I guess we missed the announcements. So now we pay for…?

[kywildcatfanone]

On 8/7/2023 at 2:53 AM, arxcards said:

What about the people, and I figure it is still a large %, that are not Plus fare kinda people. The ones that don't drink much, or won't drink much because of the prices. The ones that just want the inclusive stuff when they board. The ones that had a coffee card so they could drink inclusive coffees and teas without getting their card punched. The ones that used to get free internet minutes for their elite status. The ones that will no longer dine at Alfredo's or get room service because there is a charge. The ones for which cruising becomes a less inclusive holiday year-by-year. The ones that could get service without a phone in their hand. These are the loyal elite status cruisers from the past generation for which other cruise lines are looking more attractive with each of these changes. Thanks for your loyalty.

Cruise lines no longer care about loyalty.  They have figured out that blue medallion people will spend as much, if not more than black medallion people.  Therefore, loyalty benefits are reduced/removed/changed to benefit the cruise line, so that revenue producing items can replace them.  Loyalty is no longer a consideration. 

[Bgwest]

11 hours ago, Luv2cruz1000 said:

Is it still free breakfast and lunch in the main dining rooms or is there a $14.99 charge?

 

Not free but it’s included in your cruise fare. 

[whitecap]

13 hours ago, ldtr said:

The math is pretty simple looking at the financial fillings the cruise lines get about 35% of their revenue from on board spend.  Even at the best of times, just prior to 2019, cruise line profit margins ran about 15% (considerably higher than historic profit ranges which tended to be in mid single digits). Back in 2019 on board spend was running about 25%.

 

So it is pretty clear that the cruise lines are not profitable from those that just pay their fares and do not buy on board.  This is true even more today then before covid since they are getting a much larger percentage of their revenue from on board spending, including packages.

 

Someone that does not purchase anything on board is better then an empty cabin, as long as there are enough others that do spend on board. But if not then fares would have to increase considerably.

 

So yes at current fare structure if there was no onboard spending, even if ships were full at the same occupancy level of 2019. Princess would be running atleast a 10% negative margin and probably as high as a 20% negative margin.

 

The data is all in the 10q and 10k filings.

In so many of your post you refer to the "10q and 10k fillings" as your source of information regarding percentages and income.  It would appear that you have access to these documents and it would be most helpful to everyone if you would post the actual documents here for all to be able to review and come to a better understanding as to how you come about your figures.  Thanks

[MissP22]

10 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Malfunctioning toilets are almost always due to passengers flushing things they shouldn't flush. If people would stop tossing stuff down the toilets that isn't supposed to be flushed the toilet malfunctions would most likely almost completely disappear.

I imagine the problem is more prevalent when the ship has more first time cruisers. 

[SargassoPirate]

11 hours ago, maggie777 said:

The Elite laundry perk is the last thread holding us to Princess, especially on the longer cruises that we usually book.

I never send my laundry out on board, but do make use of the laundromats when I cruise on Princess.  When I cruise other lines, it's easy to wash out a few necessities from time to time, especially since I cruise with a lot of quick-dry travel clothes.  I don't see it as an inconvenience, but to each his own.

[MissP22]

1 hour ago, SargassoPirate said:

I never send my laundry out on board, but do make use of the laundromats when I cruise on Princess.  When I cruise other lines, it's easy to wash out a few necessities from time to time, especially since I cruise with a lot of quick-dry travel clothes.  I don't see it as an inconvenience, but to each his own.

Another skeptical Princess cruiser, I see. 😉

 

[Cruise Raider]

1 hour ago, SargassoPirate said:

I never send my laundry out on board, but do make use of the laundromats when I cruise on Princess.  When I cruise other lines, it's easy to wash out a few necessities from time to time, especially since I cruise with a lot of quick-dry travel clothes.  I don't see it as an inconvenience, but to each his own.

