Earnings Labs

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 29, 2009

$255.97

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, my name is Jessica, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Royal Caribbean Cruise's Limited company call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remark's, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions) Thank you. Mr. Brian Rice, you may begin the conference.

Brian Rice

Management

Thank you, Jessica, and good morning, everyone. I would like to thank you for joining us this morning for our fourth quarter earnings call. With me here today are Richard Fain, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Adam Goldstein, President and CEO of Royal Caribbean International; Dan Hanrahan, President and CEO of Celebrity and Azamara Cruises; and, Ian Bailey our Vice President of Investor Relations. As we have done in the past, we have posted slides on our Investor Web site www.rclinvestor.com, which we will be referring to during this call. Before we get into our results and talk about our current operating environment, I would like to remind you of our notice about forward-looking statements, which you will see on the first slide. During this call, we will be making comments, which are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements do not guarantee future performance and involves risks and uncertainties. Examples are described in our SEC filing and other disclosures. Additionally, we will be discussing certain financial measures, which are non-GAAP as defined by Regulation G. And the reconciliation of these items can be found on our Web site. Richard will begin the call with a strategic overview of our business. I will follow with a brief recap of the fourth quarter, update our guidance, and provide some insight into the recent demand environment. Adam and Dan will then talk more about their brand, how we are managing business in the current environment. And then we will open the call to your questions. Richard?

Richard Fain

Chairman

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. It may surprise you to know that I have actually been looking forward to this investor conference call. Obviously, I hate having to report weaker earnings and a weaker outlook for 2009. In this disastrous economic environment, I’m sure many companies wish that they could just skip 2009 altogether. Nevertheless, there is a great deal that our management team is doing in response to this situation, and I have been looking forward to the opportunity to talk with you all more about what they have been doing. As you have seen from our press release, these responses include gratifyingly successful cost cutting effort, excellent operating performance by our brands in their respective market segments, very constructive collaboration with our travel agent partners, and strong diversification in the international markets. First, I’d like to comment on what has to be the major focus of everyone's attention, and that is the economic crisis and its impact on our business. Of course, we’re as confused as anyone as to exactly where the economy is going and how it will ultimately affect us. We already know it’s bad, but we don’t know how bad or how long. Nevertheless, we are finally beginning to get a better handle on its likely implications for our industry and for our company. Starting with the fourth quarter, we are deeply disappointed to report essentially a breakeven profit for the quarter and that we ended the year with only $2.68 in EPS. Until a few months ago, we were doing substantially better. Nevertheless, we are pleased that our management team responded early to the approaching storm. That response is reflected in our cost containment efforts, both last year and to even a greater extent in 2009. As a result of these efforts,…

Brian Rice

Management

Thank you, Richard. We’d like to briefly go through the fourth quarter results. As we said in the press release, our earnings per share were pending to the fourth quarter is $2.68 per share for the year. On slide two, you can see revenue yields for this quarter were nearly 5.9%, which was slightly lower than our previous guidance of down 4% to 5%. (inaudible) came in about as expected during the quarter, although we were hurt somewhat by the stronger dollar. And unlike the first three quarters of the year we began to see pressure on onboard revenue, especially in gaming. On the cost side net cruise cost, excluding fuel per APCD came in 1.7% below last year, slightly better than our previous guidance. Included in our costs was an unexpected supplemental P&I insurance club call, related to group claims from 2006 to 2008. The call amounted to $13.3 million. Had it not been for this call, our net cruise costs excluding fuel for APCD would have been down 3.6%. Our fuel expense came in at $182 million for the quarter, which was $36 million higher than anticipated at the time of our last call. Although WTI prices fell throughout the quarter, our fuel cost actually increased due to several factors. Operationally, several of our lowest priced ports were unavailable for bunkering because of weather interruptions and we experienced some temporary disruptions for several of our newly installed diesel engines on our gas turbine vessels. We believe these are isolated events, and overall, we are very pleased with their performance. Our at the pump prices significantly lagged the following WTI prices, and since our costs are based on the FIFO accounting methodology and not spot pricing, this compounded the gap between our actual cost and what we have been…

