Carnival to Dump Six Ships

[wowzz]

11 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Up close alongside any RCL Oasis class 227,000 tons Oceana looks like a tender boat.

Which is the reason I won't go on a ship of the Oasis size. I want to be at sea, feel the ship rocking and rolling, not be on a floating Holiday Inn.

[grapau27]

33 minutes ago, wowzz said:

To be honest Graham,  when you get a close up look at many ships of a certain age, you will always be able to spot areas of improvement. 

At least on our last voyage on her, there were no buckets in evidence, unlike Arcadia.

Some of the old Thomson ships looked tatty up close so we never sailed on them.

We got on most of the P&O,RCL ships and NCL Gem during their maiden seasons and been lucky that all the ships in our 54 cruises have been very well maintained.

Our first cruise was 2003 on Sun cruises ship Sunbird which was old but in good nick and was sold to Thomson and became Thomson Destiny.

[grapau27]

9 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Which is the reason I won't go on a ship of the Oasis size. I want to be at sea, feel the ship rocking and rolling, not be on a floating Holiday Inn.

NCL Epic looks hideous and like a floating Holiday Inn.

We liked RCL Allure and Harmony of the seas especially the lovely Central Park.

[molecrochip]

No Cunard ships going. The Costa ship is going early. One P&O Oz ship is likely to go early with talk that a princess Grand class ship will move across to P&O Oz early to compensate.

 

As for Oceana, she was expected to leave the fleet once Gala 2 arrived. 

[drsel]

Oceana was expected to leave the fleet once Gala 2 arrived. 

So when will that be? Not this year surely?

[Captain_Morgan]

5 hours ago, molecrochip said:

No Cunard ships going. The Costa ship is going early. One P&O Oz ship is likely to go early with talk that a princess Grand class ship will move across to P&O Oz early to compensate.

 

As for Oceana, she was expected to leave the fleet once Gala 2 arrived. 

Golden Princess was planned to go to P&O Oz before the world went to hell, and rumour is that Star Princess will also be on its way time TBD.  
 

If Oceana was pencilled in to depart once the next new build came online, I wonder if they don’t see an option to expedite that idea even though I’m of the mind that the Corp. shifts the plans for the next monster new build to another brand if not delaying it further due to lack of revenue in the near term.  

[jaydee6969]

15 hours ago, besberry said:

I see that Carnival are getting rid of six ships, supposedly over the next 90 days.  No names given, although Costa Vitoria was mentioned.  Think a P&O ship could be on the block?

 

Just read the Carnival press release, and see that it's also looking at others ships going beyond 90 days.

 

 The company already has preliminary agreements for the disposal of 6 ships which are expected to leave the fleet in the next 90 days and is currently working toward additional agreements.

 

For any interested Carnival release:- Carnival press release

[bee-ess]

8 hours ago, grapau27 said:

Some of the old Thomson ships looked tatty up close so we never sailed on them.

We got on most of the P&O,RCL ships and NCL Gem during their maiden seasons and been lucky that all the ships in our 54 cruises have been very well maintained.

Our first cruise was 2003 on Sun cruises ship Sunbird which was old but in good nick and was sold to Thomson and became Thomson Destiny.

We went on Sunbird in 2000 in the Caribbean. In the UK the cruises we sold by Thomson and it was a passenger mix of American, Brits and Spanish. Our first time in the Caribbean.

[grapau27]

30 minutes ago, bee-ess said:

We went on Sunbird in 2000 in the Caribbean. In the UK the cruises we sold by Thomson and it was a passenger mix of American, Brits and Spanish. Our first time in the Caribbean.

In 2003 Airtours were operating Sun cruises.

We went on Sunbird twice from Palma June 2003 and June 2004.

She was only 37,000 tons which was small by today's standards.

They were transfering to Thomson when we disembarked and she was renamed Thomson Destiny afterwards after her repainting and enhancement by Thomson.

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by grapau27

[AndyMichelle]

1 hour ago, jaydee6969 said:

 

Just read the Carnival press release, and see that it's also looking at others ships going beyond 90 days.

