CCL High Debt /what is Your Opinion

[seekatz]

Agreed, many do own 100 share, but a lot own more. The title of the thread is CCL high debt/ what is your opinion so I was trying to add my thoughts to the title of the thread. Thanks for the feedback.

[Mary229]

14 minutes ago, seekatz said:

Agreed, many do own 100 share, but a lot own more. The title of the thread is CCL high debt/ what is your opinion so I was trying to add my thoughts to the title of the thread. Thanks for the feedback.

Then they should reconsider😉

[Haljo1935]

And as shareholders of any amount, whether 100 shares to receive OBC or ## shares for investments, we all need CCL to be financially healthy...

[Mary229]

4 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

And as shareholders of any amount, whether 100 shares to receive OBC or ## shares for investments, we all need CCL to be financially healthy...

Some of us have less money invested than we have received in OBC and don’t consider it an investment, if I did I would not own it.  My investment dollars go to the best available asset.  I consider the CCL an membership fee 

[Stateroom_Sailor]

23 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

Yes what they will payin interest charges will be higher in this battle to tame inflation bt  the  FED . About a possible recession ,school seems to be out on that one doe now . The real problem is cash flow  .We had 1000 shares of CCL stock bought in the $7  range  .Just sold 900 shares Friday .with the dree 100 share we keep for the OBC benefit   going forward another $500  in OBC

 

Nice trade, at this point it doesn't really matter if your last 100 shares goes to $0.  You're likely to have the purchase price comped by OBC additionally.

 

I'm kicking myself for buying 100 shares at $7 and selling for $9, thinking we were going to stop sailing with HAL.  We definitely had problems on our last cruise, but most of it wasn't the cruise line's fault, and we were pleasantly surprised by minimal cuts.  We're not sailing again for another 18 months, maybe the stock price will come back down a bit...

[Haljo1935]

1 hour ago, Mary229 said:

Some of us have less money invested than we have received in OBC and don’t consider it an investment, if I did I would not own it.  My investment dollars go to the best available asset.  I consider the CCL an membership fee 

I hadn't thought of it in terms of a membership fee, and thinks that's fair. 

However, if the "club" goes under, the membership does too.

[mcrcruiser]

2 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Some of us have less money invested than we have received in OBC and don’t consider it an investment, if I did I would not own it.  My investment dollars go to the best available asset.  I consider the CCL an membership fee 

 That is a good one LOL . This stock has been  one that is speculative at best  .when ir as in the $7 range unlikely  to drop much . Now over $13 is a different story . The debt is there ,servicing that debt is there  & should the FED increase the rates this coming week  ,CCL 's cost of servicing the debt increases as it is renewed   . We once owned 1000 share when it was low  ,Sold Friday  & kept 100 shares for OBC only .so I do like the membership dee theory . 

[OlsSalt]

2 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

I hadn't thought of it in terms of a membership fee, and thinks that's fair. 

However, if the "club" goes under, the membership does too.

 

That matters only if you have not made back your purchase price in OBC.  I am pretty close to break even on that score.

[POA1]

Is this one of those 1990s Yahoo groups pump & dump stock threads? I'm asking because there has been crickets on the Buy upgrade from this morning.

 

https://www.investors.com/news/carnival-stock-upgraded-after-breakout-analysts-see-rising-tide-for-cruise-lines/

[bajae]

11 hours ago, POA1 said:

Is this one of those 1990s Yahoo groups pump & dump stock threads? I'm asking because there has been crickets on the Buy upgrade from this morning.

 

https://www.investors.com/news/carnival-stock-upgraded-after-breakout-analysts-see-rising-tide-for-cruise-lines/

Must be why I had a notification this morning that CCL stock price reached a 52 week high. 

[rj59]

That doesn't seem to be the case now. All lines are cutting service and costs and increasing prices and fares, yet prices for cruises (along with hotels and flights) are very high, which means people are going to cruise anyway. RC and NCL are sailing at over 102%, and I think Carnival is over 90%, with a lot of new, younger passengers who don't know what previous service or price levels were for comparison. I went on 3 Alaska cruises out of Seattle last year, and prices this summer are 5 times or so higher than what I paid, and the ships are selling out. I don't know what RCL is doing better than Carnival, but they're stock has skyrocketed, from $40 when I bought it to over $95 today, so my purchase just to get stockholder's credit really paid off. Other lines have actually made even worse cutbacks--I was on NCL Joy in February, and steward cutbacks meant my rooms was never ready before 4:30 pm, even on embarkation day, and all other lines besides HAL and Princess now charge for room service, but people are still filling the ships.

