Moeve Posted July 2, 2008 #26 Share Posted July 2, 2008 As we speak it become know that apparently (no press release yet) RCCL will be moving the Legend to Asia peramantly at the end of 2009........ Did I say something like that earlier :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moeve Posted July 2, 2008 #27 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Hmm then again the newer ships are also using newer technology which inturn is far more energy efficient - for example the elevators on the Soltice will use solar power produced by the ships solar pannelling, its aircon is different and uses less energy..... the engines are far more economical to those thoses lets say in the Voyager class. The list of innovations also on energy conservation side are very immpressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FL_Cruiser64 Posted July 2, 2008 #28 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I respectfully disagree. Carnival is in a more precarious position because their low cost business model is also a low fare business model. They do not have as much room to cut their fares as RCI does. Also, the smaller ships cost more to operate than the Freedom and Oasis classes. Oasis will be the most fuel efficient ship in the fleet and carry 30% more passengers than Freedom. You can disagree. Thats what these boards are here for. :D If that (fuel efficiency) is the one great reason about Oasis being a success..oh well. What you forget though is that fuel efficiency doe not mean using less gas. Just more efficient. Oasis will still need more fuel. Obviously the partial hedging of fuel hasn't real helped RCI either since they quickly added a FS once those companies without hedging did. To predict a success of Oasis because of better fuel efficiency is a very shaky proposal (not to mention the 1 billion dollar tag each ship carries). As I always said, as not an Oasis fan, I do hope Oasis will be success because otherwise I see truly dark times coming upon RCI. Maybe then Mickey Arison will be successful in a take over bit (after he failed before). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
negc Posted July 2, 2008 #29 Share Posted July 2, 2008 You can disagree. Thats what these boards are here for. :DIf that (fuel efficiency) is the one great reason about Oasis being a success..oh well. What you forget though is that fuel efficiency doe not mean using less gas. Just more efficient. Oasis will still need more fuel. Obviously the partial hedging of fuel hasn't real helped RCI either since they quickly added a FS once those companies without hedging did. To predict a success of Oasis because of better fuel efficiency is a very shaky proposal (not to mention the 1 billion dollar tag each ship carries). As I always said, as not an Oasis fan, I do hope Oasis will be success because otherwise I see truly dark times coming upon RCI. Maybe then Mickey Arison will be successful in a take over bit (after he failed before). And yet I believe that RCI posted a net profit gain in the last quarter while Carnival's was flat. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruising89143 Posted July 2, 2008 #30 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Doom I tell you, the world is doomed.:rolleyes: Love the Chicken Little's that know more about the cruise industry than the ones actually running them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaggyofwv Posted July 2, 2008 #31 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Maybe, maybe not. If oil somehow drops significantly (I don't think it will) or if a cost effective alternative energy source becomes ready (I think this is years away) the travel and cruise industry will not rebound - if by rebound you mean go back to how it was last year and the years preceding it. They will have to make massive adaptations and endure significant hardships while doing so. If oil keeps going up the travel industry will look very different in a couple of years from now than it has been. Some businesses will survive in that sector, but if oil keeps skyrocketing many will not. Sadly this is not a typical economic downturn where things will soon rebound and go back to normal; this is a much different scenario. Oil isn't going to come back down to the old levels.. We have a congress that doesn't want to do anything except impose even more taxes on the U.S. oil companies, which will do nothing but raise the cost at the pump even more. Anyways, I don't want to get political on here.. So back to the point at hand, I think the near future is going to be very scary for anyone working in the cruise industry. High airfares, high oil, less expendable income, weak dollar, it just doesn't sound good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G'ma Posted July 2, 2008 #32 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I see major changes coming in the cruise industry. Better itineraries, smarter marketing, higher prices, more pay-as-you-go venues, less "free" entertainment and goodies, fewer opportunities for OBC. Grumbling passengers will see fewer "perks" like discounts on a future cruise or OBC. "Sales" will be few and far between - and will be short-lived. I believe that after the current shipbuilding contracts are completed and the new ships are in the water, there won't be any huge, mega ships built for a long time. I think the cruising public will still cruise - but probably fewer than normal. They will want more because the prices will be higher, buy will probably get less than they do now. Those companies currently in a financial crunch will find it very hard to recover and those building the mega-monsters with billion $ price tags - and contracts for more already signed and in place - are going to be on shaky ground for a long time....some aren't going to survive. There is a lot of money out there in the world held by corporate mega-businesses and foreign markets where their economy is enjoying unprecedented growth. I believe some will enter the cruise