The US-based cruise company, which operates nine brands including P&O Cruises and Cunard, said total bookings reached an all-time high across the third quarter.
The cruising giant achieved a net income of $1.18 billion, or $0.86 adjusted earnings per share, exceeding the June guidance.
Bookings for 2024 are “well above the high end of the historical range at higher prices” against 2023 levels, Carnival Corp added.
Chief executive Josh Weinstein said: “Our booked position for 2024 is further out than we have ever seen and at strong prices.
“With less remaining inventory to sell, despite a 5% increase in capacity, we are well positioned to drive pricing higher and deliver strong yield improvement in 2024.”
He added: "We are maintaining strong momentum and continuing to build demand through our improved commercial execution.
“Booking volumes during the quarter were running nearly 20% above 2019 levels, which has continued into September.
“This has helped us extend the booking curve even further, with our North American brands exceeding historical highs and our European brands essentially achieving pre-pause levels."
He explained the strong bookings performance was “driven by strength in demand, with both our North America and Australia segment and Europe segment equally outperforming expectations”.
Weinstein said it was “gratifying” to see the company’s European brands had “stepped up nicely”.
This year Carnival Corp has managed to close the occupancy gap by 11 percentage points, Weinstein confirmed.
Occupancy in the third quarter of 2023 was 109%, which exceeded the company’s expectations and was a return to historical levels.
Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, the company expects EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to be between $800 and $900 million and net yields to be up “mid-single digits” compared to 2019.
It predicted occupancy levels to be in line with historical levels and net per diems to increase between 7% and 8%, compared to 2019.
During the third quarter of 2023, Carnival Corp reduced its debt by $2.4 billion and ended the third quarter with $5.7 billion of liquidity, including cash and borrowings available under a credit facility.
Chief financial officer David Bernstein said: “We are accelerating our debt repayment efforts and aggressively managing down our interest expense.
“In just the last six months, we have reduced our debt balance by over 10% - or nearly $4 billion.
“With improving performance, growing operating cash flows and $5.7 billion of liquidity, we are on a path to end the year with less than $31 billion of debt."