We’ve had elite status for a number of years and I can say, we almost never send out laundry.  
I only say almost never because my friend asked me to send something out just to see how long it took to get it back.  It was back the next day, btw!  
Other than that, I don’t think we’ve sent out more than 2 items over the past 40 cruises.  
 

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, whitecap said:

In so many of your post you refer to the "10q and 10k fillings" as your source of information regarding percentages and income.  It would appear that you have access to these documents and it would be most helpful to everyone if you would post the actual documents here for all to be able to review and come to a better understanding as to how you come about your figures.  Thanks

They are available to anyone via the SEC Edgar database.along with the filings for any public company in the US.

 

Do a search on terms sec edgar.

 

Once you find and enter the data base the stock symbols for the 3 major holding companies are CCL, RCL, NCLH

 

Considering that 10Q are quarterly filings a mnd 10k are annual filings one needs to go through several filings to do comparisons.  The documents are rather extensive.

Edited August 8, 2023 by ldtr

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, whitecap said:

In so many of your post you refer to the "10q and 10k fillings" as your source of information regarding percentages and income.  It would appear that you have access to these documents and it would be most helpful to everyone if you would post the actual documents here for all to be able to review and come to a better understanding as to how you come about your figures.  Thanks

Anyone can access these for a publicly traded company.  Just go to the corporate homepage of any company and look for shareholder link or financial reporting link, etc.  No need to be posting documents here.

 

ETA:  As per above, I might have mentioned SEC source as well for USA.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Steelers36

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Cruise Raider said:

We’ve had elite status for a number of years and I can say, we almost never send out laundry.  
I only say almost never because my friend asked me to send something out just to see how long it took to get it back.  It was back the next day, btw!  
Other than that, I don’t think we’ve sent out more than 2 items over the past 40 cruises.  
 

The time varies based upon the number of Elite on board. On a recent Alaska cruise with 3% of the passengers were Elite the turn around was 1 day. On a TA in April with 35% Elite on board it was 4 days.

[CruizinSusan70]

10 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

I'm happy to try to find the mentions on the videos I'm referring to. I can't personally vouch for the figure of course because I wasn't there, but the chaos was well reported.

Possible chaos on a single ship doesn't mean that it's the same way on every sailing of every ship in the fleet.  We've sailed on Princess for 28 days over the past 15 months and never had a problem getting a drink when we wanted to.  The only problem we encountered was a 20 minute wait for two seats at the bar at Good Spirits on a single evening.

[Bgwest]

10 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Here we go. Fortunately it was easy to find. They quote the figure of 97% having the package, so I was incorrect when I said 98.

 

My point of highlighting this is that Princess need to be able to service the demand if they are encouraging people to spend up big on purchasing packages.

 

The important parts are from the 9'30" mark until about 11'30".

 

 

She seems nice. And certainly a reliable source. 

[whitecap]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

They are available to anyone via the SEC Edgar database.along with the filings for any public company in the US.

 

Do a search on terms sec edgar.

 

Once you find and enter the data base the stock symbols for the 3 major holding companies are CCL, RCL, NCLH

 

Considering that 10Q are quarterly filings a mnd 10k are annual filings one needs to go through several filings to do comparisons.  The documents are rather extensive.

Thanks for the information.  I did find the reports and I'll say that, at least in my case, my confusion has been that we are on a Princess Cruise Line thread, discussing Princess Cruise Line and the things that Princess Cruise Line has been doing.  These reports are Carnival Corporation as a whole, all of their fleet, all of their cruise lines and because of that, there is no way to compare Princess Cruise Line to any other cruise company.  Princess is just one entity of Carnival Corporation and their reports do not break the figures down per entity, Princess, Holland, P&O, Carnival, Costa etc.  Easy to compare CCL to NCL, RCCL etc. as whole companies, but not individual cruise ship/entities.  

I am not a CPA, Financial Advisor or Fiduciary but from what I have seen thus far, income from cruise fare is, as expected, higher than the income from onboard spending and even if 50% of each category is profit, the two, fare/onboard are pretty even.  Nevertheless, very interesting reading.