market by investing in failing cruise companies. This will probably change the cruise experience as their ideas and plans will be so different than what "we" are used to. As for Carnival.... While they are having the same problems as other lines with the fuel crunch and the economy, they are in a much better financial situation than any other. Carnival Corporation owns every major cruise line in the world which gives them much flexibility in future planning. It certainly has the resources to buy out the failing companies. The Corporation certainly won't fail....that would be the end of cruising.... It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. Meanwhile, I just deposited on a transatlantic for 2009, balcony......:p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaggyofwv Posted July 2, 2008 #33 Share Posted July 2, 2008 You can disagree. Thats what these boards are here for. :DIf that (fuel efficiency) is the one great reason about Oasis being a success..oh well. What you forget though is that fuel efficiency doe not mean using less gas. Just more efficient. Oasis will still need more fuel. Obviously the partial hedging of fuel hasn't real helped RCI either since they quickly added a FS once those companies without hedging did. To predict a success of Oasis because of better fuel efficiency is a very shaky proposal (not to mention the 1 billion dollar tag each ship carries). As I always said, as not an Oasis fan, I do hope Oasis will be success because otherwise I see truly dark times coming upon RCI. Maybe then Mickey Arison will be successful in a take over bit (after he failed before). Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many cruises it will take before Oasis has "broke even" and can start turning a profit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Big Booper Posted July 2, 2008 #34 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I hope it is not 1938 all over again. Do you think they could have predicted the next 7 years let alone the next 53 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruising89143 Posted July 2, 2008 #35 Share Posted July 2, 2008 As for Carnival.... While they are having the same problems as other lines with the fuel crunch and the economy' date=' they are in a much better financial situation than any other. Carnival Corporation owns every major cruise line in the world which gives them much flexibility in future planning. It certainly has the resources to buy out the failing companies. The Corporation certainly won't fail....that would be the end of cruising.... [/quote'] Carnival does not own every major cruise line in the world. Last time I looked Royal Caribbean and Celebrity were not under the Carnivore umbrella. I for one am not worried as I believe all the major players will come out of this tight economic times okay. May take a while but they will all survive. Also, owning so many cruise lines may not be such a smart move. Ask General Motors and Ford what it did for them buying up every auto maker in the free world. Seems that both have now sold most and their stock is in the tank.;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isujim Posted July 2, 2008 #36 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Isn't Monday morning (oh wait it is Wednesday) quarterbacking great:) When Genesis was on the drawing board, nobody knew what the economy was going to be like in the summer of 2008..........maybe we SHOULD have known......but we didn't. The problem isn't the ship, the design, the fuel efficiency or anything else.......it will boil down to whether people (and 5,200 of them on a weekly basis) can afford to cruise. I know one major university in the southwest where summer school enrollment is down 40% over last year. A music camp for orchestra students is down 30% over last year.......people are having to pick and choose right now where they spend their money. Food prices are up, health care is up and of course gas is up........and just wait on your Natural Gas prices this coming winter;) . Yesterday one economist on CNBC preditced gas by the summer of 2010 will be $7 a gallon........now that is just one man's opinion. Did they overbuild? I honestly believe at the time of concept.....no they didn't. I also believe with a vibrant economy the ships would be just fine. But.....to ignore the current economy and where oil is going and the effect it will have on ordinary people has to cause some concern in the travel industry as a whole. I believe cruising will survive........but if the economy and price increases continue..........the face of cruising will change........some will be cruising less......and it may become a vacation only for those that can afford it. Monday morning quarterbacking is great..........no they didn't overbuild.....but let's not burry our heads in the sand on the potential problems the industry faces.....I believe the industry will pull out and survive.......but they have some work to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FL_Cruiser64 Posted July 2, 2008 #37 Share Posted July 2, 2008 And yet I believe that RCI posted a net profit gain in the last quarter while Carnival's was flat. :rolleyes: You never want to look short term. You must look long term. An investement of a ship should be considered a long term investment. I don't think there is any secret to the huge success of Carnival over RCI (and I am considered an RCI cheerleader, and I don't even like Carnival or the Arisons) financially. We can trash Carnival as much as we want to and hail RCI but business wise and financially they are on better footing. The funny part is: none of us knows what division makes money. Ist it Celebrity and Azamar, maybe RCI. As far we know, RCI may barely break even and the Oasis and Allure is the last straw. We just don't know. RCCL and CCL are not required to produce balance sheets for their subs at all. What you see is the product of all their ventures under the ticker symbol. To say that RCI is hugely successful and raking money in is like taking a shot in the dark. Every cruise line invest in their older ships. Except RCI. If I think about it and considering lets say the Sovcereign Class is 20 years old: how much would it cost to build a brand new Sovereign Class ship with up-to-date equipment? 