Crews worked through the night to enclose the aft dining room which took the brunt of the damage, removing damage and welding in new steel to cover the opening.
The 2003-built ship departed a day late on her itinerary, but passengers were able to board on Dec. 22 as scheduled. The itinerary called for a sea day on Dec. 23 followed by calls in Cozumel, Costa Maya, Mahogany Bay before two more sea days and a conclusion in New Orleans on Sunday, Dec. 29.
Carnival honored refunds for guests that opted not to join the sailing. For passengers embarking, they received one day pro-rated refund and a $100 onboard credit per stateroom.
Carnival Corporation provided adjusted earnings guidance for 2020 on today’s Q4 and year-end earnings call from $4.30 to $4.60 per share, compared to 2019 adjusted earnings of $4.40 per share.
Carnival President and CEO Arnold Donald said that he expects cruise revenues to be up approximately 5 per cent on capacity growth year-over-year of 6.6 per cent.
At this point, he said, the company is entering 2020 with a record booked occupancy position but at slightly lower prices.
Donald noted the headwinds Carnival has faced this year, some of which will continue into 2020, including the impact of Cuba being off-limits to cruise calls, events in the Arabian Gulf, Hurricane Dorian, unscheduled drydocks and ship delays, compounded by a decline in market demand in Continental Europe, particularly Germany, while Southern Europe is also challenging.
Noting these as “unusual events,” Donald said they had had a $0.23 negative impact on 2019 earnings.
In order to improve the market situation and accelerate demand growth in Southern Europe, Donald said that two older ships are being removed from the Costa fleet in 2020, following the recent introduction of the new Costa Smeralda. He said the new ship is much more efficient than the ships being removed.
In the UK, Carnival has been able to grow revenue yield despite Brexit, and Donald noted that P&O Cruises’ New Iona is looking at a significant premium over other ships on comparable itineraries.
In North America, the Caribbean is strong and so is Alaska. However, Alaska is seeing what he called an over-concentration of capacity and will need to absorb another industrywide capacity increase of 10 per cent in 2020, on top of a 15 per cent capacity increase in 2019.
As for China, Donald said Carnival will focus on its new joint venture cruise line. Meanwhile, he said, Costa had a good year in China in 2019 and looks forward to another good year in 2020, with more direct business, but is also happy with its charter model.
Carnival will essentially have six new ships in six different markets for the full year in 2020, starting with the Carnival Panorama, which just entered service on the West Coast, the Costa Smeralda in Southern Europe; P&O’s Iona in the UK; the Enchanted Princess in Europe and North America; the Mardi Gras in Florida; and the Costa Firenze in China.
According to Donald, Carnival is also accelerating marketing and media spend in all of its key markets to drive demand in 2020.
Carnival Legends signature Funnel. Photo credit Dave Jones
Carnival Cruise Line’s chief operating officer has suggested more ships will be deployed in Europe after the line gained “confidence” in the US market.
The US-based line has 18 homeports around North America and has never consistently based ships in Europe.
There were no Carnival ships based in Europe last summer.
However, Carnival Legend and Carnival Radiance will both operate in the Mediterranean next summer while yet-to-launch 5,200-passenger Mardi Gras will visit the UK as it repositions to the US.
Carnival will offer nine departures out of Dover on 2,124-passenger vessel Carnival Legend in 2021.
Speaking on the maiden voyage of the line’s new ship Carnival Panorama in the Mexican Riviera, Gus Antorcha said: “With Europe, we focused and then pulled back a little bit and then focused. You will see Europe becoming more important.
Dover seafront photo credit Dave Jones
“We have grown in the US so that gives us more confidence that we can fill a ship at good yields and there is still demand. When we design the right deployment in Europe, it is very popular.”
Antorcha said it was vital that when Carnival tries a market “we should try and stay there for a number of years” as agents were able to build their knowledge and learn from customer feedback.
“It is easier to sell if you’re selling the same product,” he added. “It gives consistency. Some of our sister lines and competitors are moving ships all over the world and they are adding new itineraries every week. That is harder to sell if you are sell.
“If you are selling a consistent product you build the feedback on the product.”
Iain Baillie, the line’s vice president of international sales, called on agents to encourage the line to base ships in Europe by ensuring passengers were “profitable”.
“It is up to us,” he said. “It is how we educate our guests. We want to make sure our guests are profitable – we want them to choose the bars, the casino and the excursions. If we can get those metrics correct we can keep the ships coming.
“For us to have nine ex-Dover departures [in 2021] – we are going to jump all over that. It is going to be a race though because that [European] deployment is very popular with the US market.”
Christine Duffy, the line’s president, told Travel Weekly: “We feel with Carnival Legend – a Spirit-class ship – we can have some consistent European summer deployment.
“We will put the capacity where we feel we can generate the demand.”
Antorcha said the line’s net promoter scores given by passengers had risen by “25% to 30%” since he first took over as chief operating officer in November 2017. Antorcha briefly left Carnival earlier this year to become the chief executive of SeaWorld Entertainment before returning in October to his former role.
“Now we are north of 50ish, which is very high,” he said.
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