[CruizinSusan70]

7 minutes ago, whitecap said:

Thanks for the information.  I did find the reports and I'll say that, at least in my case, my confusion has been that we are on a Princess Cruise Line thread, discussing Princess Cruise Line and the things that Princess Cruise Line has been doing.  These reports are Carnival Corporation as a whole, all of their fleet, all of their cruise lines and because of that, there is no way to compare Princess Cruise Line to any other cruise company.  Princess is just one entity of Carnival Corporation and their reports do not break the figures down per entity, Princess, Holland, P&O, Carnival, Costa etc.  Easy to compare CCL to NCL, RCCL etc. as whole companies, but not individual cruise ship/entities.  

I am not a CPA, Financial Advisor or Fiduciary but from what I have seen thus far, income from cruise fare is, as expected, higher than the income from onboard spending and even if 50% of each category is profit, the two, fare/onboard are pretty even.  Nevertheless, very interesting reading.

It's not whether the income from cruise fares are more or less than the income from on board spending.  It's which of the two areas add more profits to the bottom line.  The income generated by cruise fares allows the ship to meet operating costs, but the on board spending is what generates the profits, with bars, casinos and excursions leading the way.

Edited August 8, 2023 by CruizinSusan70

[memoak]

11 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Can the ships cope with the demand when a higher % of passengers have packages?

 

I've seen youtube vloggers on board Princess sailings where 98% of the passengers had packages and you couldn't get a drink in a bar! Waiters wouldn't accept orders; the app wouldn't work. Bedlam.

 

To have package perks such as desserts most people won't eat is not the answer. If they want people to take a package, they must have the capacity to service the consequent demand.

 

 

If that was true then that means that almost everyone was a drinker. I have never seen that on any of my more than 50 cruises

 

[villauk]

2 minutes ago, memoak said:

If that was true then that means that almost everyone was a drinker. I have never seen that on any of my more than 50 cruises

 

 

Everyone is a drinker, but it doesn’t mean that everyone was drinking alcoholic drinks just because they were ordering in the bars. How many posters on here rave about the value of the packages for all the mocktails, sodas, juices, water etc., not just the alcoholic drinks.

[memoak]

2 minutes ago, villauk said:

 

Everyone is a drinker, but it doesn’t mean that everyone was drinking alcoholic drinks just because they were ordering in the bars. How many posters on here rave about the value of the packages for all the mocktails, sodas, juices, water etc., not just the alcoholic drinks.

I still say that in 50+ cruises I have rarely had a problem getting a bar stool or getting a drink from a bartender 

[whitecap]

52 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

It's not whether the income from cruise fares are more or less than the income from on board spending.  It's which of the two areas add more profits to the bottom line.  The income generated by cruise fares allows the ship to meet operating costs, but the on board spending is what generates the profits, with bars, casinos and excursions leading the way.

You and I agree, there are two categories, each generates profits.  We, at least I don't, know what the percentage is from each category that is profit so I don't believe that we can categorically state that onboard spending generates more profit than cruise fare.  You would have to know the cost of all the alcohol, soda, juices, pictures, excursions, etc.; how many packages that cover these items were sold; how many alcoholic drinks were claimed, sodas claimed, pictures claimed, excursions taken, etc. to actually figure out if there was a profit.   

[SargassoPirate]

2 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Another skeptical Princess cruiser, I see. 😉

 

Yes, skeptical and conservative with how I spend my retirement dollars.  

 

Wear a day air a day, and washing out a few quick drys gets me by on any cruise or extended land-based travel.

 

 

[MissP22]

3 minutes ago, SargassoPirate said:

Yes, skeptical and conservative with how I spend my retirement dollars.  

 

Wear a day air a day, and washing out a few quick drys gets me by on any cruise or extended land-based travel.

 

 

Being elite, it doesn't cost us additional but I prefer to keep my better clothing intact.... without holes and unshrunk. 

