Cruising strategies for hard times

[Tom K]

"peter" <peters25@stockton.com> wrote in message
news:C66E26F2.59438%peters25@stockton.com...

> You state that cruise lines are in "survival mode", but don't care about
> sales or revenue? So how DO you know they are in survival mode? What is
> your
> definition of survival mode? Do you know that profit equals sales less
> expenses?

Yes... but they can play a lot of scenarios when they calculate expenses.
And what's included in expenses? Like capital that you spent... how do you
capture that? It's money spent, but not really an expense item, per se.

Example. Let's say they spent $600 million in capital on a ship that was
delivered a year ago and you want to calculate the profit margin for
sailings on that ship. The spending for the ship took place over a 5 year
period. And then you depreciate it over 15 years.

So it's now in it's first year of sailing. Do you included any of the
capital you spent the past 5 years in the gross margin calculation? Do you
include the depreciation of the capital? Depreciation of the ship?

Or instead, did that capital get allocated against the ships that were
sailing the past 5 years? If you do that model, then if you have 4 new
ships under construction now, do you allocate any of that spending against
the ship that was just delivered? You would have to.

Or suppose you bought a new cruise division, and sold a division... how do
you allocate those costs over the multiple years?

Yes there are ways that all those costs get allocated over various years for
tax purposes, but it can make the gross margin for various aspects of the
corporation very "grey". Especially in a business where there are a lot of
changes going on.

--Tom

[Jack Hamilton]

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:02:07 +0200, Rosalie B.
<gmbeasley@***************> wrote:


>Being cheap - we've always done these things except for this one.
>Since we ourselves don't drink, we don't bother to try to bring wine
>or spirits on board.

It's astonishing (to me) how much money people spend on cigarettes and
liquor. I have been on several cruises where people I knew spent more
at the bar than they did on their cabin.

[Bill]

On 6/29/2009 9:55 PM, Jack Hamilton wrote:
>
> It's astonishing (to me) how much money people spend on cigarettes and
> liquor. I have been on several cruises where people I knew spent more
> at the bar than they did on their cabin.

Some friends of ours (who had never been interested in a cruise
when we tried to convince them to go with us, and then turned
around and booked an NCL cruise to Bermuda through the cruise
line and didn't care when I told them that I could save them
money or picked a better cruise by using my travel agent) told
me that they spent about their cruise fare on alcohol. And this
is a woman in her 50's traveling with her husband and daughter
and fiance. I can't imagine doing something like that.

Bill

[Warren]

On Jun 30, 7:18*am, Rosalie B. <gmbeas...@***************> wrote:

> Gambling OTOH seems (to me) to derive most of the entertainment value
> from the possibility of getting more back than you put in - I can see
> no real entertainment value in watching the little wheels go around on
> the slots if there was no possibility of payout. *

No, I think you miss the point completely.

I go in to a ship's casino with a small amount of money that I fully
expect will not be in my pocket when I leave. It's more akin to going
to see a Mets game than your silly example. But yes, I actually do get
a kick out of the flashing lights, bells, funny side games that many
slot machines have. It's boardwalk honkey tonk which makes me laugh.

Isn't there some activity or entertainment that you enjoy is totally
frivolous? So far, your responses have been a bit judgemental.

Warren