Carnival - Earnings Call - Q1 2025
March 21, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings and welcome to the Carnival Corporation & plc conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star 0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Beth Roberts, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you, Beth. You may begin.
Beth Roberts (SVP of Investor Relations)
Thank you. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by our CEO Josh Weinstein, our Chief Financial Officer David Bernstein, and our Chair Micky Arison. Before we begin, please note that some of our remarks on this call will be forward looking. Therefore, I will refer you to the forward looking statement in today's press release.
All references to ticket prices, yields and cruise costs without fuel will be in constant currency unless otherwise stated. References to yields will be on a net basis. References to cruise costs without fuel, EBITDA, net income and ROIC will be on an adjusted basis unless otherwise stated. All of these references are non-GAAP financial measures defined in our earnings press release. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable US GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are also contained in our earnings press release and in our investor presentation. Please visit our corporate website where our earnings press release and investor presentation can be found. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Josh.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thanks Beth. Once again we delivered a fantastic quarter, this time hitting first quarter high water marks for revenue, EBITDA per ALBD, operating income, and customer deposits. Net income came in more than $170 million better than guidance as we outperformed across the board. Led by incredibly strong demand throughout our portfolio, we achieved a robust 7.3% yield increase, smashing our yield guidance on top of last year's 17% yield improvement. Both ticket and onboard equally outperformed on very strong close-in demand, which speaks to the strength of our consumer. Unit costs also came in better than expected, mainly due to timing between the quarters. This resulted in a near doubling of operating income for the quarter and EBITDA that reached $1.2 billion, approaching a 40% unit year over year increase.
Operating margins and EBITDA margins each improved over 400 basis points year over year, with both of these now surpassing 2019 levels for the full year. Despite heightened macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility since providing our December guidance, we are taking up yields by half a point to 4.7% based on our strong first quarter results while affirming yield expectations for the remainder of the year. In addition, David and our finance team stepped up our refinancing efforts, which will bring another approximately $100 million to the bottom line this year alone. Combined, this successful execution has enabled us to take up our earnings guidance for the year by $185 million.
2025 remains on track to be another very strong year for our brands, with yield growth far outpacing historical growth rates and nicely exceeding unit cost growth, delivering approximately $600 million incrementally to the bottom line, more than a 30% improvement from 2024 and that is essentially on flat capacity growth. Achieving our March guidance will also result in reaching both of our 2026 SEA Change financial targets one year early, with ROIC hitting 12% and EBITDA per ALBD more than 50% higher than just two years ago, taking each of these two metrics to levels not seen in the better part of 20 years. At the same time, we're also closing in on our 2026 greenhouse gas target with an over 19% reduction in carbon intensity compared to 2019.
We're generating demand well in excess of our very limited inventory remaining, which has been driving strong pricing for the remainder of the year while also building demand for future years. In fact, we're at historical high prices across all core programs for 2025 and all quarters of the year, while booking volumes for 2026 sailings and beyond taken during the first quarter also reached an all time high. We were very well positioned going into Wave this year and we exited with over 80% of the year on the books at higher prices and with a booking curve that is still the farthest out on record. We have no plans to let up anytime soon.
As we foreshadowed on the last call, we kicked off new marketing campaigns across all major brands during wave season to fuel more broad based consideration for cruise travel and keep the strong momentum going. Costa kicked up the volume at the Sanremo Music Festival, among Italy's most renowned music events, which was watched by over two thirds of Italy's television audience. Featuring a live performance onboard Costa Toscana. Carnival Cruise Line was also a standout at the Oscars, selected along with a few other household names for a themed promo honoring stunt performers and featuring a daring skydive into a pool onboard Carnival Celebration.
Of course, Carnival Cruise Line has clearly amped up the volume around Celebration Key, which was showcased while lighting the iconic New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square and continued through the Super Bowl in New Orleans, featuring our celebrity chef partners Emeril Lagasse and Guy Fieri, as well as brand ambassador Shaquille O'Neal. These two events alone captured over 5 billion impressions across paid, earned and owned media and Carnival's adorable wave campaign Lost in Paradise was a hit, getting huge cut through with marketing KPIs up across the board. If our marketing team managed to get that kind of traction around what is still computer generated animation, I look forward to four months from now when all five portals built for fun at Celebration Key are open for our guests and can be showcased.
We're on track for our July opening and executing our ramp up plan into the fourth quarter as our team settles into these new operations and focuses on delivering the kind of phenomenal experience our guests have come to expect from our exclusive destinations. Relax away. Half Moon Cay is also on schedule for the second half of 2026. We've already begun to increase our marketing around this enhanced and rebranded jewel in the Caribbean and we'll have more to come on our plans to increase awareness and consideration for our brands as we leverage our underexposed portfolio of Caribbean destinations. Turning to Alaska, we just announced an expansion and renovation project to Denali Lodge, one of our nine owned and operated hotel properties. Building on this unmatched strategic advantage for Holland America and Princess Cruises.
