HMR74

To me the strangest part of this is that before covid, Celebrity RCL had a pretty good product and was showing a profit of 20% on sales. Now with higher rates interest cost will eat that up, assuming it can roll that debt at higher rates. yes, covid cost aspect was a killer, but why tinker with something that was working well?? l think we all knew the cost of cruising was going to increase, and most all of us were okay with that to a point. that point included a roughly doubling of the pricing, and devalued aspects of cruising across the industry. part of this big issue is managements of all cruise lines went on a competitive spree to build bigger ships with more amenities to imho, try to bring in more customers with specific desires. unfortunately, the industry took on too much leverage at the wrong time. and thats biting them in the rear now. One would think that somebody on the Boards or Officer level, like a Treasurer, CFO or CEO would have opened discussion about taking on too much risks. but heck look, the banks and brokerages, which give investment advice are in deep trouble over leverage now. They took on too much risk. meanwhile the talk of this board, is over a $2 cookie because the company threw it out as a test. just suggesting to mgt to get its act together and focus on the bigger issues and picture. Cause if a $2 item is important enough to test, the company is in real trouble.

now just saw a doubletree suites commercial, proudly giving free warm chocolate chip cookies to guests. Its not a game changer for car dealers, hotels, or cruise lines, but its a di minimus thing, petty cash,. for both the cruise lines and guests. If RCL/X cannot afford to give complementary warm cc cookies to guests, then there is somethig seriously wrong with their pricing and costs strategies. Probably also true for most of the sector, perhaps except for Viking which is family owned and operated. nuff said, I guess

and the point of staying there for a few days is exactly that. We had 3 great dinners there after the ships left and a couple real good lunches. One day we were walking in center town and could not belive thel ine at 2:30 to take the lift down. Had to be 90-120 minutes long winding down the town to the south I think. At top of hill about 3 blocks north of the center town area was a place named Kokokoon.with a view looking SE toward the airport. Great upscale dinner.. Then we walked back down to to the 24/7 bakery to buy sweet rolls for the morning (Airbnb) . across the street and slights up thehill another great restaurant, forgot name but it has a wide staircase up and a sliding glass enclosed resturant, and that place had a platter to try most of their stuff which was great too.

Yep, thats the set up at both dealers. Amazing, one businesses enticements have become a small profit center for Celebrity. a test ship, i repeat, should not be where major takaways are tested and minor add ons, like warm choclate chip cookies are tested. Furthermore, on the takaways its just bad business to have contracts with custoemrs where the company can change and devalue the product. I can buy a package of nestles choc chip cookies for about 5 bucks at home and while thery are good, if teh food on a ship is like it used to be with the choiceswe had, then you don't need no stinkn extra desert. If X thinks thats an improvement then it needs to have read these pages. Its not a major issue. But if they tested a concept as follows, I bet its a winner, From 9-mindnight haave a set up in the OVC for something. Go grab a cup of coffee and a piece of pie or cake, and sit and smooze at a tabe or the outside portion of the OVC. like Bakers Square used to be. Its a place big enough and throw in some simple food like the pizza or chicken wings. Throw in a pianist with piano and it turns into a sort of adult quiet night club. Build on the concept, Turn down the lights a bit, and people can sit and read, play a game, etc. Sometiems the places on 3 are just too loud to talk /converse unless you are in each others faces.

hell, our car dealers have "complimentary bagels and smears and coffee etc in the morning and hot cookies and juice or milk in the PM. And thats even if you only bring the car in for a free car wash. X is cheapening its brand name whichleads to goodlill and premium stock prices if you do it right.

I have said it before but we canned late spring cruises on Beyond and did an extended land tour of Greece and Italy. It was so good my better half wants me to plan one for next year to Spain and Portugal. We are older so we will do this for as long as it is wise to do so. Then probably return to cruising where there is less wear and tear on us.

she like other mothers did not understand the party aspect of college. I was there in the mid 60's. The drinking started the first day of registration , and back then we went to the sports complex basket ball ball arena to get our punch cards for the classes that were required, at the times we wanted. Pot parties started my Sr year when I had to be serious.

OJT, best training around. Assuming that the mentors were great. Our friends who are couples; the wives humorously said that if they go first they want their husbands to move in with me because they wil lbe well fed. But I generally avoid things that take too much time to clean up. But if I am disappointed with meals on board ship and with family or friends, I generally will not say anything if I am disappointed because my expectations are high and I do not want to wreck the trip for others, I would say hopefuly we could meet up on board some time but I am afraid my days cruising are getting short just because I am not as happy cruising, and prefer land trips now.