 

 The company already has preliminary agreements for the disposal of 6 ships which are expected to leave the fleet in the next 90 days and is currently working toward additional agreements.

 

For any interested Carnival release:- Carnival press release

Very interesting Jaydee, thank you. 

The 2 things that stood out to me were the deposit liability and future bookings.. 

$2.9 Billion of deposit money that is effectively not theirs as they have not supplied a service yet. If they don't sail again this year, $475 million would have to be refunded or moved. 

Reading between the lines, they are OK for now, but if the pause in operating continued for too long and demand for the future dropped, they will be up that creek... 

The other surprise was 2 thirds of next years bookings are new bookings??? Really?? Or are a lot of them ones that were already booked at launch? 

One thing is for sure, lots of the crew that we all love won't be coming back... Very sad. 

Andy 

Edited June 19, 2020 by AndyMichelle

[bee-ess]

38 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

In 2003 Airtours were operating Sun cruises.

We went on Sunbird twice from Palma June 2003 and June 2004.

She was only 37,000 tons which was small by today's standards.

They were transfering to Thomson when we disembarked and she was renamed Thomson Destiny afterwards after her repainting and enhancement by Thomson.

 

That rings a bell, think it was probably Airtours when we went as well. I know that there was a presence on board from the 3 companies that were selling the cruise which was unusual. We also planned to go on Sunwing as well the next year but that didn't happen. Our first cruise was on Premier Cruises Rembrandt in 1999 that was sold from the Thomson brochure.

[grapau27]

12 minutes ago, bee-ess said:

That rings a bell, think it was probably Airtours when we went as well. I know that there was a presence on board from the 3 companies that were selling the cruise which was unusual. We also planned to go on Sunwing as well the next year but that didn't happen. Our first cruise was on Premier Cruises Rembrandt in 1999 that was sold from the Thomson brochure.

They had Sundream as well but Sunbird was the biggest and their flagship.

[jaydee6969]

25 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

 

The other surprise was 2 thirds of next years bookings are new bookings??? Really?? Or are a lot of them ones that were already booked at launch? 

 

 

That caught my eye on reading the article.  I suspect that figure includes launch bookings.  From our point of view, we have a 14 and 12 night booked at launch for next year.  But we rolled over our cancelled 2+7, and Iona deposit into a new 7+2 booking for next year using the FCC.

[Captain_Morgan]

52 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

The other surprise was 2 thirds of next years bookings are new bookings??? Really?? Or are a lot of them ones that were already booked at launch? 

 

I think all of the companies touting 2021 bookings are playing on somewhat of a false narrative as how many here have shifted now cancelled 2020 bookings to next year?  Surely more than 1/3 of next year's bookings are transplanted from 2020 but being classified as 'new' for the sake of investor confidence.

[AndyMichelle]

25 minutes ago, Captain_Morgan said:

 

I think all of the companies touting 2021 bookings are playing on somewhat of a false narrative as how many here have shifted now cancelled 2020 bookings to next year?  Surely more than 1/3 of next year's bookings are transplanted from 2020 but being classified as 'new' for the sake of investor confidence.

They say half of this years cancelled bookings have rebooked to next year, but 2/3rds are new bookings? 

Doesn't add up in my head, unless they are including FCC that hasn't been 'spent' yet... 

Andy 

[jaydee6969]

18 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

They say half of this years cancelled bookings have rebooked to next year, but 2/3rds are new bookings? 

Doesn't add up in my head, unless they are including FCC that hasn't been 'spent' yet... 

Andy 

 

Just re-read it, and they are referring to a 6 week period for these comments:-

 

For the six weeks ending May 31, 2020, approximately two-thirds of 2021 bookings were new bookings. The remaining 2021 booking volumes resulted from guests applying their FCCs to specific future cruises.

[No pager thank you]

21 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

They say half of this years cancelled bookings have rebooked to next year, but 2/3rds are new bookings? 

