tidecat

The only real pinch point I noticed on Mardi Gras was in front of the Alchemy Bar. It gets crowded during the evening, especially when you're trying to get to one of the restaurants aft of it.

But wait, there's more! The Fed is meeting next week (May 2-3), and while the consensus is that another 0.25% rate hike is expected, any surprises there will likely impact the market as a whole. That said, around 75-80% of Carnival's debt is at fixed rates, so an increase may not have much impact.

It will be late 2023 before you see anything for 2026. There's still some ships for which late 2024 and early 2025 have not been released.

As the ships in the current fleet approach 30 years of age, it is going to be difficult to maintain the number of ships, even if overall passenger capacity increases. While Carnival Cruise Line could theoretically pull from other brands, I don't see that happening either. The only possible exception might be in 2025 when the second Sphere-class vessel comes online for Princess, but Princess has lost five (Pacific, Star, Golden, Sea, Sun) ships since 2020 and will have only added three by 2024 (Enchanted, Discovery, Sun). Barring a weak market eslewhere, the next chance for Carnival Cruise Line to resume homeporting in San Juan is 2028 when Carnival Corp starts building ships again.

I'll be making the short drive to Indiana to catch the one next year - the center line runs near Bloomington.

Would Carnival possibly set up a dedicated space for it within the casino? If so, Venezia might be the first with it simply because she is in drydock. That's not to say the installation couldn't be completed while a ship is in service (especially during a port heavy itinerary), but I'm sure it's easier to handle without guests onboard.

I think it's more that it doesn't make sense with Miami literally just down the road. Holland America and Princess seem to be allocated to Carnival Corp's berths in Fort Lauderdale.

Freedom should receive it later this October, as well as a restored funnel. Glory, Panorama, and Splendor will be a while as they won't be due for drydock until 2024.

I thought Carnival Miracle might be a candidate for that given Miracle has effectively been kicked out of Long Beach by Firenze. Instead, Miracle becomes the fourth ship out of Galveston, at least outside the Alaska season.

I wouldn't read too much into that. Carnival Jubilee and Carnival Panorama were originally meant for other lines (P&O Australia and AIDA). There isn't another Vista class vessel in Costa or any other brand's fleet to transfer to Carnival Cruise Line. Given that Venezia and Firenze will still have yellow stovepipe funnels, I wouldn't even be surprised if they go back to Costa by 2034.

Maybe, but the North America and Australian (NAA) segment was the only profitable one per the last quarterly earnings report. Given the comments about demand being "a year behind" in Australia, that really means it's the US market carrying the load. Carnival Cruise Line, Princess, and HAL will be most of the NAA segment.

A third ship would require a second berth if the first two are doing 7 day itineraries. There are no legal 3-day itineraries out of New Orleans, so a Monday/Friday schedule isn't possible like it would be in Long Beach, Port Canaveral, and Miami.

Yet Royal acquired Silversea in 2020 - while that might be the glass that gets broken in case of an emergency, I think they'd just part with their half of TUI - then they'd be free to compete against them in certain markets to try to reallocate any excess capacity (barring any noncompete agreements).

It's actually possible Royal's debt would exceed Carnival's. Carnival should be around $33 Billion at the end of 2023, then around $31 Billion at the end of 2024. While Royal could have more revenue coming in with all of the new builds, their new ships cost around $50,000 more per lower berths than the Excel class - which when you multiply that out by as many as 6,000 berths, becomes a nut of around $300 million per ship. Royal may also be facing a rash of disposals sometime after 2026 as the Vision class ships reach age 30. This could be especially painful in the early 2030s as the Voyager and Radiance classes had 9 vessels enter service between 1999 and 2004. There's also the risk of creating too much new capacity - it ultimately hurts everyone in the industry, but Royal would have the most exposure given the size of its newer vessels

Because the value is in the nostalgia for the original. Although the original Jubilee and Celebration predated the Carnival prefix, so technically Mardi Gras is the only true repeat.