2 plus 20% is or was the early hedge fund manager compensation. 2% base fee and 20% of profits for taking risks with other peoples money.

my family had a couple of restaurants back in the 1960's -I worked the regsiter when I was 14, but got experience on the way up to cook. Was a great life experience.

Just thinking, always dangerous. Anybody remember Freshman year dorm food? the jokes about mystery meals. Chicken Fried Steak? With lots of gravy . Greasy burgers. many nights of pasta?

LOL, I was being sarcastic , the new and exciting "additions" or upgrades that are being tested. Not the takeaways aka downgrades, and not LeVoyage type additions. If I am looking for world class fine dining, there are plenty of those restaurants in the big cities and some smaller areas where the chef shops daily at the market for the best fresh main courses, sides and deserts. You pay a few hundred PP but the meals are great, truly unusual, and the service is spectacular. Seriously though, vaping if only in casino is not a big deal, IMHO and I am not a smoker. While the small issues failing can be a big problem, first the busiess has to get the big issues right. BTW, Not talking about ICON class "new", where you go on intimate cruises with ~7500 other folks. How do you spell institutional.

Which ship is the test ship for new and exciting things?

When on a land vacation we do not think about grabbing a cookie or gelato or soemthing different, and paying a few bucks for it or stopping for an affternoon iced drink, and we go through bottled carbonated water at meals for a few bucks more in addition to wine or somthing else. However we are paying for that all inclusive vacation which is not all inclusive anymore, at least on X. perhaps unless you spend a large chunk and go upper level suites. However even inside cabins on decent itineraries are running 400 a night now which is more than we paid for Aqua 3 years ago (albeit cancelled) . Its like being in Rome and grabbing a taxi and asking "How much to" rather than going on the meter. We have switched to air bnb and vrbo for longer trips and that way we avoid paying the cabbie, the guy or gal that goes to the cab and takes your luggage to desk, the doorman and the guy or gal taking the luggage upstarts and a flurry of tips within a few minutes. Less confusing when I was young, too much action within a few minutes when older. Thats the beauty of all inclusive-you turn off the brain on that sort of trip. Which I think we can get on premium lines and remember just 2 years ago LLP was talking about Premium Large Ship strategy. It is all about the customers expectations and whether the business can meet and exceed the expectations, which includes the subjective value proposition for me.

Looks like the concept of all inclusive is gone. My afternoon sweet tooth is taken care of at OVC, evening at El Bacio, with an eclair , or two, and a nice cup, or two, of decaf premium coffee. So far I have avoided the ala carte aspect, not just for being nickle and dimed, but having to look at a couple of sheets of paper the last day for charges. Which, by the way do add up. Moreso on family trips and on RCL Oasis class. The Equinox cruises I booked for January, group rate cabins, are now 20% higher than when I booked. Cruising, perhaps especially at X, has lost its Value aspect, although value is a subject of personal perspective. Now, for RCL, and the other cruise lines and businesses, if anybody has noticed, interest rates are up, and banks and other lenders are cutting back on aggregate credit issued (no more easy money courtesy of the Fed) due to various reasons. Banks are being downgraded (Moodys, Fitch and S&P) because they are undercapitalized and too heavily leveraged, and somewhat illiquid. Itmeans future borroong or rolling over debt will not come cheap even if they can get it--capacity is down. . This is all a complex problem with many moving pieces. Raising prices and charging for nice warm cookies is a sign of an underlying problem, and yes, I do eat baked cookies at home that are several days old, and same for regular leftovers. I just do not want to eat leftovers, repurposed food, and junk food when on a vacation. I kind of like the idea of fresh, cooked just before its served, meals. Frankly, in the past when boarding an X ship, things felt magical, If that overall feeling is gone, so am I. It's not personal, it's business. Now, with the various problems, If I was CFO or Treasurer at a cruise or air line I would resign. But I am past retirement age so its easy to say. Nothing out of school, as it is now showing up in the news, but something else always seems to crowd out anything else, but the CDC is talking about a new varient of covid (a dirty word to be spoken here) this year being more dangerous than the prior ones, and it has mentioned masks might be necessry as well as lockdowns. Not that I have serious respect for CDC, and I would not give any odds of any of this occuring, however, with RCL stock back near its 2019 highs, it should do a stock issuuance now (vs replacing old debt with new higher interest rate debt). But, what do I know? Even a serious hint of masks or lockdown would throw Travel and Liesure into shock, as well as others. Just saying.

this may have been raised in this long thread, but airlines are reporting declines in bookings across the airline specrum. Some of that has to overlay overall cruises. I agree with your comment about cc debt, but everywhere you look now use of credit has kept businesses alive as well as consumer .the spike in travel after the lockdown is evening out now, a reversion to the mean. Higher interest rates one reason and financially speaking a significant sell off in the stock and bond markets would, IMO, have a greater adverse effect on travel than high credit card debt. If cruise bookings do decline, the travel companis have a huge fixed cost to cover. Its a vicioous cycle. Airlines have cut back on equipment to keep full occupancy but how easy is it for cruise lines to follow that strategy especially with higher prices. I still feel more comfortable when I feel I get good value for what we spend.