Doesn't add up in my head, unless they are including FCC that hasn't been 'spent' yet... 

Andy 

According to the Guardian, Carnival overall has $475 million in retained bookings for this year and $2.6 billion in customers cash overall. 

 

They appear to be losing around this first figure every month because of the stoppage.   It appears that this will be lower once some of the surplus ships are sold, it's refinancing complete, and repatriations are finished across its fleet overall.

 

Obviously that is the whole Corporation, so P&O Cruises UK will be a smaller part.  Of the smaller P&O part, some will be:

 

- Pending refunds for cancelled sailings

- Deposits for Nov to Dec 20

- Deposits for 2021 and up to March 22

 

Unfortunately, you can't read too much else in to it.  However, as a guess, it appears that P&O have been relatively successful so far in convincing customers to retain cash in the business by accepting 2021 Future Cruise Credit.  No one can say if P&O UK customers are more or less predisposed to FCCs than customers from the other brands?

 

My (weak) evidence for the guess is that I was surprised about the $2.6 billion being more than quintuple the $475 million.  I would assume that 25% credits are not cash but a liability in some way?

 

Not an accountant and clearly they are not likely to publish in the public domain information like how much money is tied up in delayed refunds (!)... Or aged debt time...or accurate customer sentiment scores...etc...scrappage schedule for older ships..., so we can only guess

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by No pager thank you
Wording

[Scratchrat]

17 hours ago, grapau27 said:

 

 

Those arent the ones being retired, read the whole article.

[grapau27]

3 minutes ago, Scratchrat said:

 

Those arent the ones being retired, read the whole article.

I have now thanks.

This class of ship are the oldest in their fleet and most logical ones to go as older ships usually cost more to maintain.

From P&O Oceana seems the most likely ship to go and possibly from Princess one  of the Grand class ships.

Costa cruises are often sold cheaply so financially 1 or more of their ships could go.

We will find out officially soon I expect.

[AndyMichelle]

12 minutes ago, jaydee6969 said:

 

Just re-read it, and they are referring to a 6 week period for these comments:-

 

For the six weeks ending May 31, 2020, approximately two-thirds of 2021 bookings were new bookings. The remaining 2021 booking volumes resulted from guests applying their FCCs to specific future cruises.

That's even more fascinating... 

During the height of the pandemic and during lockdown, thousands of people were booking new cruises? 

Andy 

[No pager thank you]

11 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

That's even more fascinating... 

During the height of the pandemic and during lockdown, thousands of people were booking new cruises? 

Andy 

I agree.

 

I wonder if some people thought that they were being savvy by booking cruises that they thought wouldn't go, or had rose tinted glasses on etc, because they thought that they would eventually get a recurring 25% bonus by doing so?

 

Remember the story about the $20 a day cruise on Carnival in August (as an example)...

 

Either that or people got bored in lockdown and booking a holiday optimistically, helped cheer them up😎

 

Strange customer behaviour though on the face of it?

[Britboys]

12 hours ago, grapau27 said:

NCL Epic looks hideous and like a floating Holiday Inn.

We liked RCL Allure and Harmony of the seas especially the lovely Central Park.

I think that's unfair to Holiday Inn - most of their buildings are much more attractive than Epic, imho 😄

[AchileLauro]

Selling or de-commissioning  Oceana fairly soon has long been on the cards but I wouldn't be totally surprised if P&O also decided to dispose of Aurora too.

It's no good reasoning that they are unlikely to dispose of either because of cruises already booked and paid for, because the company has demonstrated all too frequently in the past that disappointing loyal customers is of little concern to them in the overall run of things.

[grapau27]

1 hour ago, Britboys said:

I think that's unfair to Holiday Inn - most of their buildings are much more attractive than Epic, imho 😄

True.

 

 

[Manx buoy]

My money is on Oceana going. It doesn’t look like any of them will be going in CMVs direction though all ships impounded this morning by the MCA due to crew welfare concerns and apparently an emergency loan deal fell through yesterday