Carnival should have changed Luminosa to Illumination

My understanding Adora has Costa Atlantica and Costa Mediterranea. The former seems to be puttering between Italy and France, while the latter has been in Cyprus since mid-February (possibly in a wet dock given the reported draft from AIS). There may or may not be an order for a Spirit-class (or something similar) new build. There is definitely an order for wo Vista-class ships, one of which is nearing completion. Right now there is nothing in service; even the Adora name was only announced fairly recently.

I can't see the Fantasy class ship names being reused while Elation and Paradise are still in service. While Carnival's 60th anniversary in 2032 may not be a big as deal as its 50th, I could see that being the perfect impetus for a fresh batch of nostalgic ship names. It might even be possible to mirror the Fantasy class delivery schedule where every ship is basically a 40th anniversary commemorative of its namesake (i.e. Fantasy in 2030, Ecstasy in 2031, etc.). Aside from that, I think we'd see more names associated with sunshine and/or happiness like Aurora, Brilliance, Euphoria, Joy, etc. I'd also expect a few Vista-class names to be kept on the bench like Reflection, Meridian, and Spectacle just in case the Italian Style concept needs to be retired, or if CSSC/Adora flops and additional Vista-class vessels become available.

Not being able to transit the Panama Canal may limit Carnival in how to deploy the fleet during the off-season. Miracle is moving from Long Beach to Galveston in the winter not only to accommodate Firenze, but because there is demand out of Galveston (assuming Miracle returns to San Francisco for the 2025 Alaska season). Spirit is spending this winter in Miami, and will spend next winter in Mobile - we don't have an answer yet for 2024-25, but I don't see Australia or California taking another ship seasonally - demand in Australia has been weaker, and Long Beach is already at there ships. Unless if San Francisco or San Diego have enough unmet demand during the winter, Spirit should return to the Gulf Coast in 2024. San Francisco's height restrictions aren't as bad as Tampa, Jacksonville, or Baltimore, but ultimately that will come into play as well - once the older ships are gone. Going around South America twice annually would be out of the question as that would likely be 90-100 days total between the two repositioning voyages.

How Carnival intends to serve Alaska in the 2030s may very well drive the new build process. Since those ships can't be based in Seattle during the winter, there really needs to be something that can transit the Panama Canal once it's time to bid the Spirit class farewell. Ideally I'd like to see something like Norwegian Bliss - something large enough to comfortably house 4,000 passengers, but still able to transit the Panama Canal. Ideally Carnival would take two of those in the early 2030s to replace Spirit and Miracle, then one around 2040 to replace Luminosa.

The mos The most recent earnings call confirms no ships on order for 2026. It looks like 2027's fate is TBD: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4590404-carnival-corporation-and-plc-ccl-q1-2023-earnings-call-transcript

There's no real need to replace anything in Carnival Cruise Line's fleet before 2026 (when Carnival Sunshine turns 30), and I think we will see Carnival push that out until 2028 or possibly even later. A lot of it will depend on how well Elation, Paradise, and Sunshine perform. I would not be surprised to see an order for two ships with delivery dates between late 2027-early 2029, effectively replacing Sunshine, Elation, and Paradise. That would still give Carnival around 3,000 extra lower berths compared to what they are scheduled to have in mid-2024. I actually wouldn't be surprised to see Carnival build those as modified Excellence class ships. The engineering would need at most minor changes, and at that point, the class will be going through the first set of statutory drydocks, Carnival can use that time to make changes to improve passenger flow, revenue yield, etc. Royal has been building Oasis class ships since 2009, and is still in the process of doing so - don't break what doesn't need fixing. After 2029, all bets are off. Carnival has 14 ships totaling 38,000 lower berths and over 1.4 million gross tons that entered service between 1999 and 2009. Carnival would probably realistically need seven or eight ships the size of Mardi Gras/Celebration/Jubilee in the span of a decade, even if there might be some wiggle room as to when that decade starts.

I get that, but a lot of other early 2025 itineraries are out.

Any idea on when the 2024-25 Mobile itineraries will be released?

Not necessarily, unless if Long Beach is planning on having two ships in port on a regular basis. Panorama is the same size as Firenze, so there should be no difference between the two in terms of docking requirements.