Enhancements will include the addition of 120 new guest rooms and suites, room remodelings, additional food and beverage venues, and improvements to public spaces and nature trails. Our brand's Land+Sea Packages are a huge draw for new to cruise guests and truly the best way to experience the greatness of Alaska. We also just completed the first of seven AIDA ships to undergo our AIDA Evolution program. AIDAdiva is now sailing from Rome, having just returned from a seven week dry dock with many added features that our German guests have come to love on AIDA's newer vessels. This includes over half a dozen new bar and dining venues, new suites, and equipment upgrades to enhance fuel efficiency. AIDAluna will start her evolution later this year, followed by AIDAbella and AIDAmar in 2026. We also further progressed on optimizing our portfolio.
Just this month we completed the sunsetting of our P&O Cruises Australia brand by folding its two remaining ships into Carnival Cruise Line. We also consolidated our Seabourn fleet with a sale of Seabourn Sojourn. While we were not actively looking to sell the ship, the offer was in the best interest of our shareholders. The sale leaves Seabourn well positioned with a phenomenal fleet of three ultra luxury ocean vessels and two recently launched ultra luxury expedition ships which comprises one of the most modern fleets in the industry at an average age of just over seven years. Now turning back to the business and as you can see from our first quarter outperformance, onboard spending and booking levels, we have proven to be incredibly resilient to the volatility around the globe.
Having said that, even with our resilience and strong visibility, given that so much of 2025 is already on the books, we aren't taking the current backdrop lightly. We will be working hard to achieve these results. Thankfully our team is nimble and agile characteristics, as you know, we honed so well over the first half of this decade, leaving us better positioned to manage through whatever comes our way. We have strong, well recognized brands that are number one or two in every major market for cruise, often tailored specifically to phenomenal national markets such as the U.S., Germany and the U.K., markets that are deep and underpenetrated. We are delivering amazing vacation experiences every day in a time when people all over the world are placing increasing importance on experiences, particularly those spent with friends and family.
On top of that, we are still a ridiculously amazing value compared to land based alternatives. While we have been chipping away at the price gap to land based alternatives, the price to experience ratio of cruising versus those other options remains massively disproportionate. While somewhat frustrating and while still a big opportunity over the coming years, this huge value for money is also truly a strength when people are looking to make their vacation dollars go even further. It's about to get even better. With the opening of Celebration Key, our marquee port in the Caribbean, which will give our guests yet another reason to come cruise with us. We have been making huge strides on rebuilding our financial fortress as we close in on investment grade leverage metrics.
We have well managed near term maturity towers and no new ships for delivery in 2026, which gives us a good amount of headroom to continue paying down debt. In fact, we have just three ships on order over the next four years, further supporting our ability to reach investment grade leverage metrics within 2026. Simply put, we are well positioned for the future and are pushing forward with intention. I'll end by saying thanks to our travel agent partners, loyal guests, investors, destination partners and other stakeholders who have contributed greatly to our results. Of course a special thank you to each of our team members for driving outperformance once again, but most important for our long term success.
Thank you to each and every team member for delivering unforgettable happiness to our guests by providing them with extraordinary cruise vacations while honoring the integrity of every ocean we sail, place we visit, and life we touch. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.
David Bernstein (CFO)
Thank you, Josh. I'll start today with a summary of our 2025 first quarter results. Next, I will provide some color on our improved full year March guidance. I will finish up with an update of our refinancing and deleveraging efforts. Turning to the summary of our first quarter results, net income exceeded December guidance by more than $170 million as we outperformed once again. The outperformance was essentially driven by three things. First, favorability in revenue worth $98 million as yields came in up over 7% compared to the prior year. This was 2.7 percentage points better than December guidance driven by both close in strength in ticket prices and strong onboard spending. Second, cruise costs without fuel per available lower berth day or ALBD were only up 1% compared to the prior year. This was 2.4 percentage points better than December guidance and was worth $65 million.
The favorability in cost was mainly due to the timing of expenses between the quarters. We did find some permanent savings for which flowed through to the full year, which I will touch on later in my remarks. Third, favorability in interest expense of $13 million was driven by our refinancing efforts during the quarter. Yield improvement in the first quarter versus the prior year was driven by improvements on both sides of the Atlantic from higher ticket prices and improved onboard spending. The improvement in ticket prices was broad based across all core programs. The improvement in onboard spending, which accelerated from last quarter, was also broad based as all categories of spending were meaningfully higher. Continuing the trend from last year, our European brands continue to outperform year over year on both price and occupancy.
Customer deposits at the end of the first quarter were up over $300 million versus the prior year driven by both improved ticket prices and increased pre cruise onboard sales. Next I will provide some color on our improved full year March guidance. March guidance net income of approximately $2.5 billion is a $185 million improvement over December guidance. The improvement was essentially driven by two things. Our first quarter favorability in yield flowed through to the full year, improving our full year yield guidance by half a point to 4.7% versus the prior year. Our refinancing efforts during the quarter allowed us to lower our full year interest expense guidance by $100 million. I did want to point out that absolute cruise costs, excluding fuel, are expected to be slightly less than December guidance.
