are taken into account the stock price is pretty much right on, if one assumes a return to pre-covid revenue streams and pre debt payment profitability.

 

Actually Captains Club status really has no impact on customer service. Though those that have cruised more will have a better idea of what and who to ask, as well as the limitations. Not only for Princess, but the other competing cruise lines as well.

[Roberto256]

12 hours ago, Shawn5 said:

So it's no secret that cruise lines' stock prices are in the toilet. This chart shows CCL's stock price vs. the S&P500 since 2020. Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but you can't help wondering if there are other factors at play. One thing might be their lousy customer service and the way they treat current and past travelers. Unless you're classified as an "Elite, Platinum, etc." they couldn't care less about you.

I don't want to make a fight with you, but being elite doesn't help.

 

As you can see from the replies, the princess affecianados love princess no matter what.

This puts John Padgette in the awesome position of being able to cut just about anything, and the princess fans will still line up.

 

Every once in a while some poor poster posts something like ... what happened to me was so bad that I am going to change cruise lines.

They get mocked.

 

Go John!  There is no downside!

 

[VibeGuy]

What’s the benefit to Princess of improving pre-cruise customer support for people who have already booked?

 

The line has made a decision about how to resource pre-cruise post-purchase support and it’s roughly as good as it has to be.  If you don’t get your question about, say, specialty dining answered correctly and promptly pre-cruise, is that really going to change your spend?  I doubt it.  It will get answered onboard and they’ll book the revenue and they didn’t spend $5 more per call to get a concierge-level experience.  
 

I don’t mean to be cynical, but “barely adequate” is good enough to sell the ships to 120%.  As a shareholder I’m fine with it.  Every cranky person who wants an answer over the phone is likely to no longer be physically able to sail sooner than the new customers who avail themselves of self-service or social media channels for inquiries. 

[Guest ldtr]

Keep in mind that customer service reps can only deal with the items that are covered in their training, and the systems they can reference, the same as with any other industry.  Those things that they cannot, they must refer to other departments.

 

In addition there is the division between land based and ship based systems and departments.  Land based can, and usually does deal well with reservations, payments, and most general information.  Some things must be referred to other departments, especially for solving issues such as airline reservations, room changes, errors in billing, etc.  Especially when things get close to the actual departure time for the cruise.  There are some things that land based customer service cannot really resolve well, because they are under control of the ship and the ship board systems.  Those often have to be resolved on board ship such as some add on purchase, dining scheduling issues, etc.

 

I suspect that Princess Customer Service handles most of the transactions they get quite well.  What becomes the problem and what we often here about here are a relatively small percentage of issues that do not fit in well with the customer service and training, or where the customer is not satisfied with either the response or the action taken by customer service.  Sometimes a customer service rep can give an answer that is 100% correct, but it is not one that a customer is willing to accept as the answer.

 

Are they limits and areas where it can be improved, certainly.  Especially with the number of new agents since the restart, as well as with the numbers of changes Princess has made to both systems (medallion), programs, pricing and procedures.  In general from what I have seen the customer service department is having a bit more issues today that pre-covid (mostly due to medallion and people trying to get shipboard schedules resolved well in advance of the cruise itself).  Princess to some degree set itself up for some of those issues by creating the expectation of these being able to be resolved seemlessly, as well as by making changes that they systems were not set up to really support at the time the changes were announced.

 

That said Customer Service certainly seems to be operating better now then they were at this time last year and seem to be improving with time as the reps hired since the restart get more time in the positions.

[DallasGuy75219]

7 hours ago, Roberto256 said:

As you can see from the replies, the princess affecianados love princess no matter what.

This puts John Padgette in the awesome position of being able to cut just about anything, and the princess fans will still line up.

 

Every once in a while some poor poster posts something like ... what happened to me was so bad that I am going to change cruise lines.

They get mocked.

 

Go John!  There is no downside!

Read the other cruise lines boards on CC and they're all the same.  People are tired of the onboard cuts and poor shoreside service and say they're moving to whatever other line.  (Relatively) higher tier lines like Princess do see some benefit from Carnival, Royal, NCL, and MSC cruisers trading up to higher tier lines, but otherwise this just results in a reshuffling of passengers among the cruise lines, until people stop cruising altogether and go back to land vacations. 