Adam Goldstein

President and CEO

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone. Market conditions were difficult for the fourth quarter and we were not able to maintain the momentum, which we have been enjoying earlier in 2008. And we’re determined to generate as much demand for Royal Caribbean International as possible in the current challenging environment. It is too early to judge the success of the new marketing campaign we launched during the quarter. We are confident that campaigns emphasis on our brand’s spirit of innovation and delivery of wow moments will resonate with both repeat and prospective guests going forward as well as with travel agents whose continuing support we very much appreciate. As mentioned last quarter, our revenue weakness we are facing stretches across our product portfolio. To the extent, there is relative strength that’s in the Caribbean seven night cruise market and in Mexico. To the extent, there is relative weakness – it is in our newer, more internationally oriented products in the Alaska market and in short cruises. Given the significant increase in European capacity, we are naturally concerned about the upcoming season. We have been generating the volume we were required to fill our ships in Europe. For the question to be answered is rate development for the next few months. While we remain optimistic about our global growth opportunities, a slowdown on bookings and a number of our priority international markets was even more pronounced during the fourth quarter than the slowdown in North American bookings. For example, as recently as October, we were on trend to enjoy a successful Brazilian summer season. Then the global economic crisis and the sharp currency devaluation significantly affected our Brazilian bookings. In January, we have seen a market increase in volume. But this improvement is coming too late for us to meet our…

Dan Hanrahan

President and CEO

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Results for the fourth quarter for Celebrity are similar to what you heard Brian and Adam described. Business conditions in the quarter were challenging and the flow of the momentum we had enjoyed through the first three quarters of the year. We found late season year to be particularly challenging. We have seen a positive shift recently in demand patterns that’ll be at the expense of reduced rates. Our sales and marketing programs are tactical efforts to finish fill in the winter Caribbean season and generate the necessary demand for Europe and Alaska beginning in the second quarter. These efforts have been focused equally on the consumer and the trade. We announced our ASAP program, that is our Agents Support Assistance Program, to support the travel trade, which included temporary increase commissions and co-op supports aimed at helping the distribution systems through these challenging times. We believe that travel trade distribution system is very important to our success, and the ASAP program will play an important role in our booking this wave season. Early indications are the ASAP program has been helpful to the trade and to our booking. We definitely have been the beneficiary of the trade attention, and they are reporting an increase of their efforts to sell our brand. We believe a healthy distribution system is important to our success today and in the future. Onboard revenue was a mixed bag in the fourth quarter. Beverage, shore excursions, spa and communication services held up well. Onboard shopping and gambling were off versus ’07. The first few sailings of January are showing similar trend. Our operations team and our shipboard personnel are instituting a number of onboard marketing programs, hence an increase in onboard revenue in the areas, I guess seem…

Brian Rice

Operator

Thank you, Dan. Jessica, we’d now like to open the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Robin Farley with UBS. Robin Farley – UBS: Several questions. One is the additional cost cutting that you announced today. Am I right that in just back in the envelope that that looks like an additional $150 million or so to what you – in addition to the $150 million that you announced in the summer? I guess unless I’m doing the Math not right. And then also, if that is the case, that seems like a very significant increment on (inaudible) of major cost cutting already, and just looking for sort of more color on that. And then I do have two or three other little questions as well.

