Royal Caribbean earned $1.7 billion in one quarter, more than Hilton made in all of 2025. Cruising now out-earns hotels and car rentals by a wide margin.
Net yields (revenue per passenger cruise day) rose only 0.9%, so most of the growth came from more capacity rather than higher spend per guest. That capacity is spread across three brands many travelers don’t realize share a parent. Royal Caribbean International is the big-ship family product, Celebrity Cruises is the premium line, and Silversea is the luxury line. A traveler who would never book Royal might happily book Celebrity, and plenty of Silversea guests have no idea Royal Caribbean owns it. Each serves a distinct market, and all three feed RCCL’s results.
Car rental is worse. Avis Budget lost $995 million, including a $518 million impairment on its electric vehicle fleet, and Hertz lost about $747 million, according to the wider-than-expected losses. Together that is a $1.7 billion loss on about $20 billion of revenue. Enterprise Holdings (Enterprise, National, and Alamo) is a private company and does not report results publicly.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Live and Let's Fly.