As I previously indicated, we did find some permanent savings during the first quarter which flowed through to the full year. However, those savings were partially offset by higher dry dock costs because of a couple of unplanned dry docks and charter hire costs associated with the sale of one of our vessels during the month of March. While charter hire costs increase cruise costs, they are offset by lower depreciation expense with absolute cruise costs slightly better. The change in cruise costs without fuel per ALBD is 3.8% for March guidance, which is simply the math of spreading lower cruise costs over the revised ALBDs, which changed from December guidance because of a couple of unplanned dry docks in 2025.
All of this results in $6.7 billion of EBITDA, a nearly 10% improvement over 2024, virtually all of which was driven by same store revenue growth as our capacity is essentially flat year over year. Now I'll finish up with an update of our refinancing and deleveraging efforts. During the quarter we refinanced $5.5 billion of debt, which is 20% of our total debt with three very successful transactions. These transactions included our highest coupon debt instruments and delivered an incremental $145 million in annualized interest expense savings. We have been opportunistically reducing interest expense while simplifying our capital structure and managing our future debt maturities. Today our average cash interest rate is down significantly at just 4.6% over the last 12 months. We reduced our secured and senior priority guaranteed debt by approximately $4 billion with more reductions to come.
Our near term maturity towers are well managed with just $1.1 billion of debt maturities for the remainder of 2025 and $2.7 billion for the full year 2026. During the first quarter we reduced debt by another $500,000,000, ending the quarter with $27 billion of total debt. With the benefit of well managed near term maturity towers and improved leverage metrics over the remainder of this year and through 2026, we expect to opportunistically execute the rest of our current refinancing plan prepaying debt, further simplifying our capital structure, optimizing our future debt maturities and further reducing our interest expense for the two year period of 2025 and 2026. This refinancing plan combined with our strong and growing cash flow and just one new build being delivered over this time has the potential to reduce debt by nearly $5 billion from where we ended 2024.
Let's not forget that we ended 2024 over $8 billion off the January 2023 peak. Looking forward, we expect our leverage metrics to continue to improve as our EBITDA continues to grow and our debt levels continue to shrink, increasing our confidence in achieving investment grade leverage metrics in the short term as we move further down the road, rebuilding our financial fortress while continuing the process of transferring value from debt holders back to shareholders. Now, Operator, let's open the call for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. To allow for as many questions as possible, we ask that you limit yourselves to one question and one follow up. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Ben Chaiken with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Ben Chaiken (Analyst)
Hey hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions and for all the helpful commentary. I think it would be great if you could provide some more color on maybe how we're trending since the 4Q period. Anything notable regarding changes to the consumer demand trends. I know that you noted not being immune from the macro, which I guess shouldn't be a surprise, but just maybe some more color on what exactly that means. And then one quick follow up. Thanks.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Good morning Ben. Thank you for acknowledging we do live on planet Earth. Look, Wave was a success. We set a record for bookings for further out years. We came into Wave at historic occupancy and price. We use that to our advantage. We took price and we're well set up for the rest of the year. Hence, not only did we pretty much smash Q1 on the yields, but we maintained yield guidance for the rest of the year over 4%. I think we feel real good about how we've been tackling things and our brands are doing a good job.
Ben Chaiken (Analyst)
Got it. That's very helpful. Just to clarify, maybe some of David's comments. You beat the 1Q? You smashed the 1Q to your point by $165 million, raised the guide, at least from what we can tell by around $100 million. Our take from your comments is that the net yield outlook for quarters 2 through 4 is the same. I think costs were actually slightly lower per David's comments, but the net cruise cost higher because of lower ALBDs from the dry docks, I guess. What was the ALBD impact, if I got that right? I hate to be overly granular, but does the $165 million beat in 1Q versus the $100 million flow through driven entirely by the lower ALBD dry dock dynamic? Or is there anything else that you would flag? Thanks a lot.
David Bernstein (CFO)
The flow, first of all. The flow through to the year was a combination of two things. It was the yield that flowed through from the first quarter, which was $98 million as well as $100 million of interest expense. The total improvement for the year I think was $183 million.
Ben Chaiken (Analyst)
I guess I was referring to EBITDA. Sorry -- yeah. Sorry the 165
David Bernstein (CFO)
Yeah. So the EBITDA is just basically the net income, less the interest.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah. I mean, Ben, the short answer is the yield flowed through for the year. The cost was mostly timing, which is why you do not see the full amount from Q1 going into the full year. We did reduce our absolute costs in a couple of ways, you know, a few tens of millions of dollars. Because of the reduction in ALBDs because of the extra dry docks, it basically covers it up.