300? 400? Or maybe even less? I think the Freedom Class alone is $600 Million. We do know that RCI are the innovators but we also know that Mr Fain can be quite shaky as a business man. Speaking of efficiency: how much more efficient can the aging Vision Class over the Sovereign Class be running eventually 3 and 4 Nighters (when the Sovereign Class is gone) in 4 years? So will the sell off continue? In another 4 years the oldest Vision Class ship will be 17 or 18 years old. Right in time to sell in a 2 year span. The Vision Class could disappear rather quickly. Because all the ships were build in a 3-year span. Looks to me that RCI has the policy every ship 20 years old must go and we won't replace it with a like ship. So 10 years down the road who is running 3 and 4 and 5 Night routes? And which ships will be in Europe? Royal always wanted to enter the market in Europe. That's why they wanted Costa. Well Carnival got them. RCI settled for Celebrity with a Europe presence but really nothing significant. That merger cost them a ton of money (because Mr Fain wanted it his way). Celebrity came also with a lot of debt because it expanded rather quickly. Princess was the other option. And even having a deal because of lackluster in our CEO department M Arison derailed that deal and pulled Princess in which was a quite lucrative deal for Carnival. So we settled for Pullmantur. You know an Income and Loss statement is something funny. It actually does not show the true value and the cash flow of a company. Loans can be spread over the length of a certain time period totally not showing what a company actually pays every month. I.e. if a company buys a fence for a property with a 5 year loan it can, on a Loss/Income Statement spread the loan over the expected life expectancy of the fence (say 25 years). And that will show. Not the true payments made for the loan. Essentially the only way to see if RCI (or any sub) or RCCL as a whole makes money is either they provide a cash and receipt or you audit them. We all should be more aware of these things since everything can be falsified as well (Enron anybody). The only thing we know is that RCI has great ships and are the innovators of the seas. I have no problem with RCI building Oasis and Allure but not at the cost of just dumping ship after ship in the lower category without replacing them and then hope that only the big classes will be enough. That is a gamble which could be fatal for RCI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandytoes03 Posted July 2, 2008 #38 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Who knows the answers to all this, but I bet that the Oasis of the Seas will NOT be sailing half empty . . .:rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FL_Cruiser64 Posted July 2, 2008 #39 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many cruises it will take before Oasis has "broke even" and can start turning a profit. I am not sure. A lot of cruises. The typical cruise ship rakes in a gross of 10 million per sailing (not net profit). It really depends on onboard spending. And that is where the huge problem lies with Oasis. It can be so efficient in fuel as it wants to be it will still use more fuel than any other ship. They also need to pay more in staff at the upper echelon. I would believe that Oasis more than any other ship relies more on onboard spending. The question is: how many people are actually using all these specialty restaurants after spending a premium in fare? I don't think we will ever know if Oasis runs a profit or not since it is not required to present cruise line balance sheets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanTex Posted July 2, 2008 #40 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I respectfully disagree. Carnival is in a more precarious position because their low cost business model is also a low fare business model. They do not have as much room to cut their fares as RCI does. Also, the smaller ships cost more to operate than the Freedom and Oasis classes. Oasis will be the most fuel efficient ship in the fleet and carry 30% more passengers than Freedom. People keep missing that CCL's ships are only about 25% of the overall Carnival Corporation fleet. Much of Carnival Corporation's expansion over the next few years is being concentrated in the overseas brands like Costa, AIDA, P&O etc., such that in about 5 years that 25% will be down closer to 20%. Having a diversity of established brands both in the North American market and around the world is Carnival's strong suit. And I would contend that CCL's pricing model could do quite well for them in the coming years... people stretched by the high fuel and inflation pressures will be migrating away from the more expensive lines and keeping CCL's ships full at current pricing or better. I think Carnival's own Princess is vulnerable to this phenomena, so that's one concern area. I really hope RCI can be successful in adapting to these market forces and economic doom and gloom that seems to be getting worse every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G'ma Posted July 2, 2008 #41 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Carnival does not own every major cruise line in the world. Last time I looked Royal Caribbean and Celebrity were not under the Carnivore umbrella. I for one am not worried as I believe all the major players will come out of this tight economic times okay. May take a while but they will all survive. Also, owning so many cruise lines may not be such a smart move. Ask General Motors and Ford what it did for them buying up every auto maker in the free world. Seems that both have now sold most and their stock is in the tank.;) Well, yeah, they