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, whitecap said:

Thanks for the information.  I did find the reports and I'll say that, at least in my case, my confusion has been that we are on a Princess Cruise Line thread, discussing Princess Cruise Line and the things that Princess Cruise Line has been doing.  These reports are Carnival Corporation as a whole, all of their fleet, all of their cruise lines and because of that, there is no way to compare Princess Cruise Line to any other cruise company.  Princess is just one entity of Carnival Corporation and their reports do not break the figures down per entity, Princess, Holland, P&O, Carnival, Costa etc.  Easy to compare CCL to NCL, RCCL etc. as whole companies, but not individual cruise ship/entities.  

I am not a CPA, Financial Advisor or Fiduciary but from what I have seen thus far, income from cruise fare is, as expected, higher than the income from onboard spending and even if 50% of each category is profit, the two, fare/onboard are pretty even.  Nevertheless, very interesting reading.

Kinda funny.

 

Profit is based upon the totals. A business might have a margin on a product it sells, but the companies profits is not a matter of adding up all.of those margins. So it not a matter of a percentage of profit on fare vs onboard. The reality is that without onboard the mass market cruiselines would all lose money and passengers that do not spend on board are better than empty cabins, but not the desired passenger. Even a solo passenger that does spend onboard is better than 2 that does not.

 

It is pretty clear that fares alone does not even cover the cost of operations, yet alone all company expenses. They might get to break even with a 10% fare increase.

 

While the filings are for the corporations and not individual brands all of the CCL brands have a similar business model with the exception of Seabourn which is a luxury line. That mean while there is some variation in exact numbers of each brand, that variation is not very large.  

Edited August 8, 2023 by ldtr

[whitecap]

12 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Kinda funny.

 

Profit is based upon the totals. A business might have a margin on a product it sells, but the companies profits is not a matter of adding up all.of those margins. So it not a matter of a percentage of profit on fare vs onboard. The reality is that without onboard the mass market cruiselines would all lose money and passengers that do not spend on board are better than empty cabins, but not the desired passenger. Even a solo passenger that does spend onboard is better than 2 that does not.

 

It is pretty clear that fares alone does not even cover the cost of operations, yet alone all company expenses.

 

While the filings are for the corporations and not individual brands all of the CCL brands have a similar business model with the exception of Seabourn which is a luxury line. That mean while there is some variation in exact numbers of each brand, that variation is not very large.  

Look at us, almost at an agreement.  We agree that you can't compare Princess, one entity of Carnival, and what it has to offer, packages, loyalty etc. to say a whole corporation such as RCCL. 

As far as what business model each entity of Carnival uses, I would assume it is designed and controlled by Carnival, the parent company, but having never seen it, I would not say they are the same.  I think we may be able to agree one another item; Princess is going to do whatever they need to do to increase their profitability.  The manner in which they do that, we may still disagree.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, whitecap said:

Look at us, almost at an agreement.  We agree that you can't compare Princess, one entity of Carnival, and what it has to offer, packages, loyalty etc. to say a whole corporation such as RCCL. 

As far as what business model each entity of Carnival uses, I would assume it is designed and controlled by Carnival, the parent company, but having never seen it, I would not say they are the same.  I think we may be able to agree one another item; Princess is going to do whatever they need to do to increase their profitability.  The manner in which they do that, we may still disagree.

Though I believe your point was that Princess made money on passenger fares without onboard spending.

[whitecap]

3 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Though I believe your point was that Princess made money on passenger fares without onboard spending.

Yes, cruise fare generates profit.  How much, only the Great Oz knows.

[memoak]

1 hour ago, SargassoPirate said:

Yes, skeptical and conservative with how I spend my retirement dollars.  

 

Wear a day air a day, and washing out a few quick drys gets me by on any cruise or extended land-based travel.

 

 

Haven’t you ever heard of turning underwear inside out to get extra wear ?