Brian Rice

Operator

Robin, it’s Brian. Your calculations are generally a ballpark. I would give you a little more color. I think the most substantive of things we’ve done, we haven’t had any more of the types of actions that took place in July. Most of the focus has been under our program that we call FIS, which stands for Financial Improvement Scheme. And its been groups of our management team getting together, finding synergies across the brand, finding efficiency. I mean, quite frankly, one of the biggest opportunities we’ve seen available to us is taking advantage of deflation that we’re seeing in the market. So our yield projections for next year down between 9% and 13%. We’re seeing a lot of pressure on all businesses stay and the fact that they’re able to leverage opportunities through price concession. So we’ve been very aggressive in that. I did mention that we also had some benefits from exchange gain. I quantified the Pullmantur different for you because we have a different functional currency, but we also have expenses for Royal Caribbean Celebrity. And as a more of – that we incur in foreign currency. All our European ships has feasible expenses at zero. The brilliant fleece is denominated in Sterling, but there are other factors that are playing in there. But by far, the largest expense was leveraging the new environment for price concession. Robin Farley – UBS: So some of the $155 million in additional cost cutting is due to currency changes?

Brian Rice

Operator

Yes, some of it is. But it’s not the largest portion. Robin Farley – UBS: Okay, great. That was a (inaudible) about the currency. Then, I could see – you made a comment about your liquidity, about monetizing derivatives. And I wonder if you could give a little more color on that and I guess my question about financing needs would be about Oasis and the 20% that’s not guaranteed by the government, the 20% that was due upon delivery. And I’m just wondering if you are going to be sort of typical kind of wonders and instruments to what you’ve done historically for that financing and just a more color on your comment about derivative.

Brian Rice

Operator

I want to emphasize, Robin, that we were very comfortable with our liquidity position right now and have no need to do anything. But I wanted to give examples that we are working on things that do have interest rates flops that are quite a bit in the money that we could look if we chose to quantify. So we were about to 50%, 56% loading, so we have some gains on those. But again, we’re going to look and be opportunistic with them when they make sense. The requirement that I just wanted to share with the group that we are being very creative in exploring ways of continuing to improve our financial strength when it makes sense for it. In terms of the Oasis financing, I can tell you we’ve had some conversations in partnership with – and variant partnership with our lenders. I don’t want to go into details at this point, when it’s on to announce something, we will. But I will just emphasize that we are comfortable with our abilities to get the Oasis financing done. Robin Farley – UBS: Okay, great. Thanks. And just my last question is you mentioned, in the opening comments of Richard, mentioned that you would be willing to sacrifice from points of occupancy in order to maintain price. I guess I just want to ask how that sort of sit with the idea that it’s seen on 20% or 25% of your revenue is from onboard that you would be sacrificing. A lot of that aspect of yield, if your occupancy is lower, just want to understand better that strategy.

Brian Rice

Operator

And Robin, I do appreciate that this is will be your last question. Robin Farley – UBS: Sure. That’s it, yes.

Brian Rice

Operator

I do want to say that I think, Adam alluded to it in his remarks that particularly for some of our developmental products, you get to a point of diminishing returns in lowering price to sell those last percentages of load factor points. We’re not talking about wholesale changes in our strategy. We certainly recognize contributions because of onboard revenues. And that is one of the components that our revenue management decision making. I think, it is likely that you will see some decline in our load factors, but not substantial decline. It’s not a fundamental shift in strategy. Robin Farley – UBS: Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Wieczynski of Stifel Nicolaus.

Brian Rice

Operator

Steve? Operator, if we can move to the next question and maybe Steve will come back to us.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Steve, your line is open Steven Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus: Hey Brian, can you hear me?

Brian Rice

Operator

Yes. Steven Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. Hey, when you look at your guidance, your yield guidance for 2009 in the negative 9% to 13% range, can you kind of – we looked further outward the back half of the year. I know it’s – your visibility is very low. But to me, the 9% to 13% still seems a little aggressive for the full year. Just going to – kind of what you guys are thinking towards the back half of the year?