Just realize, though, that all the cruise lines are relying on passengers to pay off their immense debt and to become profitable, but fortunately, we have the freedom to make choices about how much to contribute, through shopping, photos, spas, ship excursions, drinks, specialty dining, and gambling, as well as stateroom choice. I've never spent a dime on gambling, bingo, photos, or the spa, and I've always been happy with an inside cabin, but I still love my cruises, since it's about where I visit, the people I meet, and being on the sea, and I've never gone hungry on a cruise, even if the days on HAL when I could get cold soups, chocolate covered strawberries in the coffee cafe, and unlimited lobster in the Lido are long gone. 

[Haljo1935]

1 hour ago, rj59 said:

...I went on 3 Alaska cruises out of Seattle last year, and prices this summer are 5 times or so higher than what I paid, and the ships are selling out....

Had you benefited from "free" or otherwise discounted rates? While I've seen prices higher (not talking about 2024 ridiculous rates), 5x is a crazy increase. I haven't experienced 2023 prices 5x higher than 2022 on "normal" fares.

I agree, the ships thus year are selling out.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Haljo1935 said:

Had you benefited from "free" or otherwise discounted rates? While I've seen prices higher (not talking about 2024 ridiculous rates), 5x is a crazy increase. I haven't experienced 2023 prices 5x higher than 2022 on "normal" fares.

I agree, the ships thus year are selling out.

From what I have seen HAL prices, not including packages are running about 15-25% that 2019. ON board sales items such as packages are up more.  I expect prices to go even higher in 2024.

 

Keep in mind while occupancy is up, it is still not back to 2019 levels when Occupancy for each of the 3 main holding companies (CCL, RCL, NCLH) were  around 107%

Edited June 14, 2023 by ldtr

[Haljo1935]

30 minutes ago, ldtr said:

From what I have seen HAL prices, not including packages are running about 15-25% that 2019. ON board sales items such as packages are up more.  I expect prices to go even higher in 2024.

 

Keep in mind while occupancy is up, it is still not back to 2019 levels when Occupancy for each of the 3 main holding companies (CCL, RCL, NCLH) were  around 107%

Agree.

And that 15-25% is not 5x.

[BermudaBound2014]

I’m not seeing price increase on inside/outside cabins. You can book multiple Alaska sailings all the way into the fall in the $300 -$400 range for 7 days inside/ocean view.  The balconies are pricing closer to 2019, but they are practically giving away the cheap seats.

[Haljo1935]

2 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

I’m not seeing price increase on inside/outside cabins. You can book multiple Alaska sailings all the way into the fall in the $300 -$400 range for 7 days inside/ocean view.  The balconies are pricing closer to 2019, but they are practically giving away the cheap seats.

Could one do a "cheap seat" then add Club Orange to end up with a really good deal?

[Guest ldtr]

I do not look at the 7 day Alaska or Caribbean cruises.  I consider them to be more introduce the brand type cruises that in many ways function like loss leaders.  Repetitive cruises that they discount to fill the ships because every other cruise line else is doing the same thing at the same time.  Have not priced those. But would expect them to be among the most heavily discounted. I look more at the European, TA, and other cruises outside of the US.  That is where I come up with the 15 to 25% increase over 2019.

Edited June 14, 2023 by ldtr

[BermudaBound2014]

13 hours ago, ldtr said:

I do not look at the 7 day Alaska or Caribbean cruises.  I consider them to be more introduce the brand type cruises that in many ways function like loss leaders.  Repetitive cruises that they discount to fill the ships because every other cruise line else is doing the same thing at the same time.  Have not priced those. But would expect them to be among the most heavily discounted. I look more at the European, TA, and other cruises outside of the US.  That is where I come up with the 15 to 25% increase over 2019.

 

I would agree that the Alaska cruises are loss leaders. 

 

Unfortunately, HAL has over half it's fleet sailing Alaska this summer. All of these are discounted.

 

Ships Sailing Alaska Summer 2023

Noordam

Koningsdam

Nieuw Amsterdam

Eurodam

Westerdam

volendam

 

I recently booked the 35 day Hawaii/Tahati for 2024. My price was actually cheaper than the 2023 version. Granted, I did not track pricing for 2023 all the way thru final payment. I suspect after final payment the 2023 version of this cruise dropped dramatically. 

 

I just did a random check for a longer European cruise departing in July. This is a 19 day med cruise on the Oosterdam. It's past final payment and you can see that these prices continue to drop in each category. Cruise ships that are selling well do not need to reduce pricing closer to sailing date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by BermudaBound2014

[Guest ldtr]

36 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

I would agree that the Alaska cruises are loss leaders. 

 

Unfortunately, HAL has over half it's fleet sailing Alaska this summer. All of these are discounted.

