Cruise operators are quickly entering hot lay up scenarios with their cruise ships, meaning a mostly full set of crew and a ship that could return to service almost immediately. 

A once unforeseen scenario is now reality and Carnival Corporation, in a recent SEC filing, has detailed the costs associated with a hot lay up – referred to as a warm lay up in Carnival’s filing – at $2 to $3 million per month per vessel.

Carnival said the cost per prolonged ship lay up is appropriately $1 million per month, which it said it anticipates doing for the majority of its fleet.

A prolonged lay up will generally see reduced crewing and limited technical operations, also meaning the ship could take weeks to be ready to return to service.

“During the pause in our global fleet cruise operations, certain of our ships will be in warm ship lay up where the ship will be manned by a full crew and certain of our ships will be in a prolonged ship lay up where the ship will be manned by a limited crew,” Carnival said.

“We will decide whether each vessel in our global fleet will be in a warm ship lay up or a prolonged ship lay up depending on the circumstances, including the length of pause, which we expect to be extended and may be prolonged,” the company said.

“We currently estimate the substantial majority of our fleet will be in prolonged ship layup,” Carnival said, in the filing.