I keep on saying it's all about cash flow. This past week news came out that American Airlines is discontinuing its discount and perks deal for for crews of cruise lines. eg, discount on fares, no charge luggage etc. Seems like companies are trying to find ways to improve cash flow. Airline capacity is 90% of pre covid and a similar decline in cruise line and in general the hspitality business. The Fed says its raising rates cutting liquidity in credit markets--more to fight inflation but price inflation is sticky. Creditors are more seective of who they lend to. To the cruise lines it means borrowing may become more difficult and costly. It's not personal-it is the numbers. And real cash flow. It is tough going for many businesses especially the cruise lines.

This thread is about X trying to find ways to improves its cash flow at the customers expense. The start was with food portin size, quaility (meaning how well its prepared) and then premium vs less than premium. meaning trying to get customers to have talapia and burgers vs salmon and filet. It always gets back to management and strategies and the financial condition or in this case all the cruise lines. which got a raw deal with lockdowns but the other side of the ledger is they overextended themselves with expanding fleets and with ships like Beyond or Icon. That could stand along but now they are running into another problem which they should have anticipated with the ships added-a business slowdown with higher rates and a credit crunch. From the cruiser perspective, we mostly has sympathy on the lockdowns and understood prices would have to go up. But now we have had 2 stages of big moves up in prices since the lockdownsstarted and not X is , as it appears going from a premium big ship strategy to just like the others, albeit keeping the higher prices. I amjust pointing out we as cruiser shoudl expect more of the same as it seems managemnet is panicking to get to an acceptabe cash flow. They are increasing the size of deposits nad booking 3 years out, and that 5-6 billion of deposots is very much needed but tis not their mnty till final paymnet day, its stil our.' So a financial course might be needed to understand where we are headed. And what I am saying, hinting or whatever, is we are headed for an economic slowdown. And I do not think its going to be kind to heavily leveraged companies. bwcase most of them, their managements, optimistically think we will get low interest rates and strong economy. So in addition to whether I will like the new Celebrity or not, an added issue is do I want deposits of several thousand dollars or more going out into the future or better said, do I want to be an unsecured creditor of a cruise line for 10's of thousands, several cruises a year for 3 years out in future. Nobody has brought that up recently however, if X has 20 billion of debt and the interest rate goes up a few % points, 3% points adds 600 million in interest cost. 5% is 1 billion. I am sure the princess division of carnival and the NCL company has pretty much the same situation. And thats why they all have to find a way to improve cash flow. And I recall paying 270 a night for Aqua for two of us just before the lockdowns, with the better internet, premium drinks and gratuities, and now its off the charts. Yeah, I am a bit of a bean counter, but it's my money, and I am a retired corp officer, and its important to me to not act irresponsibily and think big picture. What happened to Crystal Cruise line 2 years ago. So it can happen. I am willing to bet that there are more than a few folks here who understand exactly what I am saying. When the cash is flowing its easy to spend as a consumer,, when its not flowing so easily, its a different story. and my other comnet earlier in this thread, was asking how woudl we baby boomers, and eare a lot here, feel if their portfolios took a 50% hit. Not meaning to be a "debbie downer", just being aware of whats happening. Take care.

Just put me on ignore if you do not like what I post.

we have used X for ourselves, and take Royal Oasis class for kids and grandkids. Two distinctly different types of cruising. I do not think they know whay they are doing. They have a younger less experienced management in there now, and that has biases to what young people want. X already priced a lot of existing customers out of their ships -if only cutting back from say 6 cruises a year to 4. The younger kids we refer to, like our kids ages in the 40's are big spenders. But as I hinted yesrterday they have not experiences a real recession or market shake out. For them its only been good times. Sooner or later its going to happen and whether the kids are professionals or in family business, everybody feels it and the first things to go will not be food clothing and shelter, but expensive stuff. and thats the catch here. Whats the cost of a nice cruise for 5 people peak season. With airfare, transfers and hotel the night before. Our airfare alone was nearly 8,000 for 8 of us last Thanksgiving and that was coach. 3 hotel rooms 1,000. and a $200 dinner. and then the add ons to the cruise. and as I said if we have a tough recession, the highly leveraged industries, like cruising, wil see shakeouts. The young management has no clue what to do--I have seen it time and time again. People and businesses are just not prepared for it.

