Carnival Corporation takes financial hit, reroutes 12 ships around Red Sea crisis

Carnival Corporation has announced it will be adjusting the itineraries for 12 ships across its fleet of nearly 100 vessels and nine cruise brands on the back of ongoing security concerns in the Red Sea.

The cruise giant said in a message to investors that the adjusted itineraries, which will see ships from 7 cruise lines rerouted around the southern tip of Africa rather than transitting the Suez Canal, will compromise around 10% of revenues for 2024.

Carnival emphasized that it entered 2024 with the best-booked position on record and has not seen a drop in bookings due to the security crisis in the Red Sea.

Cruise lines within the Carnival Corporation fleet that have seen ships rerouted away from the Red Sea include Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, P&O Cruises, Seabourn, Princess Cruises and Cunard Line.

They include a mix of vessels that were meant to sail repositioning cruises from the Middle East to Europe (Costa and AIDA), as well as ships sailing grand voyages between East and West (P&O, Seabourn, Princess, Cunard).

Carnival Corporation has ships homeporting in South Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Middle East that normally would have made cruises through the Red Sea as they return to Europe for summer the season. Several other ships in the fleet are currently operating longer or world cruises that would include the Red Sea as the final leg of the voyage.

Carnival Corporation did not detail how the re-routings will impact all of the cruises, but an email sent to a passenger due to sail aboard P&O’s Arcadia from Sydney to Southampton provides an indication of the impact.

“Given recent developments and following extensive consultation with global security experts and government authorities, P&O Cruises have regrettably made the decision to reroute the itinerary to bypass the Red Sea.

Instead of sailing the Red Sea and transiting the Suez Canal, Arcadia will now sail around the south and west coasts of Africa.

This means your itinerary has now changed to the following (changes highlighted in bold):

22 February – Embark in Sydney

23 February – Sydney

25 February – Brisbane

28 February – Port Douglas

29 February – Cairns

5 March – Bitung

8 March – Manila

10 March – Hong Kong

11 March – Hong Kong

13 March – Nha Trang

16 March – Singapore

17 March – Singapore

18 March – Port Kelang (tours to Kuala Lumpur)

25 March – Port Louis, Mauritius

29 March – Durban

1 April – Cape Town

11 April – Tenerife

15 April – Disembark in Southampton

Source: Passenger booked aboard Arcadia

The new itinerary has a two-week stretch at sea with just one port call in Tenerife. This not only reveals the difficulty in creating new cruise itineraries at short notice for cruise lines, but also the lack of appropriate cruise infrastructure on the West African coast.

It is for this reason that Costa Cruises, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises and MSC Cruises made the decision to cancel their repositioning voyages altogether and sail their ships to Europe via South Africa without passengers.

The rerouting around Africa for the ships will mean the cruises ships will be without revenue for up to six weeks in some cases with not only the repositioning cruises canceled but in some cases cruises before or after the repositioning to accommodate the time required for the Africa trips.