tidecat

The ship's registered name has to be on the hull. Carnival can market it however they want. If the ship's name is legally changing, the official change should pop up in the media somewhere. It will also be interesting to see if the ship is reflagged from Italy to Panama or The Bahamas.

This was posted about an hour ago on Facebook: https://www.carnival.com/fun-italian-style I suspect booking could open as early as next week.

It is the air draft (height above the waterline) that is the biggest constraint for Tampa, Jacksonville, and Baltimore. In that regard both classes are very close to each other. Jacksonville has the lowest bridge clearance at 175 feet; Tampa is 180 feet and Baltimore is 185 feet. Spirit class ships are about 108 feet longer and less than 3 feet wider than Fantasy class ships. Given most newer vessels are well over 1,000 feet long, the length is typically not an issue. Both classes are narrow enough to transit the Panama Canal, even before the newest set of locks were opened. Gross tonnage is a nonlinear measure of volume. The shape of enclosed spaces on the ship determine the ship's gross tonnage. The extra length on the Spirit class accounts for most of the difference in gross tonnage.

Here's a scary thought: Carnival pulls Elation AND Paradise from service next year. Miracle takes over for one of them, Spirit takes over for one of the other. Elation is scheduled for drydock 1/21-2/10/23, Paradise is scheduled for 10/8-10/29/23. This buys time for a converted Costa ship to pick up Miracle's Alaska service in mid-2023, with the option to replace Spirit in Mobile or resume Miracle's service from Long Beach. Of Firenze is still going to be bases in Long Beach as of Spring 2024, I don't see a spot for Miracle in Long Beach past then anyway. I just hope that if Carnival scrubs Elation, thy do it in the next month before my final payment is due on Mardi Gras.

I read this more as the Turkish's government lack of cooperation that prevents most of Costa's customer base from being able to buy these sailings. That said, one of the best things about a cruise ship is that it is highly portable. Fortuna is a Destiny-class build so it's not like the inner workings would be unfamiliar to a Carnival crew member. Let Costa and MSC duke it out in Miami. I'd try to get Costa Magica into Galveston before MSC figures out how to get there themselves.

Operating income is not the same as cash flow. Carnival's depreciation and amortization burden is substantial - around $2 Billion annually. That is an expense that reduces net income, but the cash associated with that was spent years ago. On the flip side, Carnival still has some investment spending that will occur on new/refurbished ships in FY 2023. As those ships come online they will increase to the depreciation burden, but they won't require additional outlays. That said, Carnival still has work to do to be able to pay down its debt. Even a net income of $3 Billion with $2 Billion of depreciation added back to that ($5 Billion in cash) may not be enough to cover the debt burdens in 2024 and 2025. That level of performance would likely only barely get them through Fiscal 2023.

Carnival has $991 million in debt to pay back this quarter, followed by $2.377 billion to pay back in fiscal 2023. At the very least this kicks the can on the remaining FY 2022 debt to 2028. Depending on how the revolving credit line is set up, this may also be cheaper debt than borrowing it off the credit line. Fiscal Years 2024 (if their revolving credit line doesn't get renewed), 2025, and 2026 all have $4 billion or more in maturities. Even if Carnival posts $3B in net income with EBITDA pushing $5B and invests in nothing (which won't be the case as Queen Anne and a Princess ship will enter service in 2024 and 2025), those are going to be tough to pay down. We may be looking at 2030 or later before debt returns to historical levels.

If we use 30 years as a rough guideline, Elation and Paradise should have until 2028, maybe 2029 before they head to Turkey. Both ships head to drydock in 2023, which means they should still be in the fleet into 2026. One more drydock in 2025 or 2026 would get them to 30 years if not slightly beyond.

Not everything has been released for May 2024-April 2025 yet. Costa/Carnival Venezia itineraries should be released soon. The ship will sail out of New York starting in spring 2023. There is also the possibility of Carnival Sunshine being redeployed to another port as Charleston is discontinuing most cruise operations at the end of 2024. This is probably holding up some itineraries being released.

Per the Captain, Ecstasy leaves Miami on the 20th. Only around 100 crew will be on the ship then (normal crew complement is 900). This will eventually be pared down to around 25, then down to the last few who get to beach the ship and disconnect everything once she is run aground.

