Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

Good morning. My name is Shelby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Royal Caribbean Group's Business Update and First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. I would now like to introduce Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Jason Liberty. Mr. Liberty, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Shelby. Good morning everybody. And thank you for joining us today for our business update and first quarter earnings call. Joining me are Richard Fain, our chairman and chief executive officer, Michael Bailey, president and CEO of world criminal international and Corolla Mangolini, our vice president of investor relations. This is actually Corolla's last call with us as she is retiring. And I just want to sincerely thank her for all of her efforts, and we all really wish her the very best with lots of love. So thank you, Corolla. During this call, we will be referring to a few slides which have been posted on our investor website, www.rclinvestor.com. Before we get started, I would like to refer you to our notice about forward-looking statements, which is on our first slide. During this call, we will be making comments that are forward-looking. These statements do not guarantee future performance, and do involve risks and uncertainties. Examples are described in our SEC filing and other disclosures. Please note that we do not undertake to update the information in our filing as circumstances change. Also, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures which are adjusted as defined and a reconciliation of non-GAAP historical items can be found on our website. Richard will begin the call by providing a strategic overview of the business and update on the latest news from the CDC. I will follow up with a recap of our first quarter results, and then I will then provide an update on our latest liquidity actions and on the current bokeh environment. We will then open up the call for your questions. Richard.

Thank you, Jason, and thank you all for joining the call, and thank you, Carolla, for your help and consistent support over the many years of Royal Caribbean. You all know it's been painful to pass the one year mark since we suspended sailings in March of 2020 and to keep seeing most of our beautiful ship still sitting in anchor. However, I'd like to comment on some of the dramatic positive developments that we've just mentioned. The big change has been a significant improvement in the extent and the quality of our dialogue with the CDC. As I have said elsewhere, scientific knowledge does not advance well in a vacuum. More and better exchange of information and more and better understanding of other perspectives always leads to a better and healthier outcome. The CDC has recently significantly increased its efforts in this regard. And we really appreciate and we would like to for undertaking this important effort. Last night, the CDC issued Multiple very constructive clarifications and amplifications of its conditional sale order. They've addressed many of the items that concerned us in the order in a manner that takes into account the recent advances in vaccines and medical science. We believe that this communication really helps us to see a clear and achievable pathway forward to a safe and healthy cruising in the near future. But an important caveat is that this is a very complex area and we only received the letter last night. Furthermore, there are still a great many details to be provided in the future and others that need to be resolved. We need to be cautious about all of those. Nevertheless, we now have high hopes that if these details can be resolved quickly, it could be possible to restart cruising by mid-July. I would also emphasize that the restart does not mean that we will immediately go into full operation. While we are hopeful about restarting, that restart will be gradual and deliberate. Furthermore, our business books long in advance, so it will take some time for the machinery to get back into full swing. But the letter is a very constructive part of this process. and it indicates both the value of good communications and indicates the CDC's desire to see cruising reopen in a safe and healthy manner. As I said before, we share a common goal, and both the CDC and the cruise industry are determined to do this right. One of our strongest discussion points in these meetings with the CDC has been the data that we've collected from our cruises in Asia and Europe. As mentioned earlier, we have successfully carried over 125,000 passengers with only 21 COVID-19 cases, 21. That's a positivity rate of 0.01%. And as we've emphasized, all of this has been experienced without having the availability of vaccines. Our goal throughout this pandemic has been to make a cruise ship where we can control the environment safer than Main Street USA. We've already demonstrated our ability to do that and we are now eager to resume life as so many other businesses are doing. And we are pleased that the CDC letter really does reflect an intention to treat us similarly to other industries in similar circumstances. In addition to this particularly positive development in the U.S., There are a lot of other activities going on. For example, last month, Odyssey of the Seas, our newest quantum class ship, joined the Royal Caribbean International Fleet. Along with Celebrity Apex and Silver Sea Silver Moon, we now have three brand new ships, each with the most amazing technology to ensure safety, security, and of course, unbelievable guest experiences. And there's been such demand for our current sailings, for example, from Singapore and quantum and C's that we've extended our season there now through the end of October. And of course, we've also taken additional steps to strengthen our financial position even further. And you're going to hear more about that from Jason. Before I describe all the energy we see and feel within the group, I want to acknowledge once again, the dedication and hard work of our people. It's always been our people who have made us successful, and it's been our people who have gotten us through these past 13 months of living with COVID-19. Everyone has suffered during the pandemic, but working for a cruise line has been a real test of endurance and trust and agility. Over and over, our people have passed that test. I'd like to also thank our investors and our travel partners who have been the strongest advocates with our guests over these months of uncertainty. We are also grateful for their commitment to work. We are always grateful for their commitment to work with us. While a lot of what we're doing right now is directed to a healthy return to service, we're also focusing on how we can strengthen our position in other areas, including on ESG, environmental, social, and governmental responsibility. Of course, this focus isn't new for us. From our partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, to support for sustainable destinations, to active engagement on diversity and inclusion, to aggressive emission reduction, our commitment to progress on the ESG agenda is longstanding. But we believe strongly that it's not enough to reflect on what we have been doing. We need to get ready for what's next and plan for how we will meet the challenges of the future. You'll hear more about this initiative in future calls. But I want to take this opportunity to make you aware of this intensified focus. And with that, I'll turn the microphone back to Jason. Jason?