 

Ships Sailing Alaska Summer 2023

Noordam

Koningsdam

Nieuw Amsterdam

Eurodam

Westerdam

volendam

 

I recently booked the 35 day Hawaii/Tahati for 2024. My price was actually cheaper than the 2023 version. Granted, I did not track pricing for 2023 all the way thru final payment. I suspect after final payment the 2023 version of this cruise dropped dramatically. 

 

I just did a random check for a longer European cruise departing in July. This is a 19 day med cruise on the Oosterdam. It's past final payment and you can see that these prices continue to drop in each category. Cruise ships that are selling well do not need to reduce pricing closer to sailing date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All cruise lines have large numbers of ships in Alaska.  One of the reasons they all (the main stream lines) discount there

 

What that does not show is how many book at each point in the sales time frame.  Also how do all of the others look.  Then compare to what was happening with similar cruises in 2019.  

 

Back in 2019 people were talking about how the discounting after final payment date was an indication about how bad HAL was doing.  If they are doing the same thing, with a similar level drop, but starting at a higher initial price point it is still an over all increase.

 

The cruise line holding companies are certainly talking about how strong booking are overall and they are now approaching 2019 occupancy, with onboard sales at a much higher price point.  This next quarter onboard results should be up from around 25%-30% of revenue to around 35% for the 3 companies.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by ldtr

[BermudaBound2014]

38 minutes ago, ldtr said:

The cruise line holding companies are certainly talking about how strong booking are overall and they are now approaching 2019 occupancy, with onboard sales at a much higher price point.  This next quarter onboard results should be up from around 25%-30% of revenue to around 35% for the 3 companies.

 

I get what you are saying, but this is where I call BS. 

 

CCL said they had record bookings and would reach their 2019 levels by the spring of 2022. That was laughable. Here we are over a year later and CCL hasn't reported numbers even close to 2019. NCLH is about the same. RCL is the only company reporting occupancy numbers close to 2019. Of course, we'll see shortly when CCL reports Q2, but pre-covid the magic break even number was reported to be 95% occupancy. It was common for cruises to sail with 105% occupancy. No doubt some sailings (Holiday, spring break, summer) are full, but certainly not all.

 

IMO: Cruise lines are reporting record BOOKINGS due to insanely low deposit requirements. Hasn't Princess launched a few $1 deposit? I believe HAL just had yet another $25 deposit sale. I think this is a shell game to calm the investors. Many people who are Booking not actually sailing. Some are booking multiple trips just to pick one later.  Again, we'll see how CCL occupancy pans out at the next release. Rumor has it the fall season is falling short (pun intended). 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by BermudaBound2014

[clueless2]

On 6/11/2023 at 5:20 PM, Haljo1935 said:

Yes, aligned that AI absolutely has a role in engineering, navigation, and certain passenger encounters (like the Dive In app you mentioned).  But I don't believe it will be the life preserver @mcrcruiser is predicting; there are far too many "human" encounters (cabin stewards and chefs, for ex) that the industry depends on.

Interesting conversation, for sure!

 

 

 

Your new cabin steward.

[Guest ldtr]

38 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

I get what you are saying, but this is where I call BS. 

 

CCL said they had record bookings and would reach their 2019 levels by the spring of 2022. That was laughable. Here we are over a year later and CCL hasn't reported numbers even close to 2019. NCLH is about the same. RCL is the only company reporting occupancy numbers close to 2019. Of course, we'll see shortly when CCL reports Q2, but pre-covid the magic break even number was reported to be 95% occupancy. It was common for cruises to sail with 105% occupancy. No doubt some sailings (Holiday, spring break, summer) are full, but certainly not all.

 

IMO: Cruise lines are reporting record BOOKINGS due to insanely low deposit requirements. Hasn't Princess launched a few $1 deposit? I believe HAL just had yet another $25 deposit sale. I think this is a shell game to calm the investors. Many people who are Booking not actually sailing. Some are booking multiple trips just to pick one later.  Again, we'll see how CCL occupancy pans out at the next release. Rumor has it the fall season is falling short (pun intended). 

 

 

I would like to see the quote where they stated that the holding company would reach 2019 levels by the Spring of 2022.  I have not seen that in any filing or press release by the parent company.  There was comments about record rate of new bookings and there were comments that Carnival cruise line was expected to be over 100% in q4 of 2022 for that cruise line.  Which they were. Not unusual during the holiday period for a family oriented line.  

 

Actually if you look at the old 10K CCL overall booking prior to Covid was  106.8% 2019, 106.9% 2018, 105.9% 2017.  Overall occupancy in Q1 2023 was 91%, though we should expect the next report to reach 100%.  Still below 2019 but getting close.  Keep in mind that in the last quarter CCL had 22.1 million ALBD (lower bunk capacity days the measure used in the capacity calculation) or an annual rate of 88.4 million, this is actually a higher capacity number than all of the CCL lines had in 2019 which was 87.4.