You wonder if one day a cruise line will have a ship stay docked after its final sailing and hold a live auction that could also allow for bidding online. It could be highly profitable.

The Passenger Vessel Services Act makes it difficult to reposition a vessel between US ports with paying passengers. Someone could get on and do a round trip as long as it involves any foreign port, but it would not be possible to say, get on in Mobile and get off in Port Canaveral without calling at a distant foreign port first; only a few ports in the Caribbean qualify as distant foreign ports. You also would run into additional costs related to redeploying crew. A better solution would be to end a ship's career with a Transatlantic. Unless if you have other ships in Europe, or the entire nonessential crew is due to go on vacation afterwards, Carnival would then need to fly crew from Europe back to the US. The same would go for any supplies or equipment being transferred to other ships. Theoretically Ecstasy could hand down supplies to Celebration or Jubilee given both are under construction in Europe, but if needs are elsewhere that would be an issue.

Mobile has no height limitations, unlike the other three ports. Whether enough tickets can get sold for a Conquest-class or larger is a fair question though, given that will be a substantial jump up in size from the Spirit class. Mobile's cruise terminal may also need expansion of a larger vessel will be based there. I have a feeling by the end of the decade we will probably see two of them in Tampa, one in Jacksonville, and one in Baltimore. Luminosa is considered the fifth ship in the class now, so even if Spirit and Pride get retired around 2031/2032 Carnival could still maintain one ship on each of those three ports. It's also possible Costa Deliziosa gets moved over to Carnival, which could keep the Spirit class alive until about 2040.

There will always be food available. You will not go hungry.

A big question is will Sunshine go to drydock in 2024? Her last one was in October 2021, and the last one prior to that was just barely over three years before that in October 2018. The December 30, 2024 sailing could be her final sailing.

The first ~6 months of sailings or so may not get the full run-up from an extended booking window, but anything sailing from New York commands some premium already. Typically fares start out cheaper and work their way up anyway, so anything for April 2023 should start out higher than April 2024 or April 2025.

Not much left on the Carnival Corp orderbook. Two Princess (Sun Princess in 2024, other in 2025), Carnival Celebration (2022), Carnival Jubilee (2023), and P&O UK's Arvia (2022), and Cunard's Queen Anne (2024). It could be 2030 before any line gets a newbuild.

I suspect if Carnival is near collapse, we'd probably see sale-and-leasebacks of Half Moon Cay, the new development in Grand Bahama, Amber Cove, the landside holdings in Alaska, etc. Next up would be parting with some idle and/or relatively underperforming ships (Costa Magica, Costa Serena). Carnival could also part with their share of Grand Bahama Ship Yard.

You may want to look into an international plan for a month that covers your destination and the ship itself. Just make sure the plan includes data, or that you know how to turn off your phone's data connection.

There are also some trip insurance policies that will cover financial default of the operator (cruise line, air line, etc.) although they typically have a waiting period of 10-30 days from the date you purchase the insurance policy.

It's not necessarily the next 12 months you have to worry about as far as whether Carnival is a going concern. But if Carnival misses earnings by a country mile again in Q4, and doesn't start to turn a profit in Q1 of 2023, then this becomes a reasonable possibility.

Fuel expense was 3.5 times higher in Q3 2022 than in Q3 2021. The fuel expense for this past quarter was the equivalent of about five months' fuel expense in 2019. Food is running at least 10% higher than 2019 when adjusting for occupancy levels.

Creditors would object to a bankruptcy, and the courts may not allow it. It would also make no sense to declare bankruptcy when bills are able to be paid. Remember that EBITDA less the interest expense was only around negative $100 million for Q3. With seven billion on hand in liquidity, this could go on for a while, although debt maturities prevent it from going on for 5-6 years. There are also still ships that haven't resumed service yet, so as those last few ships come online, there should be more revenue.

Around a month from now, we should get earnings for both NCLH and RCL. If they have similarly bad news, I could see CCL being drug below $5.

This will also be the last quarter's results with Arnold Donald as CEO, as he stepped down August 1, about 2/3 of the way through Q3. It will be interesting to see if Josh Weinstein brings a different mindset.