Carnival Cruises Past Market Expectations in Boon for Shares

The world’s largest cruise company sailed well beyond Wall Street’s expectations in its latest quarter. 

Carnival raised its full year profit guidance on Tuesday as bookings appeared to show travellers are unwilling to let tariffs get between them and Tampa and they won’t allow geopolitics to close off their seaway to Greece.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Stocks

The choppy waters predicted for the cruise industry this year were based on the very real risks of trade wars and real wars, and all the economic disruption that one or both of those things would cause to travel demand. In late April, those worries seemed justified when Carnival competitor Norwegian Cruise Line missed Wall Street’s profit and revenue estimates when it reported its first quarter results and warned of cracks in the consumer spending hull.

Cue Carnival’s results on Tuesday, which had investors smiling ear-to-eye like the sunkissed revelers on the deck of the 1,132-foot Jubilee as it pulls up to Cozumel. The company’s second quarter revenue of $6.3 billion was up 9% year-over-year, and net income of $565 million, up from $92 million in the same period last year, was $185 million better than the guidance it issued in March. Customer deposits were at a record $8.5 billion in the quarter, 2026 prices are at record highs and bookings are level with last year’s record pace. In a call with analysts, CEO Josh Weinstein offered some background on the good news:

• April showers, in this case, brought a flowering of May bookings. Weinstein said travelers were hesitant to book in April after President Donald Trump announced a round of planned global tariffs, but demand returned in the weeks that followed, suggesting consumers are inclined to leave staycations back in the pandemic years.
• Carnival shares rose 6.9% on Tuesday, and the industry leader’s good news helped propel peers Norwegian up 4.3%, Royal Caribbean up 2.5%, and Viking up 3.4%. In the last year, Carnival shares have risen 56% thanks to strong consumer demand, and continued resilience coupled with a deescalation in the Middle East, which threatened to drive up fuel prices, buttressed its appeal on Wall Street.

Wait and See: Weinstein said the Middle East conflict hasn’t impacted Carnival, but told analysts not to read too much into that yet: “While it has not yet had any discernible impact on our business, this is all unfolding too quickly in real time to try to project how it could impact our future business.” What could dent cruise industry revenues could be a new, much less heated geopolitical trend: port taxes. In recent months Alaska, Hawaii, Norway, and Mexico have all introduced levies on cruise ships or passengers, with cruise ship industry lobbies filing lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions in attempts to block them.