Ben Chaiken (Analyst)
Okay, got it. That is very helpful. Thanks for clarifying.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Sure. Thank.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robin Farley with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Robin Farley (Analyst)
Great, thanks very much. Obviously a lot of concern among investors because of some airline commentary and last night a hotel data point. Great news to raise guidance mostly by the Q1 beat when we look at the yield. And just given how you talked about the close in being strong and onboard being strong, does that suggest that you're not raising the next 3/4 yield? Because you know, you want to be cautious obviously given the environment. There would be that potential, if your expectations for the close in and onboard are still what they were three months ago, that there's potential upside to that guide. Is that the way to think about the rest of the year.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah, look, I mean the strength of Q1 was pretty fantastic and it was driven by both the close-in demand on the ticket and just tremendous onboard spending. We're talking about 10% growth year over year for the first quarter, which is actually an acceleration of onboard spend trends versus year over year growth from the fourth quarter. Frankly, the onboard spend that we've seen in the first couple of weeks of March hasn't slowed down. We do feel good about the strength of our consumer. I mean clearly, clearly. I just want to recognize that there's just a lot of volatility in the backdrop. Right. With news cycles comes volatility. We feel good about our guidance, we feel good about our ability to deliver it. We always want to outperform. Brands work on that day in and day out.
Certainly don't promise anything other than we're going to do our best.
Robin Farley (Analyst)
Great, thank you. And then maybe just as a quick follow up, just if there's a way to maybe quantify with the expense, obviously you said some of it was because of the ALBD. Is there a way to think about either the dollar amount of sort of ongoing structural net cruise cost expense reduction and also excluding from that the higher charter costs from the Seabourn ship, right, because that's just sort of shifting from depreciation, sort of temporary, not really structural costs. So how should we think about additional dollar amounts of structural costs? Excluding that and excluding, if we think of the aggregate dollar amount, then the ALBDs in the denominator won't matter. Thanks.
David Bernstein (CFO)
Yeah, so the $65 million of cost in the first quarter, we said most of it was timing, but probably about a third of it was permanent cost savings. And we're always looking for ongoing cost savings. And you know, we do have the lowest, the best cost structure in the industry. But that we don't stop there. We keep on finding ways to improve over time and we'll do that, you know, this year and next year and beyond.
Robin Farley (Analyst)
Okay, great. That was totally clear. Thank you. Thanks.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thank you, Robin
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Steve Wieczynski (Analyst)
Hey guys, good morning and congrats on the first quarter. Josh, I want to ask about bookings that you're taking in right now for 2026. I know it's still a little bit early on, but just wondering if you're seeing any what we would call material differences in bookings for 26 by brand. Or maybe if you're see customers book but maybe they're not pre booking on board as much or they're taking lower cabin categories. Just trying to make sure there isn't anything you're seeing right now as we look further out that would be concerning to you guys first.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thanks Steve. Thanks for the compliment. No, I guess the short answer is no. There's nothing that I'd say on a brand by brand basis was raised. Anything of interest to talk about? You know, I love the fact that we can say that, you know, we can, you know, walk and chew gum at the same time and finish out 2025 and still, you know, ground ourselves with a good foundation for 2026. I think with a, you know, record book position at higher prices, that's exactly what the teams are doing.
Steve Wieczynski (Analyst)
Okay, gotcha. Makes sense. Sounds good. The second question, it's going to be kind of somewhat the same question that Robin asked. I just want to ask it a little bit differently but you know, you beat the first quarter by I think it was 270 basis points on the yield side of things. I guess as we think about the and we can see your second quarter guidance now, if we think about the back half of the year, if the consumer stays status quo, there's no change in onboard close in remains strong, I'm guessing there's probably upside to your back half guidance. I'm just trying to ask that question maybe a little bit differently or maybe--
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
just to be clear, if our onboard remains real strong and our close-in demand remains real strong, then yeah, I think you're right.
Steve Wieczynski (Analyst)
Okay, that's all I needed to hear. Thank you very much.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thanks. Steve.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brandt Montour with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Brandt Montour (Analyst)
Good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my question. I echo the congratulations on the first quarter and raising the full year guide. My question is a permutation of something you may have already gotten. I hope not. Josh, you guys see a lot of different consumers and you see a lot of different areas of the world and how the behavior that those consumers can evolve with the current macro backdrop we're in. I'm curious if you're seeing any sort of relative differences between onboard and consumer booking behavior between Europe and America as well as between drive to and fly to.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Got it. Morning, Brandt. You know, we've been talking for a long time about the strength of the portfolio and the portfolio approach that we have and, you know, going to sound like a broken record, but as I've been saying probably for the last six quarters now, Europe has been driving things forward real nicely and that has continued. That's not a surprise for us because of the whole structural way that, you know, we were, you know, amping up everything since a couple years ago. That has remained consistent, which does not mean that North America is not performing. It just means that our European brands are outperforming the outperformance we got on this side, so I feel pretty good about that.
I'd say consumers, whether you are low end, middle of the road, high end luxury, every person is different and every person is going to internalize the backdrop of what they're dealing with differently and make their choices. Our portfolio approach works incredibly well against that backdrop.