do. Here's the list.....only a very, very few are NOT on this list: Cunard Line Princess Cruises Carnival Cruise Lines Holland America Line Iberocruceros Seabourn Cruise Line AIDA Cruises Costa Cruises P&O Cruises P&O Cruises Australia Ocean Village Royal holdings are a distant second... and I said MAJOR cruise lines. I don't see them surviving the current mess without either a huge sell-off or somehow getting out of the billion $$ contracts for those mega-monsters they are building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G'ma Posted July 2, 2008 #42 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Who knows the answers to all this, but I bet that the Oasis of the Seas will NOT be sailing half empty . . .:rolleyes: Maybe not the first season....maybe even the second season...but when the "bang/flash" is over, when the prices go up, when people realize how much they must put out of their pockets onboard to have what is free on other ships, I predict it will become a ghost town. People won't enjoy the experience of sailing with 6000 people on an amusement/shopping mall with the noise and the lack of privacy. My opinion only.......to which we are all entitled..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruising89143 Posted July 2, 2008 #43 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Maybe not the first season....maybe even the second season...but when the "bang/flash" is over' date=' when the prices go up, when people realize how much they must put out of their pockets onboard to have what is free on other ships, I predict it will become a ghost town. People won't enjoy the experience of sailing with 6000 people on an amusement/shopping mall with the noise and the lack of privacy. My opinion only.......to which we are all entitled.....[/quote'] What other expenses? Again you feel the need to give your opinion but you cannot back up what you post. Even though I doubt that you have even been on a RCI ship what expenses cost on a RCI ship that you get for free on Carnivore? Let's see, rock climbing, ice skating, ice shows, in line skating, zip line, carousel, and Flowrider. All free on RCI. What do they cost on Carnivore? That's right, Carnivore doesn't have those things. Ice cream, pizza, sandwiches, room service? All free on RCI unless you want to move up to something like Ben and Jerry's or Johnny Rockets. Otherwise they are free just like who? Carnivore. RCI gives you a choice. Specialty dining? Yes it does cost to eat in the specialty dining rooms on RCI. That's right it also costs to eat in Carnivore's specialty dining room. Boy, for a past TA you sure aren't up on the latest happenings in the industry are you?:rolleyes: Also something else that you and the other Carnivores haven't thought of. That Carnival Dream that is smaller than a Voyager class ship is going to hold over 4500 guests when full with all berths being used. That is more than a Freedom class ship. Talk about noisy and no privacy. See, for every knock that you can give about RCI, there are many more about Carnivore. Are there any other rumors or myths about Royal Caribbean that you would like for me to dispell while I'm at it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thesmiths Posted July 2, 2008 #44 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Very interesting read folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isujim Posted July 2, 2008 #45 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Very interesting read folks. I agree........fact and fiction:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcten Posted July 2, 2008 #46 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I think overall cruise demand will be down. It's possible more ships will be based in Continental US homeports to minimize flights because of the increase in airfares. San Juan for example will suffer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonzo70 Posted July 2, 2008 #47 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I wish RCL would homeport a ship at Navy Pier in Chicago; that would make things a lot easier for me. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanTex Posted July 2, 2008 #48 Share Posted July 2, 2008 http://community.investopedia.com/news/IA/2008/Cruising_For_A_Deal_CCL_RCL.aspx?partner=YahooSA ... I didn't realize the sizeable difference in market capitalization between these two companies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isujim Posted July 2, 2008 #49 Share Posted July 2, 2008 The more I think about this, whether they overbuilt or not isn't really an issue.........it is what it is........:) the ships are here or being built. What I do believe is that RC and the other lines will face the economy and whatever situation they are faced with head on........to MAXIMIZE profit wherever they can. As a public company that is really their only responsibility to the stockholders...Move ships where they need to, cut back where they need to, make additional charges where they need to......all in the name of maximizing profit. Anyone remember the cruise industry in the 12 months after 9/11???? Talk about empty ships and rock bottom prices (ok they weren't totally empty but certainly not full).....they survived that.......they are still around...and the ships are bigger and newer...... Good companys with solid management teams will continue to face the new challenges.......granted with the current state of the economy they may have created some of their own problems with the bigger, newer ships.......those with solid managment teams will probably come out of this stronger than before....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isujim Posted July 2, 2008 #50 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I wish RCL would homeport a ship at Navy Pier in Chicago; that would make things a lot easier for me. :D We are hoping for Tulsa on the Arkansas navigation system:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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