3 companies · median 12 of 36 checks · prices as of 2026-09-08
Cruise lines stocks.
Sorted by how many checks each one passes. Sort by any column to see who is cheapest, who is growing, or who has the strongest balance sheet - and how that compares with what is normal for the industry.
Ranked by checks passed
3 of 201 covered companies→The cruise lines we cover score close together, from 10 to 13 of 36 checks, with a median of 12.
→RCL, CCL, NCLH are 100% of the $109.6B we cover here, so a sector average says more about them than about the rest.
 Royal CaribbeanRCLRuns Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise lines.ReportFact sheet | -0.3% | -23.6% | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 13/36 |
 CarnivalCCLRuns the world's largest cruise company: Carnival, Princess, Holland America and more.ReportFact sheet | -1.3% | -25.3% | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 12/36 |
 Norwegian Cruise LineNCLHRuns Norwegian, Oceania and Regent cruise lines.ReportFact sheet | -1.2% | -40.0% | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 10/36 |
The filings behind this table close between 2026-05-31 and 2026-06-30, because these companies do not share a fiscal calendar; prices are the close of 2026-09-08. Each name links to its full report; every score is a count of pass-or-fail checks read from that company's own filings.
Where the sector falls short
median score per axis→Trend analysis is where the cruise lines we cover come up short most often, at a median of 0 of 6, while Quality runs at 4. Every one of them fails all but one of the Trend analysis checks, so that axis separates nothing here.
| Value | ●●○○○○ | 2 of 6 |
| Growth | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Quality | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
| Health | ●●○○○○ | 2 of 6 |
| Shareholder returns | ●●○○○○ | 2 of 6 |
| Trend analysis | ○○○○○○ | 0 of 6 |
What a normal margin looks like here
sector percentiles · 21 filers→Operating margin clusters among cruise lines, from 16% to 32% across the middle of the field, with a midpoint of 23% measured over 21 filers.
| Metric | Bottom third | Midpoint | Top third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating margin n=21 | 16.1% | 23.1% | 32.3% |
| Net margin n=22 | 9.6% | 18.1% | 25.5% |
| Return on equity n=23 | 9.2% | 13.8% | 20.7% |
Who grows, and who keeps it
every company in the industry→RCL does both: growing faster than this industry's middle and keeping more of each sale than it does. The industry's middle is 4% growth on a 17% margin. NCLH does neither.
A year of price
not a fact about the business→All of them are down over twelve months, by a median of -25.3% - Royal Caribbean (RCL) at -23.6% against Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) at -40.0%. Price is not a fact about a business, and the Trend chapter of each report says what it is measured on.
Head to head
3 pairsThe table above gives the order. These put two of them in one column each, so you can see where the difference actually is.