No More $25 Casino Credit

[gopackgo21]

As a gambler that has only ever paid for one cruise (my first), I can confidently say that if carnival didn’t offer me a free room, I’d go with another line. We love carnival and will be platinum in August, but we have an endless amount of free cruise offers from Royal, NCL, Virgin, etc. And before people ***** and moan, I can confidently say I spend more on my free cruises than the avg person paying for theirs. I frequent the spa, the casino, the shops and tip very well. 

[icft]

45 minutes ago, gopackgo21 said:

As a gambler that has only ever paid for one cruise (my first), I can confidently say that if carnival didn’t offer me a free room, I’d go with another line. We love carnival and will be platinum in August, but we have an endless amount of free cruise offers from Royal, NCL, Virgin, etc. And before people ***** and moan, I can confidently say I spend more on my free cruises than the avg person paying for theirs. I frequent the spa, the casino, the shops and tip very well. 

Welcome fellow scourge upon all that is holy and good about cruising.

[coffeeboy77]

The $25 was nice, but not make or break as a vifp benefit. Same with the free laundry, chocolate covered strawberries, vifp party, complementary water, priority check in, ship pin, logo gift, etc, etc.  Probably my favorite benefit, at least in principle, is the vifp exclusive offer.  However, I have learned my loyalty is worth approximately $10 to Carnival on a one week cruise.  That’s fair enough, it’s their business and that is their valuation in terms of the vifp exclusive offer to me.  For the first time in a long time, we’ve been looking at other cruise lines, specifically MSC and NCL.  Surprisingly to me, their offers are better than Carnivals, despite not being a loyal customer of those lines.  I have one more cruise with Carnival booked this fall and that will probably conclude my time as a Carnival cruiser, at least for the foreseeable future. 

[Colorado Beach Bum]

8 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Amazing how some think without the casino, Carnival would fail. The casino is just one player on the team. Without the rest, the casino and Carnival would sink like a rock.

Agree.  It takes all revenue centers to make a profit - same for most companies.  Although many can be loss leaders to drive other more profitable departments. Who knows what is really driving what?  But as you said, they need each other.  As a career corporate finance guy I’d like to see all the p&l’s by department.  And the analysis of what happens to each department when something is pushed in one vs another. 

[aborgman]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:21 PM, Colorado Beach Bum said:

Do we know if they are only earning what say above?  Didn’t someone mention earlier that rooms alone are losing money?

 

Last year Carnival lost about $5 billion on rooms. and made about $5 billion from "on board spend" (mostly casinos and booze) to end the year close to break even (they actually lost a couple hundred million).

 

With just room sales - they would have been $5 billion in the hole last year.

[aborgman]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:51 PM, BlerkOne said:

Clearly Carnival doesn't lose money on cabins or they would have been out of business a long time ago.

 

When I worked at Intel in the early 2000's - AMD had gone something like 22 straight years without a single profitable quarter. In 20+ years they had never even turned a single quarterly profit at all.
 

 

[aborgman]

On 6/15/2024 at 1:13 PM, BlerkOne said:

I'd like to see the data from Carnival you used to come up with that conclusion, while reminding others that revenue does not mean profit. Every penny the casino gives away for perks or whatever educes profit. Square footage on a cruise ship is not free.

 

It can be argued that most revenue is derived from selling cabins.

 

Last year CCL made about $17 billion in revenue running ships, with a cost of about $22 billion - for a loss of $5 billion.

 

Last year CCL made about $10 billion in revenue from "on board spend", with a cost of $5 billion - for a profit of $5 billion.

[BlerkOne]

2 hours ago, aborgman said:

 

Last year Carnival lost about $5 billion on rooms. and made about $5 billion from "on board spend" (mostly casinos and booze) to end the year close to break even (they actually lost a couple hundred million).

 

With just room sales - they would have been $5 billion in the hole last year.

I assume you are referring to Carnival Corp and not Carnival Cruise Lines. Somewhere in there they paid off a few billion in debt, refinanced some, took delivery of a new ship or two, etc. Depreciation, etc. etc.

 

Lost about $5 million on rooms is beyond misleading.

[BlerkOne]

2 hours ago, aborgman said:

 

Last year CCL made about $17 billion in revenue running ships, with a cost of about $22 billion - for a loss of $5 billion.

 

Last year CCL made about $10 billion in revenue from "on board spend", with a cost of $5 billion - for a profit of $5 billion.

These numbers don't compute. Year ending 11/30/23 Carnival had total revenue of $21,593,000.

[VentureMan_2000]

In 2023, the revenue generated by passenger tickets amounted to around 14.1 billion U.S. dollars, whereas onboard and other types of revenue exceeded 7.5 billion U.S. dollars, the highest figure recorded over the period considered.
 

Revenues
Passenger ticket                $ 14.067 B
Onboard and other             $   7.526 B
================================
Total Revenue:                   $ 21.593 B

Operating Expenses:          $ 19.637 B

Operating Income (Loss)    $  1.956 B

Nonoperating Income         $ (2.018 B) (debt and interest expense)

Net income was a loss of    $ 74 million

[jimbo5544]

23 hours ago, coffeeboy77 said:

The $25 was nice, but not make or break as a vifp benefit. Same with the free laundry, chocolate covered strawberries, vifp party, complementary water, priority check in, ship pin, logo gift, etc, etc.  Probably my favorite benefit, at least in principle, is the vifp exclusive offer.  However, I have learned my loyalty is worth approximately $10 to Carnival on a one week cruise.  That’s fair enough, it’s their business and that is their valuation in terms of the vifp exclusive offer to me.  For the first time in a long time, we’ve been looking at other cruise lines, specifically MSC and NCL.  Surprisingly to me, their offers are better than Carnivals, despite not being a loyal customer of those lines.  I have one more cruise with Carnival booked this fall and that will probably conclude my time as a Carnival cruiser, at least for the foreseeable future. 

