Cruise bookings are so hot that some lines are running out of inventory

You're not alone if you've been having trouble finding the cabin you want on a cruise ship.

Strong demand for cruises this year has resulted in cabins filling up faster than they have in years, with some ships now heavily booked not just for the rest of 2023 but well into 2024.

"We're now significantly ahead of the same time last year by about 10 [percentage] points, and well ahead of where we were in 2019," Carnival Corporation president and CEO Josh Weinstein said Friday when discussing advance bookings for 2024 on a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

Weinstein said Carnival Corporation — the parent company of nine of the world's biggest cruise lines — had less cabin inventory to sell for the year ahead than at this same time last year despite a 5% increase in capacity due to the arrival of new ships.

Carnival Corporation is the parent company of Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises and Cunard Line, each of which is adding a major new vessel to its fleet over the next few months. The three vessels will be able to hold more than 15,000 passengers with every berth filled.

"Our booked position is as far out as we've ever seen it," Weinstein added.

The heavily booked position for the company's ships for the coming months comes after three straight quarters of stunning booking levels that many cruise industry watchers attribute to pent-up demand for cruises in the wake of the industry's long COVID-19-related shutdown.

Related: How to pick the perfect cruise line for you

During Friday's call with Wall Street analysts, Weinstein noted that wave season — the traditionally strong cruise booking period at the start of every year — just never ended this year. It usually only lasts from January into February and sometimes into March.

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"Wave was the longest wave in history," Weinstein said. "And I'm not sure when we're ever going to call it because we broke the record in Q1. We then broke that record in Q2, which never happens. We just hit a record in Q3. And when you look at the first four weeks of September, actually, we're up very nicely as well."

The bookings have been so strong that some Wall Street analysts are starting to pencil in a slowdown in cruise bookings in the coming months due to nothing more than a lack of inventory — a possibility that Weinstein acknowledged during the call.

"The only slowdown we see is as we're running out of inventory, it has to slow down," he said.

Weinstein's commentary echoed comments by Royal Caribbean Group president and CEO Jason Liberty during a conference call with Wall Street analysts in July.

"Booking volume since our last earnings call have continued to accelerate, both for 2023 sailings and even more so for 2024 as the majority of the bookings we are currently taking are for next year's sailings," Liberty said.

Royal Caribbean is the parent company of Royal Caribbean, the world's largest cruise line, as well as Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises.

Together, Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Group account for five of the six biggest cruise lines based in North America.

Cabin scarcity is real

For cruisers, the strong pace of bookings this year means it's harder to find space on upcoming sailings — particularly for those looking at close-in sailings or wanting a specific type of cabin, such as a balcony cabin at a specific spot on a ship or a suite.

TPG has experienced this ourselves recently as we have tried to book cruises for writers to review in the coming months. On one Carnival sailing in November that we were eyeing, pretty much every cabin was sold out. All that was left were a few windowless inside cabins.

Wall Street analysts such as C. Patrick Scholes at Truist Securities, who use big data to track booking patterns, note that the booking pace for 2024 across the cruise industry is running at a 25% to 30% higher rate than in 2019, the last normal year for cruise bookings before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

That's significantly ahead of the increase in cabin capacity since 2019, which also has risen at a strong pace. In a research report issued Sept. 19, Scholes noted that the supply of cabins for 2024 will be about 20% ahead of 2019 levels, thanks to ship additions at many lines.

Bookings for 2025 sailings — yes, 2025 sailings already are open for sale — also are already running at a very strong pace. Scholes said the booking pace for 2025 sailings across the industry is currently up "over 40%" as compared to the comparable time in 2019 for 2021 departures.

Cabin capacity in 2025 across the industry will be about 25% higher than it was in 2019, Scholes estimates.

A record booking curve

With cabins on close-in sailings more booked up than ever before, and 2024 inventory quickly disappearing, many cruise lines have opened up sailings for 2025 and even 2026 for booking to give customers more inventory choices.

Just last week, for instance, Carnival opened up 400 sailings in 2025 and 2026 that will include a stop at its new Celebration Key private beach destination. Some of the sailings are as far out as April 2026 — 2 1/2 years from now.

Cruisers also have been looking further out on the calendar to find cruises with space.

The result is that many lines are reporting that ships are booking up further in advance than ever.

Weinstein noted that the "booking curve" — the number of days in advance of sailings that the average customer is booking — is at an all-time high for the company's North America-based brands.

In addition to Carnival and Princess, Carnival Corporation's North America-based brands include Holland America and Seabourn.

Weinstein didn't say how far in advance the typical cruiser was booking. But in his recent research report, Truist Securities' Scholes estimated the average booking curve for sailings across the industry was at 230 days. That's up over 60 days from last fall and a high number by historical standards.

By comparison, the booking curve at some hotels now is closer to 20 days.

Weinstein noted on the call that the company had seen no signs yet that the strong demand for cruising of late might wane, even as Wall Street analysts expressed worry that some other types of travel providers, such as airlines, have been reporting a slowdown in demand in some regions.

He noted that visits to the company's websites were running at 135% of 2019 levels, and traffic to the sites from search engines — a type of traffic that is a good gauge of how many people are in the market for cruises — was up 185% as compared to 2019.

"We're trying to say it as plainly as we can," Weinstein said. "We just have not seen any sign of slowdown."

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