In the beginning of the month, $CCL reported that they had their busiest booking week in history. Meanwhile, throughout all industries, businesses are dealing with rising labor costs, higher fuel prices, and other things with rising costs.

The cruise industry is in a precarious spot. They can't easily pass on rising costs to customers. Even if they choose to raise the prices of alcoholic beverages and specialty dining options, customers can just choose to cut down on their consumption and opt for the free dining option that cruises offer.

Like airlines, cruise companies have options to hedge against rising fuel prices. $RCL already has theirs hedged, but for $CCL, they don't have any hedges.

One bright spot for Carnival is that they are leading the adoption of LNG-powered cruise ships, which run on cleaner-burning liquified natural gas. This helps Carnival obey the regulations of IMO 2020, which requires ships to run on cleaner-burning fuels. At the same time, LNG is cheaper than gasoline and the engines that run on LNG have fewer moving parts than engines that run on gasoline. However, the lack of fueling depots and the heavy capex spending that comes with adopting LNG-powered ships is expensive.

We shall see how well these cruise companies do amid high inflation and high bookings. Will consumers still consume like normal when they're on vacation?