So you cherry pick the “only”  benefit that means anything to you, and then knock Carnival because it is only $10…. seems fair.

[jimbo5544]

4 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

These numbers don't compute. Year ending 11/30/23 Carnival had total revenue of $21,593,000.

There you go with the facts thing again…..

[jimbo5544]

On 6/16/2024 at 12:27 PM, gopackgo21 said:

As a gambler that has only ever paid for one cruise (my first), I can confidently say that if carnival didn’t offer me a free room, I’d go with another line. We love carnival and will be platinum in August, but we have an endless amount of free cruise offers from Royal, NCL, Virgin, etc. And before people ***** and moan, I can confidently say I spend more on my free cruises than the avg person paying for theirs. I frequent the spa, the casino, the shops and tip very well. 

No moaning or ********** here.  I doubt you are typical spending wise, but your loyalty factor makes the argue for the other side of the coin.

[aborgman]

20 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

These numbers don't compute. Year ending 11/30/23 Carnival had total revenue of $21,593,000.

 

Correct - actual numbers are:

 

Ticket Revenue: $14 billion

Ship operating expense: $17.2 billion

Profit: -$3.2 billion

 

Onboard spend revenue: $7.5 billion

Onboard expense: $2.4 billion

Profit: $5.1 billion

 

Which leaves about $2 billion in operating profit - which was spent on debt relief for a final profit number of -$74 million. Basically break even.

 

 

[BlerkOne]

48 minutes ago, aborgman said:

 

Correct - actual numbers are:

 

Ticket Revenue: $14 billion

Ship operating expense: $17.2 billion

Profit: -$3.2 billion

 

Onboard spend revenue: $7.5 billion

Onboard expense: $2.4 billion

Profit: $5.1 billion

 

Which leaves about $2 billion in operating profit - which was spent on debt relief for a final profit number of -$74 million. Basically break even.

 

 

Better. except without the ship, there is no onboard spend. The ship operating expense is what props onboard spend up.

[aborgman]

2 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

Better. except without the ship, there is no onboard spend. The ship operating expense is what props onboard spend up.

 

Sure... like I said - selling rooms is a loss leader to sell alcohol and casino play.

 

Just like movie theaters are in the business of showing movies, but they make no money (and often even lose money) selling movie tickets and showing movies. They make money on concessions from their captive audience.

[BlerkOne]

14 minutes ago, aborgman said:

 

Sure... like I said - selling rooms is a loss leader to sell alcohol and casino play.

 

Just like movie theaters are in the business of showing movies, but they make no money (and often even lose money) selling movie tickets and showing movies. They make money on concessions from their captive audience.

Selling rooms on Carnival is to cover fixed costs. Onboard spend is for profit. It takes both.

 

The casino giving away rooms is the loss leader.

[icft]

4 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Selling rooms on Carnival is to cover fixed costs. Onboard spend is for profit. It takes both.

 

The casino giving away rooms is the loss leader.

I thought giving away free food to sell rooms was the loss leader...

[BlerkOne]

43 minutes ago, icft said:

I thought giving away free food to sell rooms was the loss leader...

The food is included, not free.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

5 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Selling rooms on Carnival is to cover fixed costs. Onboard spend is for profit. It takes both.

 

The casino giving away rooms is the loss leader.

 

I'm guessing (hoping!) Carnival has it figured out just how much to "give away" in order to come out ahead.

[BlerkOne]

9 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

I'm guessing (hoping!) Carnival has it figured out just how much to "give away" in order to come out ahead.

As I've mentioned before, Carnival upped the allocation of casino rooms post covid to get people on the ships and cash flow going. Now they are dialing back. They really don't need to give any away.

[icft]

49 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

The food is included, not free.

Casino perks are included, not free...

[BlerkOne]

8 minutes ago, icft said:

Casino perks are included, not free...

Thank you for your input.

[Colorado Beach Bum]

31 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

As I've mentioned before, Carnival upped the allocation of casino rooms post covid to get people on the ships and cash flow going. Now they are dialing back. They really don't need to give any away.

Historically they’ve always given rooms to casino players.  I agree they could probably dial back and just reward those that generate positive cash flow. But I doubt they’d stop completely.  It would certainly drive some away.  Is it worth it?  We shall see.  

[icft]

33 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

Thank you for your input.

If you are in the cruise business the industry standard is free food, or food included if you prefer. If you are in the casino business (land or sea) the industry standard is free perks, or perks included if you prefer. In both businesses you can try defying the industry standard and charge for the free (included) parts, but companies don't do that because they believe cruisers would go to competitors and gamblers would go to competitors.

 

If you are going to lump the paid parts and the free parts of one business together, a fair comparison with another business requires lumping the paid and free parts together for that other business.

 

I would lump the free and paid parts together for both businesses because the bottom line profit is what matters.