HooKooDooKu pointed out the bottom line in all of this, that the exchange rate needs to go in the OPPOSITE direction--even if any of this was true.
DrCavin doing a lot of pranks on the boards lately. But the wink was fair notice and disclosure for me, no harm no foul. Wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean...
Eventually,
DCL needs to decide if they want to operate a larger fleet or not. Waiting for the exchange rate to shift is uncertain at best. As a Business School student in the early 1950's, a young man told his professor he intended to become a stock market investor after graduation. That's fine, his professor told him, but the professor went on to tell the student that he should not immediately invest, but rather wait until the Dow Jones Industrial Average went below 200, as it had done every year since the end of WWII. (For perspective, the Dow bottomed out at 41.22, or something like that, at the bottom of the depression). Had the young man waited, as his professor told him, he would still be waiting, and he would never have become an investor, because as it turns out, the Dow never went below 200 again.
Good thing that young man, Warren Buffet, did not heed his professor's advice to wait until market conditions were more favorable, or many Berkshire Hathaway investors might not have done so well on their investments. Disney either needs to build more ships, or remain a small niche player whose two chips are mere augments to their U.S. Theme Parks, mostly WDW, with the hope that IF rates were more favorable, they would be willing to consider expanding the fleet. Which is where they are, and there is nothing really wrong with that, if that is all they want to be--they do it well. They do run the risk of their ships becoming antiquated in a rapidly developing industry--the ships were built in '98 and '99, and the next ship I will sail on, the Enchantment of the Seas, was launched in just one year earlier in '97 and has already just been in a two month dry dock where the ship was stretched to add a 73 foot section and now has many additional features like an alternative restaurant and new splash decks, new lounges, additional staterooms, etc. And of course the latest megaships have size and features that DCL does not offer. Service and quality, always excellent on DCL, remain a strong point, and bigger is not always better, esp. in the cruise industry. But this exchange rate mentality is reflective of a company that is doing the cruises as an afterthought, not as a focus. Perhaps the "stretching" philosophy could work for the DCL ships--but taking one ship out of commission for 60 days would definitely hurt a two ship line.