Brandt Montour (Analyst)
Thanks for that. Just a quick follow up. If let's say that no one has a crystal ball, let's say the consumer slows further and if there's a slowdown in bookings industry wide, or let's just even say away from you, how do you perceive the industry's current willingness to sort of hold price or act more rationally than it has in the past?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Look, I'll speak for myself, I would not speak for the industry other than to say I think the industry overall is on good, solid ground. Got great leaders at those operations that are doing real good things for the industry as well as their brands. We're increasing consideration, increasing demand, which is a great thing for everybody. With respect to us, you know, we're executing on the things that we've been talking about for years. It's resulted right now in us being better booked than, you know, pretty much we've ever been. We have great visibility, not that much to go in this year. Onboard spends, we pull forward, which is enhanced visibility versus, you know, prior periods. In particular, we have no capacity growth.
Right. We are in a fairly enviable position. I think that even new builds are great, but we can do a lot with what we've got. Having only one ship coming this year, none in 2026, one in 2027. I mean that for us that's a fantastic roadmap for success. We're looking forward to it.
Brandt Montour (Analyst)
Thanks a lot. Congrats again on the quarter.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Citi. Please proceed with your question.
James Hardiman (Analyst)
Yeah, with the, I guess tying this all up, outside of bookings and onboard spend which you've talked about, are there any other forward indicators that you think might be a good indicator of your consumer sentiment or whether how they are with respect to making payments for their trips or how many are buying travel or insurance or what any of those indicators are showing?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
James, you're going deep. No, nothing out of the ordinary that would trigger flags. Cancellations are fairly consistent. So there's really nothing else that we'd probably put on the table to talk about as anything of significance.
James Hardiman (Analyst)
Fair enough. With the 12% ROIC in sight, can you give us any indication on what you think the long term opportunity is there, specifically how you guys think about the return profile for Celebration Key and their other sort of non ship investments? Are there any other investments that we should be thinking about that are significantly ahead of your corporate average?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
I think overall we feel real good about the progress we've been making on the returns that we're generating. I certainly don't view and never did view 12% as an ending point. Mid teens is certainly realistic and certainly what we'll be shooting for.
The things that are going to drive it are really the continuation of doing our jobs better across the brands in the commercial space, watching the cost like we always do as a low cost industry leader and being able to lean into the investments that we're making around Celebration Key, Relax Away and doing some other things with positioning of some of the destinations that we currently own, which are phenomenal. On top of that, you know, aside from the moderate, I'd say modest capacity growth we have, we are investing in ourselves in other ways. We've talked about AIDA Evolution, for example.
I think I said it in my prepared remarks, which, you know, you take one of the most successful brands in the world and you reinvest in them in their existing capacity to add revenue opportunities, cabins, that's going to serve us incredibly well, as is the investments we're making in Alaska to delight our guests and really cement our strategic advantage even further on our Landsea packages and what we have to offer in Alaska. I think that we're in a pretty strong place.
James Hardiman (Analyst)
I guess just really quick off of that, delivering your targets so early. Any indication when we might get new long term outlook?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Man, I love that you're even asking that. I think we got to get to the targets, not just forecast them. My expectation would be we'll be talking about our next set hopefully in early 2026. That's, you know, we got to deliver.
James Hardiman (Analyst)
All right, thanks a lot guys.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Patrick Scholes (Analyst)
Great, thank you.Good morning everyone. I want to follow up on the comment in here in the press release about not being completely immune from the heightened economic view, political volatility. Since given your guidance in December regarding that volatility, have you actually seen the volatility have any impact on booking pace as the quarter progressed?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah, we certainly saw ups and downs. I mean we see ups and downs every year. That is not terribly surprising. It all came out to the bookings we were able to make at the pricing that we wanted to, to make and sets us up, as we talked about, in a really good position. At the end of the day, people just need to be getting used to the new normal, which is exactly what is happening. As a matter of fact, last week, bookings nicely ahead year over year.
Not everything is the end all be all for year over year, but it's what we talk about publicly and particularly to the point people were asking about close in, our close in bookings last week for the second quarter, for literally sailing in the second quarter, we don't have that much to go, and the booking volume and pricing was just off the charts. You know, we just got to, you know, let the world progress and we'll take what we want to take as we go and carry out the year.
Patrick Scholes (Analyst)
Okay, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jaime Katz with Morningstar. Please proceed with your question.
Jaime Katz (Analyst)
Hey, good morning. I want to talk a little bit about the cadence of costs over the rest of the year. I think there were set to be higher dry docks in both Q2 and Q3 this year. As we think about the arc of expenses, can you help us sort of flow through whether those are more equal or if maybe that is more weighted to Q2, those dry docks.Thanks.
David Bernstein (CFO)
As I had indicated on the December call, we had expected that both the second and third quarter costs would be up a little bit more than the full year and that the fourth quarter would be up a little bit less than the full year. Nothing's changed since then.
