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For Carnival Corp. business is looking up since the US and Iran's memorandum of understanding.
"The good news is that June certainly seems to have turned a corner," Carnival CEO Josh Weinstein said during Tuesday's earnings call. "And last week was a cherry on top as we got the MOU and people thought OK, they can start planning their life again."
The call gave more insight into month to month and year over year geopolitical impacts, revealing a deeper level of consumer churn from the war than cruise leaders previously indicated.
The US and Israel began bombing Iran Feb. 28. Weinstein likened the March bookings pace to "cardiac arrest."
Back then the company expected a "pretty significant pause" while people figured out what the new normal was going to be. The Mediterranean region was "taking it on the chin," Weinstein said, as the closest major cruise region to the Gulf conflict, while Northern Europe fared better and destinations further away more so.
"We certainly did not expect the conflict to last through all of our second quarter, including the Strait of Hormuz and the impacts the world saw from that," Weinstein told analysts.
In April last year, bookings took a hit after President Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs and the stock market plunged. It took time for people to figure out what everything meant for them and then they moved on.
This year, March was impacted by the war. "We did better year over year in April, but we should have, because last year April had the volatility from the tariff announcements," Weinstein elaborated. This year Europe cruise sales were better in April than March but were not positive year over year.
As Weinstein put it: "There was recovery in April, versus March, which was like cardiac arrest for awhile."
May was a "step backwards year over year, versus the [comparisons with 2025] and then the ongoing pace of the conflict," with continuous war news and high fuel prices and people worried about air costs and if their airline would have enough fuel to get them home.
"We were not in a good place. The news flow didn't stop," Weinstein recounted. "... This was perpetual headlines of ever-changing when and how this was going to end, and people can't normalize if they can't figure out how they're going to plan their future."
During Carnival's Q1 update in March, the company reported being 85% booked for 2026. On Mediterranean sailings, occupancy was up for both the Europe and North American source markets, with the latter "significantly more ahead" since Americans booked this long-haul trip earlier than close-to-home Europeans. That occupancy advantage "unwound" more than the European business did.
"It does seem like now we're turning the page, particularly for Europe," Weinstein reiterated.
Asked if the war and air costs hurt demand for Caribbean cruises, the Carnival chief said: "Holistically, we were not immune because there were people at any price point who changed their decision process."
For Carnival, though, the most impact was to Europe.
In the Caribbean, "We seem to be chugging along," Weinstein said, noting the 27% Caribbean capacity increase over two years for non-Carnival brands.
"Give me two options: 27% and no growth, and I'll take the no growth," he said.
While things are better, Carnival doesn't see smooth sailing through the rest of 2026.
"That would be naive," Weinstein said. "There will be bumps in the road as the geopolitical situation gradually normalizes. We're doing what we can and what we should to move forward."
He added: "We definitely do not expect to go backwards to what the second quarter looked like. ... The fact we were able to deliver what we did in Q2 and expecting record yields in the second half and giving the dividend and deleveraging shows the strength of the business.
"We're not planning on perfection, though."
It's early days for 2027 however Weinstein pointed out that during the same time people paused booking 2026 Europe cruises, "We saw almost doubling down for 2027 ... a great sign."
Overall, Carnival is at historic highs for pricing and occupancy in 2027 "and we'll work hard to improve our position over time," he added.
CCL shares closed down nearly 5% at $28.72 Tuesday, while other cruise stocks were all up slightly.
Fuente: sea-trade cruise