 

When it comes to onboard it is actually running ahead of what I expected in 2019 onboard spend was 28.4% of total revenue.  This last quarter onboard was actually already over 35% coming in at 35.2%.  Which I did not expect because a lot of the onboard price increases on some of the lines occurred in the last quarter and would not have been fully reflected in that quarters results.  Should be higher this quarter.

 

 

[mowogo]

On 6/14/2023 at 12:54 PM, ldtr said:

I would like to see the quote where they stated that the holding company would reach 2019 levels by the Spring of 2022.  I have not seen that in any filing or press release by the parent company.  There was comments about record rate of new bookings and there were comments that Carnival cruise line was expected to be over 100% in q4 of 2022 for that cruise line.  Which they were. Not unusual during the holiday period for a family oriented line.  

 

Actually if you look at the old 10K CCL overall booking prior to Covid was  106.8% 2019, 106.9% 2018, 105.9% 2017.  Overall occupancy in Q1 2023 was 91%, though we should expect the next report to reach 100%.  Still below 2019 but getting close.  Keep in mind that in the last quarter CCL had 22.1 million ALBD (lower bunk capacity days the measure used in the capacity calculation) or an annual rate of 88.4 million, this is actually a higher capacity number than all of the CCL lines had in 2019 which was 87.4.

 

When it comes to onboard it is actually running ahead of what I expected in 2019 onboard spend was 28.4% of total revenue.  This last quarter onboard was actually already over 35% coming in at 35.2%.  Which I did not expect because a lot of the onboard price increases on some of the lines occurred in the last quarter and would not have been fully reflected in that quarters results.  Should be higher this quarter.

 

 

The mass market end is constrained on what they can charge, with CCL really suffering in their Carnival line with MSC blocking the price increases on the low end for Florida and now New York along with their strong position in Europe which has helped turn Costa into a shutdown target rather than strong line. 

 

And because of the reduced ability to raise fares in many markets, CCL is driven to push onboard spend higher through increased prices as well as increased promotion of opportunities.  

[BermudaBound2014]

On 6/14/2023 at 2:54 PM, ldtr said:

I would like to see the quote where they stated that the holding company would reach 2019 levels by the Spring of 2022.

 

Sorry, I just now saw this request. The early conference calls were chalk full of predictions that the company would reach 2019 occupancy levels in 2022. Over and over again. So much brag about having historic booking levels when compared to 2019. It really was laughable.

 

1) Here's one (there are many more if you read thru the conference call transcripts from 2021) where Mr. Donald states they are optimistic they will be sailing at capacity by the spring of 2022. As we know, the real numbers fell significantly short of the prediction as the company only managed to get to 91% occupancy during the first quarter of 2023. 

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/06/24/carnival-corp-plc-ccl-q2-2021-earnings-call-transc/

 

 

 

2) Here's another example of misleading information. This was written in June of 2022. As you know, Carnival wasn't anywhere near 110% occupancy in Q322. Instead of 110% occupancy as predicted, I believe the actual numbers were 54% occupancy for Q322.

https://www.cruisehive.com/carnival-cruise-line-aims-for-110-percent-occupancy/75138

 

 

3) Please respond. I am not saying you are wrong, but I can't find anywhere that states Carnival was over 100% occupancy in Q422.

 

 

On 6/14/2023 at 2:54 PM, ldtr said:

There was comments about record rate of new bookings and there were comments that Carnival cruise line was expected to be over 100% in q4 of 2022 for that cruise line.  Which they were. Not unusual during the holiday period for a family oriented line.  

 

 

I'd like to see where Carnival reached occupancy of over 100% in Q422. I can't find Carnival segregated data at over 100%. What I see is CCL corporation at 91% occupancy in Q422. Certainly a few ships made 100% over the holiday period, but I do not believe that Carnival (as a brand) averaged over 100% ocupancy in Q422. Please link if possible. 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by BermudaBound2014

[albingirl]

On 6/10/2023 at 9:07 PM, mcrcruiser said:

We  all are cutting the cruise industry slack by spending our discretionary money on cruises .  I am not ready to throw in the rowel on cruises & I do agree with what you  posted  , We  just hope  that the lines can make it with a decent consumer product . Lines like MSC have very deep pockets   because of their main line maritime giant  .Then we understand that the Saudis are entering the cruise industry with their wealth  .Seems to us that things are going to get more & more interesting in the near future 

I just never know where these threads are going, but I  have a pretty good idea. And it's not positive. Many of us like to cruise without overthinking the future. Not willing to lose sleep over that, whatever it is lol.