NEWS UPDATE: Pacific Adventure Going to Italy! Cruise Lines Burning Millions and NCL battles Florida

Join my private Facebook group for cruise deals, tips and advice - the more members we have, the better we’ll get! www.facebook.com/groups/CTGdeals Head to my website for great cruise and travel deals: www.thecruiseandtravelguy.com.au Follow me on Facebook and Instagram: www.facebook.comn/thecruiseandtravelguy www.instragram.com/thecruiseandtravelguy With cruise recommencing in more and more markets around the world, cruise lines are looking ahead to the days when their entire fleets will once again be plying the planet’s oceans. Between now and then though, cruise lines as a business are still in for a rough trot. During the earlier stages of the pandemic, cruise lines did all they could to eliminate expenses and reduce their rate of cash burn. Large corporations like Carnival even went as far as accelerating the retirement of their older ships and selling them for scrap. Now that the world is beginning to slowly reset, the three major cruise corporations, Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian are anticipating increased rates of cash burn until they can properly resume sailing with paying passengers. As ships come out of cold and warm layup and crew sign ons increase, cruise lines are facing higher bills but still within a very fluid global environment. To put that into numbers for you, Cruise Industry News reports that in the first half of 2021, Carnival burnt through $500m per month. Royal Caribbean about $110m per month and Norwegian approximately $200m per month. These are eye-watering figures, but it speaks to the solidity of the cruise industry as a whole that these titans are still managing to, pardon the pun, stay afloat. In the US, Norwegian Cruise Line successfully sought a preliminary injunction against the Florida state government. The result comes on the back of the cruise line seeking to overturn the state law that prohibits businesses from asking for their customers or in this case, passengers, vaccination status. Attorney’s for Norwegian Cruise Line argued that requiring the vaccination status of their passengers was in the best interests of the health and safety of the entire ship, especially in view of the escalating rates of infection within the state. The injunction is being appealed by the state of Florida. As I reported last week after receiving a tip from a viewer, Pacific Adventure’s marine traffic data now shows that she is in fact heading to Trieste in Italy, where based on the information I received, it is expected the ship will finally be undergoing her long awaited makeover. The ship will morph from the Golden Princess into P&O Australia’s flagship, Pacific Adventure. The dry dock was originally scheduled to take place in 2020, in fact, before the Pacific Encounter’s transformation. The pandemic of course halted those plans, however in light of the upcoming scheduled domestic cruise season, P&O is finally seeing to it that the ship receives her planned upgrades and maintenance. I’ll make sure to stay on top of any reported developments. Just how many passengers does it take for a cruise to break even? According to Royal Caribbean CFO, Jason Liberty, that figure is around 35% on new build ships like soon to be Sydney-based, Ovation of the Seas. On older ships, that figure moves closer to 50%. It’s an interesting insight into the world of cruise line finances and proves why cruise lines are one of the most consistently profitable travel businesses in existence when running at full operation. Thanks for watching, and see you soon!