 

Meanwhile there's a virtually endless supply of first-time cruisers who will never know what they're missing when their first ever cruise is post-restart.

 

The cruiselines will spend money advertising to get first-time cruisers onboard and hooked on cruising in the current era before they reverse cuts to appease high status cruisers who will never be happy unless the pre-COVID onboard and shoreside service levels return.

 

No matter what the cruiselines tell their status cruisers about how important they are, the cruiselines are more interested in bringing in first-time cruisers who'll be happy with the current product because they don't know any better.

[Sweetrosie]

Been doing some research on purchasing ccl stocks to receive the stockholder benefits...  I have read that it expires in July.  Any guesses if it will extend?  We finally have retired and hope to cruise 2x a year... TIA

[DallasGuy75219]

7 minutes ago, Sweetrosie said:

 I have read that it expires in July.  Any guesses if it will extend?  We finally have retired and hope to cruise 2x a year... TIA

 

It has been repeatedly extended for years and years and years.  However past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

[VibeGuy]

2 hours ago, Sweetrosie said:

Been doing some research on purchasing ccl stocks to receive the stockholder benefits...  I have read that it expires in July.  Any guesses if it will extend?  We finally have retired and hope to cruise 2x a year... TIA

 

 

Imagine if there were an FAQ about the shareholder benefit . . . 
 

First, the annual report is already out.  In the FAQ “Information and the benefit itself are subject to change yearly - this document was last updated March 23, 2023 with information from the 2022 annual report issued February 28, 2023, and is valid for sailings through July 31, 2024.”

Regarding the renewal:

4.7 Will Carnival Corporation & plc keep the Shareholder Benefit in the future?

Since the introduction of the benefit decades ago, the benefit has been renewed annually.  

 

The benefit has been renewed in each of the four Carnival annual reports issued since COVID began affecting the cruise industry (2019’s report issued after the Diamond Princess was already quarantined, 2020, 2021 and 2022, issued 02/28/2023) despite the financial position of the industry as a whole and Carnival in particular.  That said, there are no guarantees and you’re under no obligation to continue to hold the stock after the benefit is discontinued.  

The exhaustive FAQ that one user was delightful enough to call a “major waste of space” can be found at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2925912-princess-specific-carnival-corp-plc-shareholder-benefit-faq/   Imagine that. 

 

[brisalta]

2 hours ago, Sweetrosie said:

Been doing some research on purchasing ccl stocks to receive the stockholder benefits...  I have read that it expires in July.  Any guesses if it will extend?  We finally have retired and hope to cruise 2x a year... TIA

 

That is an old document you are looking at.  See

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/bc1b7f04-a3e8-4176-91ac-a529290fe45d

for the latest information.

 

 

 

[brisalta]

35 minutes ago, VibeGuy said:

 

Imagine if there were an FAQ about the shareholder benefit . . . 
 

First, the annual report is already out.  In the FAQ “Information and the benefit itself are subject to change yearly - this document was last updated March 23, 2023 with information from the 2022 annual report issued February 28, 2023, and is valid for sailings through July 31, 2024.”

Regarding the renewal:

 

4.7 Will Carnival Corporation & plc keep the Shareholder Benefit in the future?

Since the introduction of the benefit decades ago, the benefit has been renewed annually.  

 

The benefit has been renewed in each of the four Carnival annual reports issued since COVID began affecting the cruise industry (2019’s report issued after the Diamond Princess was already quarantined, 2020, 2021 and 2022, issued 02/28/2023) despite the financial position of the industry as a whole and Carnival in particular.  That said, there are no guarantees and you’re under no obligation to continue to hold the stock after the benefit is discontinued.  

The exhaustive FAQ that one user was delightful enough to call a “major waste of space” can be found at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2925912-princess-specific-carnival-corp-plc-shareholder-benefit-faq/   Imagine that. 

 

 

No imagine if you actually looked at the information at the Carnival Corporation website

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/bc1b7f04-a3e8-4176-91ac-a529290fe45d