included, not complementary, with a stop at coco cay is the lower end fare of hot dos burgers etc, if you want nicer you pay. if you want a cabana you pay, if you do not turn inyour towell, or if they do not record it, happened to us, you pay and thats $50, then debate it when you see the bill. It also alows then to cut out another port but I bet port taxes do not go down. Kind of a blind item. And the water parks and other attractions cost big money. Our grandkids enjoyed it, however if an X ship isther with 1 or 2 Royal ships and a lot of kids, you end up staying on the ship. or stay at the high priced cabana area.

my wife just told me that two couples we know are using Gateway tours for a 10 day escorted trip to Spain with airfare (coach I assume and wonder how many stops and changes) and lunches and a few dinners included for about 2k per person. Thats 400 a day per couple thats about the rate for equinox inside cabin without airfare for a 10 day cruise.

A secret on hamburger vs steak. The government reports inflation monthly, and our social security is based on that inflation number Its significantly understated but why? Its not really an inflation number but a cost of living number. That means, and this happens, when a filet gets too expensive the government assumes people moved down to a cheaper cut of beef and then move fown to hamburger. It in their eye the public changes to checken or pork, or Sea bass to talapia And thats how they keep the inflation doen. A couple of entitles redo the inflation as if they did not do this and both come up with inflation being double what the government reported. Arthur Burns was fed chair under President Carter and to him the inflation number seemed to high so he just changed it with a pencil. now its all about substitutes and product improvements whether you want them or not., eg, you buy a car the first year seat belts came out--it costs more however it has seat belts so they can say no price inflation. But then again the car costs more . They can do anythign to change the prices including changing weighting. In any event sometimes you just want a good burger even though you know you paid for a full meal. Do you know if you are getting prime, choice or select or McDonalds quality. There are so many ways to game this it is amazing . But with comouters the cruis elines know statistically what seniors cost them and what kids cost them and everythign in between. And they are refining it all the time and the answer on equinox tests wil be if they can get away with lowering standards they will. I personally do not need to pay for the Beyond/Ascent type ship but higher pricing has trickled down to S class. The cruise business is a tough busienss, but I have confidence mgt wil continue to find ways to screw it up. If I was a top manager in thebusiness, I woudl want to somehow learn what the effect on cruising would be if stock and bond portfolion and 401k's declined by 50%. Would customers be nonchalant over booking suites? Or if banks had a big problem, bigger than the March liquidity problem caused by a run on banks, and cash and CDs could not be withdrawn from banks like what happened in Greece and Italy in 2008. That would mean we could not pay the balance in full at day 90. But don't ask me and call me a debbie downer, as I only did that sort of questioning for 30 years, and I am getting quite careful now with my assets. If the cruise lines need to generate more or better cash flow, ask why? And How. And what if they do not. Anyway, I am done but thats how I think. I do not want to leave myself open for a catastrophic result.

people are missing the major issue. Prices are up service is down X is looking for more ways to charge for was used to be included, but not complimentary. Complimentary is something you did not contract for but get for free-like an extra wifi The QR thing is just shifting service and costs to the customer. Next thing is just like many restaurants, you will order from the ipad on the table. another tip--if you have not already set up the Bank of America credit card, thats now worth $300 after the first charges. It was $100 when I did our four, we each have the royal and Celebrity cards. when we speak about the younger generation being the target, our kids did not want to sign up for the credit cards when they were worth 150 each. I dunno, I was value driven when we were their age. Not longago all included meant nothign was added to the bill during the cruise. YOU coudl add excursions or specialty, but the good food in MDR made that poor cost based choices, now we are being basically forced to upgrade at some point in cruise and add to teh bill which was alrady imho inflated. even the high OBC in Retreat allows them to charge more for the cabin and cruise but then you have to spend on higher cost things. I am liking more and more theall includive resorts, or land baed trips, basically you plan it based on what you want and do not pay for what you do not want.

you stopped me at additional charge.... just another way of increasing prices. This is all reducing the desire for b2bs as the food is boring regardless of the quality and we just cannot trust X management anymore for devaluing what people had purchased with their good money. Its a matter of good faith, speaking from a business perspective and X has lost that. But its my opinion and my money and more importantly my time and I also want to use my time wisely and return home thouroughly happy. There are too many moving pieces now. And I also beleive that heavily leveraged companies, of which ther are many, will be in deep liquidity trouble along with economy .