Brian Rice

Operator

Sure. I think I tried to provide them my comments that our view right now, the mid point of our guidance is pretty much assuming that the economic climate that we’re experiencing today continues. We’re not looking at a recovery from the current climate. But we’re also not looking for any significant deterioration from what we’re seeing today. We’ve tried to take into our assumption the business as is, if you will, and our read on the elasticity of the customer. I did mention in all four quarters, we are looking for yield decline and those yield declines that rather substantial particularly in the first three quarters this year. I think Adam and Dan alluded to the fact that Alaska and Europe were feeling more pressure on so we tried to be prudent in our projections for the December seasons as well. What happens in the back half of the year – recognized we just had a 5.9% yield decline and our comparable to get achieved here. Going back to how our (inaudible) performed as well, the greatest thing, for instance, were in Q1, which would be our more difficult comparable. So again, we’ve just kind of assumed that the current economic climate is about as is, which we felt was the most prudent way to go about providing projection. Steven Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay, I got you. And then, last question, just – this may be a question for Dan or Adam, but in this environment, are you seeing an uptake in first time cruisers? And also, what kind of demand have you seen for, what I would consider, drive-to ports?

Adam Goldstein

President and CEO

Hi, this is Adam. Actually, on your – the first part of your question, no, we’re seeing a little bit more experienced cruiser activity at those points. And I suspect that in the economy that is characterized by fair amount of turmoil, people who already have experienced and already understand the inherent value of cruising – it’s not surprising that they’re a little bit more likely to respond. And that’s what we’re seeing. That’s not very significant. We’re talking about a few percentage points, but generally a little bit more experienced cruiser activity. Steven Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus & Company: Okay, great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tom – I’m sorry – Tim Conder with Wachovia Wells Fargo. Tim, your line is open and you may proceed with your question.

Brian Rice

Operator

Operator, if we could try the next one.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Next question is from the line of Scott Barry with Credit Suisse.

Brian Rice

Operator

Scott?

Operator

Operator

Scott, your line is open. Scott Barry – Credit Suisse: Could you hear me?

Brian Rice

Operator

Yes. We can hear you, Scott. Scott Barry – Credit Suisse: Yes. Just plugging in those ranges that you gave, looks like it’s a fairly healthy – it’s a fairly healthy range there roughly above the downside and 220 on the upside. So is that ballpark? Is it fair to say that at above 40 that maybe you’re a little bit more comfortable at the lower or the downside end of those ranges?

Brian Rice

Operator

Scott, I think the $1.40 is our best estimate of our EPS right now given the inputs of the ranges that we’ve given you. We try to provide 50-50 forecast whenever we prepare one where there’s a 50% chance that we’d complete it and a 50% chance that we’ll fall short. We’re giving you our best information, much transparency and – but also try to give you the fact that there is a wide range particularly on the yield out there. Scott Barry – Credit Suisse: Okay, great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Felicia Hendrix of Barclays Capital. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Hi. Good morning, guys. So just a couple of questions. Back to the occupancy rates, I was wondering what is your guidance implying they are now?

Brian Rice

Operator

Felicia, I would – we haven’t given any specific guidance in our press release. I would probably say that we’re looking at maybe a couple of low factor points lower than we would normally be. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Okay. It still kind of like a 98%, 97% – something like – or even – but I mean – my main question is, are you basing it against 105-ish number or against a 100 number?

Brian Rice

Operator

It would be off the 105 number. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Okay. And then also, what kind of increase in travel agent commissions are in your forecast?

Dan Hanrahan

President and CEO

Yes, I can take that one, Felicia. It’s Dan. The ASAP program is a temporary program. It runs from January to February. And what we did is we gave a 1% – a one point increase percent for that time period. So that will have some impact on the us then. It’s not going to be – you’re not going to see a huge shift in travel agent commissions in 2009 from us as a result of this program. But it has been a very helpful program to the trade during the – during the wave period. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Yes. I appreciate. I’m sorry. I just wanted to say that they really appreciated it.

