Carnival Corporation is expecting an occupancy rate of 90 percent across its nine cruise brands on average in the first quarter of 2023, according to Vice President and CFO David Bernstein, speaking on the company’s year-end and fourth quarter earnings call.

That is up from 54 percent occupancy to start 2022 in the first quarter as the company continues to close the occupancy gap following its restart.

“Occupancy for first quarter 2023 is expected to be 90 percent or slightly higher, just a 14-percentage-point gap or better,” Bernstein said. “As I said before, this would be nearly a 5-percentage-point improvement from the fourth quarter 2022 gap.”

Bernstein said it wasn’t enough.

“We are working hard and expect to close the gap to 2019, with occupancy returning to historical levels in the summer of 2023,” he said, with 2019 being the last normalized year of cruise operations.

“On the pricing front, for first quarter of 2023, we expect net per diems to be up 5.5% to 6.5% in constant currency and 3% to 4% in current dollars as compared to first quarter of 2019. A great accomplishment as we start the new year.”