Jaime Katz (Analyst)
Okay. As we think about the lengthening of the booking curve, I'm just trying to triangulate what the visibility looks like now. Right. Relative to the past. I think historically it used to be that you guys were booked maybe like 50-70% out for 2Q and then maybe 30-50% out for Q3. Has that decoupled a little bit and moved a little bit higher just so we could have more certainty on what the rest of the year looks like?
David Bernstein (CFO)
Yeah, all of those numbers that I used to give for the next, the current quarter and the next three, we are above the top end of all of those ranges. As a result, as Josh said, we're about 80% booked for the remainder of this year. If you took the top end of all the ranges, you would get an average of 70% for the rest of the year. We're at the top end of, over the top end of all the ranges.
Jaime Katz (Analyst)
Excellent. That's really helpful. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Conor Cunningham with Melius Research. Please proceed with your question.
Conor Cunningham (Analyst)
Hi everyone. Thank you. You've been super clear on the strength of bookings, but I wanted to just maybe come back to the levers that you have if things did weaken. You talked about how you would work to achieve a lot of these results that are kind of flowing through. Again, that doesn't seem like it's a demand problem. At the end of the day, if things were to weaken, what cost levers do you think you have right now that could be low hanging fruit? If things were to deteriorate on some level. Thank you.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Good morning. The best lever we probably have is if the world takes a turn. We do not hedge. Because we do not hedge on commodities, generally speaking, commodities turn with that world. There is a natural hedge in our business by the basis of how we run it.
Look, we clearly can do a lot of things if we really choose or need to do that. Our first goal is to deliver the results that we want to deliver because we think that's the right thing for the business. Right. The guest experience that we want to give, the investments that we want to make for the long term, not just for the short term. Everything is always looked at pretty critically to decide what makes sense in the current environment. Because the world does change and we've clearly got room should we need to make a lot of changes depending on what that circumstance could be.
Conor Cunningham (Analyst)
Okay. I think a big part of the plan this year over the next couple years, as supply is a little bit limited for you guys, has been to push marketing spend and to drive improved revenue, quality and so on. Could you just talk a little bit about how that strategy is playing out? Right now it seems like it's working, but I just. The two levers that I think from a revenue management standpoint are just like inventory and marketing. If you could just talk about the balance of those two going forward, that would be helpful. Thank you.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yes, thanks very much. We've talked about it. We've strategically been changing our investment approach when it comes to things like advertising.
We're spending much more on a per unit basis than we did back five, six years ago and still a good amount less than many others in the vacation and leisure space. We think we're getting the balance right as far as is it working? Look, first quarter just ended. Our yields over the last two years are up 24%. I think that's probably a pretty good indication that it is working and also that you don't need new builds to drive that demand because the vast majority of our brands don't have any. That same ship sales if you will. That goes to how we manage the curve on the yields, the advertising that we do, both the creative top of funnel type of things and then the digital performance, our relationships with the trade and then delivering on board.
I think the brands are doing an incredible amount of work to make that happen and I do think advertising helps unlock that and we have unleashed it while maintaining the cost structure that we think is appropriate.
Conor Cunningham (Analyst)
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Katz with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
David Katz (Analyst)
Hi, good morning and well done all around. I wanted to just bring forth a debate that we have a lot and is there any evidence that is shareable around any of the bookings from consumers? Trading down? We assume that there is some trading down to the value of a cruise versus the much more expensive hotels, particularly domestically and potentially some that are maybe priced out of a cruise that may be at a different end of the spectrum. Is there anything that we can discuss or unpack there?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
I think there's two separate questions. First, the concept of trading down to a cruise. I'd look at it differently. I'd say that we have a tremendous price to experience ratio compared to land and people recognize that value more and more if they're looking to make the dollar go further.
Even though it pisses me off when we look at the price gap because there's so much opportunity for us that I'm excited about in those types of times. That is a huge strength that we have because we can outperform the experience we give for the price that we charge compared to land. As far as the fact that we're carrying more new to cruise than we ever have, new to cruise, the growth rate for Q1 alone was significantly multiple times higher than the growth rate on the capacity. It's working. As far as trading down within cruise, there's nothing that we see because our brands have a pretty good mix within themselves to be able to cater to people at lots of different price points. We talk about Carnival a lot and people have concerns about Carnival because of XYZ and consumer.
Keep in mind Carnival's got suites on eight days which are very different from inside cabins on three nighters. So we have a lot of product to be able to source. Lots of folks brand by brand, up and down the price points.
David Katz (Analyst)
I apologize for the word choice about trading down.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
I appreciate that.
David Katz (Analyst)
Thank you very much. My quick follow up is that the sale of the Seabourn ship at a gain. Can you just elaborate on the reasoning behind that and the timing of it? Just a little insight. Thank you.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah, I mean it's actually pretty simple. We got a cash offer that when I looked at that offer versus what I thought the impact would be for that ship over an appropriate amount of time and what the impact would be on the rest of that fleet and its ability to manage its yields, it was a decision that was in the best interest of the shareholders. It's as simple as that. Nothing's for sale. We don't have a for sale sign up. If people are approaching us unsolicited for offers, I'll listen. If it's the right thing to do for the shareholders, then we'll do it. That was. Doesn't happen very often, but that was one of these cases.