Richard Fain

Chairman

Well, yes. Felicia. Thank you. They really have and I think that helps us. And I would like to actually just amplify that because I think when we talk about our yields here, there’ve been a couple of questions about occupancy and about travel agent commissions. And we really look at the net of all that and the onboard revenue, and all of those things play in. So sometimes, we would trade off higher occupancy or lower occupancy, higher travel agent commissions, against higher ticket price so we try and balance all those things and we’ve never tried to predict the specifics of any one of those components but we said, as they go through. In theory, we ought to be indifferent, for example, between a ship that is 100% full at $100 or 98% at $102 all in. That includes onboard and everything else. In fact, there’s also the dock on effect because sometimes when you offer extreme discounts, you also undermine the fundamental integrity of your price, and overtime that whittles away at your – your all together revenue. So we’re not picking them apart individually. We’re just saying we look at all of those hopefully in a holistic manner, and our estimate of where we end up looking at them altogether. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Understood. And finally Brian, I’m just trying to understand the timing of the Oasis loan. Typically how much time prior to delivery do you have to secure the – secure the ship specific on secured term loans?

Brian Rice

Operator

There is no set time frame. I think, generally speaking, we would have our financing in place five, six months prior to the ship delivery. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Okay. So is it just what’s going on in the environment now that’s holding up some typical timing? Or are you – are you holding out for better rates? Or what’s driving that?

Brian Rice

Operator

So Felicia, the ship – the maiden voyage of Oasis is not until December 1st. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Right.

Brian Rice

Operator

Frankly, we’re well ahead of the curve in our conversations that we’ve been having under – with the expert credit agency. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Okay, okay. Good.

Brian Rice

Operator

Again, I’ll emphasize that we’ve been in conversations and we have a good feeling about what we are going to be able to do from it. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Okay, and you already have commitments via financial institutions?

Brian Rice

Operator

For all the Solstice five ships, all four remaining deliveries, we have financial institutions lined up as well as the (inaudible). For Oasis, we have the Finnvera guarantee, but we are discussions with financial institutions now. Felicia Hendrix – Barclays Capital: Okay, okay. Thank you.

Brian Rice

Operator

Okay.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Assia Georgieva with Infinity Research. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: Good morning. Couple of questions. In terms of the outlook for Q2 and Q3 – obviously it’s still a little early for Q4 – a year ago you had deals down about – or up about 1%. Is it fair to assume at this point that Q1 might be the most difficult quarter because of the comparison – because of the recent turmoil in the economy. And do we expect Q2 to be better and Q3 possible even better?

Brian Rice

Operator

Yes, I don’t want to give specific guidance for Q2 and Q3 right now, but I can tell you that we’re not looking at very good yield performance in Q2 and Q3. We are seeing pressure in Alaska. We are seeing pressure in Europe. We have taken pretty significant deterioration in our yield performance in Q2 and Q3 in the guidance we’ve given you. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: And onboard played a big part in the last quarter. 11% and I think you mentioned that you were looking at the last couple of months, or Adam mentioned that. Are those trends continuing at a similar rate? Are we looking at about 10% declines?

Adam Goldstein

President and CEO

So I come back to you with my comments that I’ve read before. The ticket revenue swing overall is greater than that of the onboard revenue swing. So when we give you a range of 9%, 13% down for 2009, the range for onboard, if we would give it, would be lower and predicted higher in order to make the average. So we have really tried by every revenue stream to try to project for throughout the year based on everything that we felt last year and everything that we’re seeing at the moment so that it makes the right contribution to our forecast. And it is down. And it is down across the year, but not as much as they could have downed. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: Okay.

Richard Fain

Chairman

I might just add to what Adam said. I think that’s particularly true of the royal and celebrity brands. In Europe, we are actually seeing more of a hit on the onboard revenue side than proportionately so. In Pullmantur, we’re actually having more impact on the onboard revenue than on the ticket revenue. Pullmantur had a really very bad ticket revenue environment in ’08, that’s last year. And therefore, its ticket revenue comparables are easier, but its onboard revenue is actually, for ’09, worse than its – appears to be worse than its ticket revenue impairment. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: Okay. Thank you, Richard. One more question and I’m done. If you’re financing for the Oasis, they are giving you a liquidity cash revolver, you wouldn’t need to access the capital markets in 2009. Is that fair?

