Arnold Donald
Management
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. I am Arnold Donald, President and CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Today, I am joined by our Chairman, Micky Arison; David Bernstein, our Chief Financial Officer; and Beth Roberts, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Before I begin, as always, please note that some of our remarks on this call will be forward-looking. Therefore, I must refer you to the cautionary statement in today’s press release. We delivered the strongest second quarter in the history of our Company with record adjusted earnings per share nearly double the prior year and well above the high-end of our March guidance range. The second quarter results combined with our strong book position has enabled us to maintain the midpoint of our full year guidance range despite a $0.17 drag from fuel and currency. Essentially, the strengthened underlying demand for our products saw us with greater ticket prices in both the quarter and in the remainder of the year offsetting the rise of fuel prices since the time of our last guidance as well as the very recent significant movement in currency exchange rates following the Brexit vote. Our record results reflect our passionate 120,000-plus employees who in their efforts go above and beyond every day and who together with our hundreds of thousands of travel partners are the foundation of our sustained earnings improvement. This was among the most remarkable quarters in the history of the Company, not only because of our record-breaking financial results but because of a significant number of milestones which will contribute meaningfully to our future success. We introduced three new flagships including Carnival Vista, purposefully designed for our fun-loving Carnival Cruise Line guests with an onboard brewery…