David Katz (Analyst)
Appreciate it. Thanks very much.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah, I'll just say Seabourn is a phenomenal brand. We are talking about one of the youngest fleets around the world, ultra luxury and they are going gangbusters. The yields are up nicely. There's nothing wrong other than the fact that somebody made us an offer that we couldn't refuse.
David Katz (Analyst)
Got it. Thanks a lot.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Boss with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Matthew Boss (Analyst)
Great, thanks. So, Josh, close-in demand, off the charts. No slowdown in onboard spend in the last few weeks. It seems like the near term is crystal clear. Maybe multi year. Could you elaborate on new customer acquisition that you're seeing across the portfolio? Maybe tied to the new marketing that you cited and walked through and just structural improvement opportunities that you see across your brands given the portfolio approach that you have.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah. With respect to guest composition, it's actually a pretty interesting place now. Right. Because effectively with no growth on the horizon, every brand has the same capacity that they have year over year, which means we're not trying to fill new capacity and cast a net wider for purposes of just needing more bodies. The idea of first time cruisers, brand switchers and loyalists really becomes a dynamic of who's willing to pay the most to get on the ship. Yes, we have been ramping up first timers, which I think is a testament to the brand strengths and the marketing that they've been doing and the experiences that they give.
Ultimately, though, it's going to really be a matter of getting that optimal mix based on the price points and what generates the most revenue. I think it's also useful over the next couple of years. It's extreme slowdown for us in capacity growth, but the industry overall is slowing its growth rate. I think that certainly doesn't hurt us. It helps us. With respect to your second question, could you just elaborate a little bit more on what you were thinking?
Matthew Boss (Analyst)
Yeah. Just with the new marketing, what you're seeing in terms of new customers as well as brands that maybe haven't returned to 2019 metrics, just the next leg of opportunity that you have relative to maybe others in the industry if we remain at robust levels.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah. Our brands are on a spectrum from having recovered past 2019 levels to not yet there. Some of that has to do, as you've heard me say in the past, with what their 2019 levels were to begin with. We are not patting ourselves on the back in some cases because they exceeded 2019 levels because they should have been higher then and they are now with plenty of runway, I would say.
The vast majority of our brands have, if we boil it down to ROIC, the vast majority of our brands have multiple points in the medium term that they're going to be able to take advantage of. Primarily that's going to be due to continuation on the improvement we've been making on the revenue side. That's what the trajectory is for those brands. They are making jumps by leaps and bounds and they've got a lot more to go. I am excited about that.
Matthew Boss (Analyst)
Great. David, maybe just to switch gears on your goal to return to the fortress balance sheet, how are you thinking about capital allocation priorities beyond debt paydown as you approach investment grade metrics?
David Bernstein (CFO)
You know, as Josh said before, the immediate debt paydown is priority one, two and three. As I had indicated in my remarks, we're talking about potentially a $5 billion additional paydown. When you start thinking about 2026, we should be beyond investment grade metric leverage. As a result of that, we'll be, you know, not only are we investing in ourselves and all the examples that Josh gave, but, you know, we will be considering other priorities and we'll be talking about that as we move forward into 2026 beyond.
Matthew Boss (Analyst)
Great. Congrats on the continued momentum.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Dove with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Lizzie Dove (Analyst)
Hi there. Thanks so much for taking the question and congrats on a great Q1. I guess going back to luxury for a second. You have Seabourn, you have Cunard, obviously the last few weeks we've had mixed commentary from other cruise companies about luxury. Curious just to zoom on that. Anything you would kind of flag there and what you're seeing on the luxury trend specifically.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah. Morning Lizzie. Nothing interesting to talk about I don't think. As you heard me say, Seabourn has been making great progress year over year, as is Cunard. Yeah, I'm sorry, I guess the answer is no. Short and Sweet.
Lizzie Dove (Analyst)
That's great to hear and I guess totally switching gears for a second. I'll ask about Celebration Key. I mean you're now through most of wave season curious just what you've been seeing there, how much the kind of consumer reception has been to the marketing you put around that whether you're still on track to kind of open right at the end of summer. Just any updates you can give around that would be helpful. Thanks.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yep, thanks. Yeah, no, first of all, from an operational standpoint, everything is proceeding exactly on track and the teams are doing a phenomenal job not only in the finishing up of the construction, but in the massive undertaking that is training and getting ready on the land based operations themselves to be able to deliver the experiences that we want to deliver. We are seeing the premiums that we expected to see when we started this project a long time ago. Things are progressing exactly, honestly exactly as planned. Which is a shout out to the teams for doing all the right things.