Brian Rice

Operator

That’s correct. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: Okay. Thank you.

Richard Fain

Chairman

Although I just want to – as Brian said in his comments, clearly today, cash is gaining liquidity, is gaining. And so, the idea of taking steps to improve our liquidity if there’s an opportunity. If there’s an opportunity, it’s obviously something we would be looking at. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: So it’s opportunistic, not a need.

Richard Fain

Chairman

Right. Assia Georgieva – Infinity Research: Okay. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Kent with Goldman Sachs. Steven Kent – Goldman Sachs: Hi. Good morning. Can you just talk about what the FX impact in net yield and EPS was for the full year 2008? And then, could you just give us the quarterly FX impact so we can model better for 2009? And then just one other question, what percentage of the bookings are coming in direct or through the internet? And I guess I would ask once again, why isn’t that more of a focus rather than raising travel agent commissions given the high returns of that strategy.

Brian Rice

Operator

Steve, I’ll take the first part on FX, and then ask Adam or Dan to comment on the direct strategy. I don’t have in front of me the FX for ’08. And I certainly don’t have it by quarter for ’09 for you. I can tell you that we commented on the last call about the impact of FX in the fourth quarter mainly because of the change in the guidance that occurred to our revenue and to our cost. And we wanted to show you the change Q3 to Q4. As Richard mentioned in his remarks, FX is becoming a much more significant issue for us as we’ve seen a lot more volatility and as we diversified our international decks. I can tell you that, today, we are looking at a little more than 1% impact on yields as a result of Pullmantur’s currency. And a little less than 1% point impact on net cruise costs as a result of Pullmantur. What we’re working with and we hope to be able to give you more transparency in the future is the impact that FX is having on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity in a much more complicated way because those brands have a US dollar functional currency. And the way we’re recognizing our revenue is done at each voyage and the currency on that date. And the way we’re doing our AP is the average during the course of (inaudible). So we’re trying to figure out how we can give you better guidance on that and more transparency into it on a year-over-year basis. Frankly, right now, it’s not a huge element.

Adam Goldstein

President and CEO

Steve, this is Adam. In respect of our direct business, in round numbers, the 80%, 20% roll is in effect. About 80% of our business is coming from the trade. About 20% of our business is coming direct. We’ve asked about that on many of the calls. And we’ve generally said that the percentage of our direct business is growing very incrementally, sort of coming up through the high teens over the last few years. Richard mentioned before that we truly believe that we have the best relationship in the business with the trade to produce 80% of our revenue. And maintaining that relationship, fortifying if it were possible in the current difficult circumstances. It’s a very high priority for us. So trying to substantially increase our direct business in this timeframe would run counter to a key priority for our revenue generation efforts. Steven Kent – Goldman Sachs: Okay. Thanks.

Richard Fain

Chairman

And Steve, if I can just again amplify on that because I think – I don’t want you to get the idea that this is a bad commercial decision, but we do in order to maintain the relationship. We honestly believe, we’ve been consistent about this for many years, that what we are getting for those commissioned dollars is well worth the expense. We simply believe, as a matter of dollars and cents, that the travel agent community is good business for us. And that’s why we continue to use that as our absolutely dominant way of obtaining business going forward. Steven Kent – Goldman Sachs: Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Robert Robinson [ph] with Shankman Capital. Robert Robinson – Shankman Capital: Hey, guys. I was just wondering if you guys have a strategy for what you are thinking of about the maturity you have coming in 2010 in terms of the bonds and loans.

