- Carnival Corporation has been posting record profits, recently releasing its Q3 2025 results.
- Carnival’s decision to cut P&O Cruises Australia appears to already be proving financially beneficial.
- Despite cutting a ship from the fleet, revenue is on the rise.
For Carnival Corporation, everything is looking up. The corporation which owns Carnival Cruises, Carnival Australia, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, Cunard, P&O Cruises and more, is already 50% booked for 2026 and posting record profits.
They’re also reporting higher rates of advanced bookings, with 2027 bookings already looking good. It is believed that bookings for Australia are also running at very high levels.
The story is exactly the same in Australia, where Carnival’s decision to absorb P&O Cruises Australia into Carnival Cruises Australia, although controversial, appears to already be reaping financial rewards.
CEO Josh Weinstein mentioned that tinkering with their brands appears to have kept profits moving in the right direction.
“We have right-sized many of our brands that needed right-sizing, and the progress is good. We’ll continue to support the brands that need a little bit more help than others to keep pushing up the ranks.”
While Australia is one ship down across Carnival and P&O, with Pacific Explorer leaving the fleet, less capacity and the P&O ships being under the Carnival brand have meant the line can push up cruise fares and lower operating costs, achieving profit growth even though they’re operating with one ship less.
Carnival President Christine Duffy told Cruise Passenger in an exclusive interview earlier this year that closing P&O was vital to secure the ships for Australia.
The proof is in the difference between Carnival’s Q3 results from 2024, compared to their Q3 results from 2025. Revenue has gone from USD$288 million to USD$313 million, which marks a 9% rate of growth over the 12-month period or $25 million.
This comes at a time when USA cruising revenue for Carnival grew by less than 1% over the same period, and European growth fell slightly below that of Australia, at about 8.5%.
However, to understand the key reason this number is so important we need to clarify that these numbers signal revenue, not profit. Revenue is the total income for a business, before subtracting expenses, which then equates to profit.
The key factor behind Carnival’s decision to fold P&O into Carnival wasn’t necessarily to increase revenue, but more so to decrease operating expenses. Not only did it remove an entire cruise ship from the equation, but it also allowed Carnival to put all the marketing, employees, itineraries and more under the same umbrella of Carnival, greatly removing operational costs.
Therefore, the fact that Carnival is seeing increasing revenue is significant because it has also greatly reduced its operational costs in Australia, meaning profits are likely soaring. The greater risk to the move was to revenue, as Carnival took a ship out of Australia and had to hope it could fill four Carnival ships consistently. Though the numbers show this hasn’t heard local revenue whatsoever, as mentioned, it’s actually soared 9%.
The numbers for Carnival’s exact profits in Australia aren’t available, but they are surely on the up and Carnival executives must be feeling very vindicated in their decision.
What does this mean for consumers?
Higher cruise fares aren’t exactly welcome news for cruise passengers, but these figures do have plenty of upside for Aussie cruisers as well.
The most important thing is that Carnival finding a way to make cruising more profitable in Australia means we can be more confident that they’ll be keeping their ships here for the foreseeable future.
If the pattern continues, we can perhaps expect more investment into the Australian market, such as more or new ships, refurbishments and upgrades and one day, maybe even a private destination like Royal Caribbean is building at Lelepa.
More profits may also give Carnival a bit more room to experiment with different types of itineraries and more cruises leaving from different destinations, as we’re already seeing with Carnival Adventure sailings out of Melbourne being announced for 2028.
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Being from Adelaide, we feel ripped off that we no longer have round trips which we did regularly with P&O
We have done a few carnival cruises out of Sydney but this incurs the extra cost of flights.
Carnival need to bring a ship back to do the Adelaide sailings
I’m a seasoned cruiser. Unfortunately my one and only Carnival Luminosa experience wasn’t great. The ship lacked soul and the MDR food was very poor in all regards. I used to mock P&O Australia (in a nice way), but unfortunately, the Carnival merger really is change for the worse .. Plus the consumer gets to pay more!
Extremely disappointed that there is never any mention of the Port of Melbourne. What is happening?
I was a huge Cruise fan when I could leave from Melbourne and return to Melbourne. Now I have to go to Sydney or Brisbane to cruise (except for two short trips available out of Melbourne) Who pays the air fare interstate? Who pays the cab fare to the Airport and return home? Who pays for overnight accommodation interstate? What is the tourist dollar loss to Melbourne – does the Government care? Why are they not behind a campaign to address the problem? The questions go on and on.
Unfortunately no more cruising for me until something is done to bring Melbourne back into the cruise picture!
Since the end of P&O we have sailed on Carnival Adventure twice. All together five times on the Adventure, three times as P&O and twice as Carnival. We have now decided we will never sail with Carnival again.
We have been on many different cruise lines over the past 20 years and unfortunately Carnival is the worst line we’ve sailed with. The service the food quality the variety, and all the extra costs for things that were always included before. The entertainment also is repetitive and not exciting. I can go on but will end there. The changes are not for the better as a passengers point of view.
Loved PO we went on the carnival not the same. It’s a shame that carnival is coming to Auckland. We would love to cruising again but it’s very expensive from NZ. I would like to cruise again on the carnival to get a feel of it. PO the best ever
The downside to consumers is losing their P&O Loyalty status. After years of sailing with P&O, nothing was transferred to Carnival VIPF as promised. Really disappointing.
Perhaps with such good financial results Carnival can repay some of that faith and loyalty that P&O passengers have shown to them by reversing their decision to end themed cruises like the 80s cruises – which are always full and no more expensive to operate given they have all the 80s paraphernalia already and the guests largely take care of the entertainment and atmosphere for them.
Loved P&O it’s a big loss for Australia. Now we have to deal with overseas staff that have no connection with Australia. Their customer service so far leaves a lot to be desired.
Seeing Carnival also own princess cruises. Why has carnival decided not to reward loyalty princess passengers on the same programe with carnival. Its disappointing to know carnival own so many cruise lines, yet the loyalty programes are all different.
My first cruise with Carnival Spirit was fantastic, could not fault. Food, service, I was on crutches first few days after having a fall, the attention I received with my family of 6 included was faultless, my daughter and family had been on the Spirit couple years before, it was terrific, therefore we chose the same ship again. Would have cruised on Spirit our last cruise, unfortunately we were unable to. So picked another of Carnaval ships the splender, what a contrast, disappointing total difference in all concepts of cruising, Food was awful, unless you paid extra the whole set up of ship was not the best. The attention to detail and customer service, was ok, but nothing compares to the Spirit. My daughter sais same. Has been on both ships twice.
I hope Carnival will take note, I will give them another try……..
Love p&o they shouldn’t of have closed it . Going on carnival soon so hope is okay heard lots of bad things
Carnival was right in closing P&O we sailed on Eden just prior Covid and the service was disgusting.
Sailed again on last P&O cruise before closure introducing friends to cruising, very poor experience. Friends would never do it again.
Revenue is up, and costs are down.
Yet some are still banging the drum blaming Australia for where Carnival chooses to deploy its ships, and wanting taxpayer subsidies to take spending away from health and education to cut the very small port costs – which has no impact on where they base their ships, since the customer pays port costs, and the cost is negligible compared to the fare increases that have been put through as shown in this article.