Lizzie Dove (Analyst)
Great, thank you.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Thanks. Lizzie.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vince Ciepiel with Cleveland Research. Please proceed with your question.
Vince Ciepiel (Analyst)
Thanks. I wanted to lean a little bit more into the land there. When would you expect the Celebration Key to kind of be peak noticeability in your booking surge in light of how that Carnival product books the opening and awareness of the island? Additionally, I know this is the new part of your land portfolio, but you have quite a sizable footprint already. I know there's expansion with I Think it's Half Moon Cay Pier and investment into the Alaska part of the portfolio. How are you thinking about your opportunity in the land stuff in years ahead?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Yeah, thanks. Thanks Vince. So bunch of questions there. As far as the impact of Celebration Key, I think it's pretty fascinating. We're still in make believe land, right? Everything we're putting out on the marketing side really is in the imagination. I think that coupled with, as you said, the primary tenant there is going to be Carnival Cruise Line, a huge amount of which is short cruises, three, four, five nighters that have a much shorter window than booking on the sevens and eights means that we haven't seen by any stretch of the imagination, we haven't seen the full impact, Carnival hasn't seen the full impact on the benefits. I do think.
The ability to leverage it in operations and generate content and guest experience with our guests with the trade is going to be a springboard forward, which is a great thing. For Celebration Key, we easily see a path where by the end of the decade what was about 6.5 million guests going through our Caribbean footprint in 2024 could be upwards of 11 million, which is a phenomenal thing. I think the thing that we're learning, which we haven't really benefited from in full, is how we position, how we brand and position our destinations themselves to make them part of the consideration set of the consumer. Because historically it's very much been about just the cruise and the brand and then delight them when they're in our destination. We have the ability to make it a driver for taking the cruise to begin with.
We're starting to lean into that obviously with Celebration Key and we're going to do more of that. Celebration Key is something that when we open, that's just phase one. We've got plans that will take us through the end of the decade to be able to significantly increase that throughput, which as I mentioned helps us drive that guest count up to about 11 million. With respect to Alaska, look, if you haven't been there, I strongly suggest you've got to do it by cruise. If you do it, you have to do a cruise land sea package because that is the greatest way to see the great state.
It is a strong strategic advantage that we do have given the scope of our operations in Alaska. We're going to continue to lean into that because it is one of the most popular itineraries and programs that we have in the whole portfolio.
Vince Ciepiel (Analyst)
Great. I wanted to sneak one more in. You mentioned a little bit earlier on the European business in the travel industry more broadly. Right now there's a lot of talk on inbound outbound for the U.S. I know that you source a fair amount of your European brands in Europe and I would imagine a lot of the North American brands heavily over indexed to North American guests. Anything that you've seen in your data on any shift in flow of inbound interest to the U.S. and if that at all is a big part of your business.
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
I guess I'll answer it in reverse. Is it a big part of our business? No, it's not a huge part of our business. You know, we strategically try to put our ships where our guest base is. I think, you know, in the volatility that we talked about, you know, in the first quarter, certainly Canada was swept up in that. Now for us, that's 3-4% of our business, just to put it into context. But clearly we read, you know, everybody reads the news and we're not immune from, from that dynamic. Going back to the strategy, by being able to target specific countries with specific brands that cater to their needs and preferences and position them where people can get to drive if they want to, it's a recipe for success for us in this environment.
Vince Ciepiel (Analyst)
Great. Thanks
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
Operator. We have time for one more.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Christopher Stathoulopoulos with SIG. Please proceed with your question.
Chris Stathoulopoulos (Analyst)
Good morning, Josh, David team. Thanks for taking my question. I'm going to close it out. I'll keep it to one and hopefully try to, I guess, consolidate here the questions around demand because I think the questions I'm getting here, you know, investors are trying to tease out the health of the consumer and whether any weakness at this point is localized to a specific consumer demographic or region. If we use the here as a proxy. There was a comment earlier on the call last week, U.S. domestic basic economy close in weakness, exact opposite of what you're seeing here. What is similar? It sounds like premium, international demand similar.
As we look across your brand scale from contemporary, premium, luxury, and we adjust for mix shifts, the earlier question on regional source of travelers, is there anything that is different or unique with the pace of bookings or onboard spend at this point?
Josh Weinstein (CEO)
I guess consolidated question. The short answer is no. You know, just keep in mind, airlines come out with a lot of commentary. We are different from airlines and even different from hotels. We do not rely on business. Business travel is not part of our portfolio. It is about the consumer and, you know, good times and bad times, people take vacations. The unemployment rate in this country and the developed countries that we really source from are fantastically low. Does it mean that people want to think hard about how they spend their vacation dollar? Absolutely.
Is it more important when times are stressful that they get away and take a vacation? Does it mean more to them? Absolutely. I think we've learned that since the turn of this decade, how much importance people place on it. I think we are resilient and we'll continue to work hard to deliver. Since you said it was one question, thank you for doing what I asked. I think we'll end it there. Thanks, everybody, and talk to you next quarter.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