Brian Rice

Operator

Robert, it’s Brian. We’re obviously looking at our liquidity not only through ’09, but into 2010, 2011 and beyond. Again, we feel very comfortable with our current liquidity. There will likely be opportunities for us to consider extended maturity. At this point in time, we’re not relying upon any of those given our liquidity forecast and certainly our revolver. Our business still generates a tremendous amount of cash. But as Richard alluded to, we do want to strengthen our financial position, and we will be opportunistic. And we, obviously, will be in discussions throughout the course (inaudible) what opportunities are available to us. And if they make economic sense, we will be taking advantage of those. Robert Robinson – Shankman Capital: Okay. I was just curious though, where do you see leverage peaking to?

Brian Rice

Operator

I don’t have the percentages in front of me. But if you’re question revolves around many of our covenants, I can tell you we are substantially below any of those thresholds well. Robert Robinson – Shankman Capital: No. I was thinking more by just looking at cash flow leverage and thinking about what the cost of capital is going to be getting up to going to 2009 and into 2010. If this economic period really continues and it’s as bad as people think and people are seeing it as a great depression, and I see the continued spending. So I’m just wondering as cost of capital continues to rise, wouldn’t it be more prudent to slowdown some of these expenditures you have laid out for the next few years?

Brian Rice

Operator

Robert, I’ll just briefly. And I might suggest if you could give Ian Bailey a call after this call. And he can share with you a lot more specifics. But we have very advantageous financing available to us. For example, since our last call, we entered into a share agreement for Solstice five that we have the option to take advantage of Tier rates for our ship delivery in 2012. It has 12 years, some of the amortizing loans and interest rate of 4.13%. So we do have very attractive financing available to us at our election. But I think – if you could follow up with Ian, he can take you through all our Solstice financing arrangements as well as the guarantees that we have for our finished ships. Robert Robinson – Shankman Capital: Okay. So despite the current economic downtrend, you really feel like you should be continuing ahead and the banks are still there for you?

Brian Rice

Operator

Yes. Robert Robinson – Shankman Capital: As a (inaudible) exchange?

Brian Rice

Operator

All our German ships have very solid financing arrangements. We’re armed with DCI credit as we go after our finished ship. Robert Robinson – Shankman Capital: Thank you.

Brian Rice

Operator

Okay. Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator

Operator

Yes, sir. And that question is from the line of John Parker with Jaffray [ph]. John Parker – Jaffray: Yes. You sort of just answered this, but have you had any discussions with your shipyards about potentially deferring deliveries of the ships way out – down the road?

Brian Rice

Operator

John, we – the ships that we have on order, we’re very excited to bring in. Dan told you – talked a little bit about the Solstice introduction and how tremendously she’s been received. She’s doing absolutely stellar with onboard revenue as well as ticket revenue. We have another Solstice flagship coming out this summer, and Oasis in December. And the advanced bookings on both vessels are very strong. These ships, even with the CapEx, they generate a tremendous amount of cash. And even in the current economic climate, we’re very excited about having them as part of our fleet. John Parker – Jaffray: Okay. And then, this is just answered also, but I didn’t quite understand your – this is asked, but I didn’t quite understand your answer. You said that you’re looking at extending costly staying debt maturities. Can you give any more color what you mean by – how you would go about extending the maturities?

Brian Rice

Operator

Again, I’d like to stay away from any specifics, but what I’m talking about is there are opportunities for a lot of different things that we could do in order to improve our financial strength. Again, I’d like to emphasize the fact that we’re not dependent upon doing any of these things. But I just wanted to give you some sense of the types of ongoing activity that our Treasury team has been saying if we can improve our financial strength. There are opportunities for some of the maturities that are out there for us to have negotiations about extending those. But at this time, we have no specifics that we want to share. I just want to let you know that we’re paying attention to those things and we’re working them as they extend for us. John Parker – Jaffray: Okay. Thank you very much for your help.

Brian Rice

Operator

Okay, John. Operator, I think that’s – we’re out of time. So I’d like to thank everybody for joining us this morning. We truly appreciate your time, and your questions, and your interest. And as I mentioned earlier, Ian will be available throughout the day for any follow ups that you might have. Thank you, and have a great day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.