In preparation for RCL's Q4 earnings release tomorrow, we’ve put together the recent pertinent forward looking company commentary.

YOUTUBE FROM Q3 2011 CONFERENCE CALL

  • “We already have a good level of booking [for 2012], and we're particularly pleased that those bookings are at a higher load factor and at a higher price than they were a year ago.”
  • “As you may recall, we had [fuel] options for 2012 at a strike price of $100, and for 2013 at a strike price of $90. After the quarter close, we sold the 2012 options, and we will be realizing a small gain in the fourth quarter. The 2013 options had been prepaid and have a book value on September 30 of approximately $11 million.”
  • “Switching to the demand environment, our load factors and APDs are ahead of the same time last year for both the fourth quarter and 2012. In the fourth quarter, we expect to finish with double-digit yield improvements in the Caribbean, but lower yields than last year in the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia. Fortunately, the Caribbean accounts for 47% of our capacity in the fourth quarter, while the Eastern Med and Asia represent only 13% and 2%, respectively.”
  • “We saw very strong close-in demand for the third quarter, but we are hesitant to forecast a continuation of this strength in the traditionally weaker fourth quarter, particularly given all the uncertainty in the market today.”
  • “The percentage of our inventory that has been sold for 2012 is higher than the same time last year and this has consistently been the case since April.”
  • “Looking forward, 2012 will be the first year of no capacity growth for the Royal Caribbean International brand since 1994.”
  • “We will continue our Royal Advantage revitalization program with equally substantial makeovers of Grandeur of the Seas and Rhapsody of the Seas in early 2012.”
  • “Overall, we anticipate modest improvement in onboard and other revenue spend per guest per night. The primary reasons this revenue stream is growing more slowly than ticket yield are decreased gaming spend and the changed composition of our guest mix. Within the guest mix, onboard spend per guest per night will increase this year for U.S. customers.”
  • “Looking ahead, the Caribbean product, where we will have over 60% of our capacity this fall and winter, is shaping up nicely. We will have all four of our Solstice-class ships sailing in this market and will be debuting the Celebrity Silhouette next week to our Northeast trade partners before we begin a series of 12-night Eastern and Southern Caribbean itineraries from Cape Liberty from November to April.
  • The Caribbean is performing well, and we are on pace to finish ahead of where we finished in Q4 2010 and Q1 2011. Our non-Caribbean products, which represent 40% of our capacity, are also performing well.”
  • “Our ambitious Solsticeizing program continues with Celebrity Infinity in just a couple of weeks and will be followed by the Celebrity Summit and Celebrity Millennium in January and April.”
  • “October was fairly solid to-date in terms of the close-in bookings. I think just as we get more into the winter months, we tend to take a little bit more conservative view. We have taken, as I'm sure you've calculated by now, a little bit of a haircut into the fourth quarter. We saw a little bit more weakness in the Eastern Med. The Caribbean seems to be holding up fairly strong.”
  • “We have reduced our capacity in the Eastern Med by 17%. So, the way we look at Eastern Med is that, that's something that makes its way over to Greece or down into the Holy Land.”
  • “What I was referring to there was the fall and winter of this year and into the beginning of 2012. So, 60% of Celebrity's capacity will be in the Caribbean in that time period...outside of the Caribbean, it will be predominantly South America and Australia and New Zealand during that time. Around the rest of the year, it's Europe in the summertime when we're outside of the United States...and Bermuda.”
  • “I'll just add that at the corporate level about 29% of our inventory next year will be within Europe. And if you look at the Eastern Med and Holy Lands, that represents about 9% of our capacity for the full year.”
  • [2012 capacity filled] “We said that we were slightly less than 25% sold out, and by year-end, we generally were about half sold out.”
  • “Some of the shifting was marketing expense from third quarter fourth quarter, as we intend to have a fairly intense period of marketing coming up soon for our brand and a variety of other general and administrative costs."
  • “I will point out one currency that we don't normally talk about that we're more sensitive to this time of the year is the Brazilian real, but we did see a little bit of haircut in fourth quarter on a constant-currency basis mainly due to the Eastern Caribbean. There were some other small adjustments outside the Caribbean, but in totality, it was less than a full percentage point."