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The Associated Press reports that cruise giant Royal Caribbean lost $392.8 million in the fourth quarter because of losses associated with its Spanish cruise line, Pullmantur.

The AP states that Royal Caribbean wrote down $413,900,000 due to a substantial drop in bookings and prices in Spain following the Spanish government’s austerity measures. Royal Caribbean also blamed its losses on the Costa Concordia disaster a year ago.

Royal Caribbean had a profit of $36.6 million during the same quarter a year ago. 

In December we reported that Royal Caribbean's top executive Richard Fain bailed on out on a large block of cruise line stock.

In December 2012, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fain sold 143,140 shares of RCL stock for $4,964,095.  

Fain followed up by exercising options and selling 188,443 shares for $6,535,203, for a total of around $11,500,000.  

$11,500,000 in cash in your pocket and 6 weeks later your cruise line posts a loss of over $392,000,000. Goes to show you that cruise line executives have fun making millions hand over fist regardless of how the company performs.

Video below is of CEO Fain on one of the Royal Caribbean FlowRiders (via RCCL YouTube).

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Barron's reports that Royal Caribbean Cruises' top executive recently bailed out on a large block of cruise line stock just before the cruise line's shares touched a new 52-week intra-day high.

On December 13th Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fain sold 143,140 shares of RCL stock for $4,964,095, an average of $34.68 each. Barron's says that Fain followed up by exercising options and selling 188,443 shares for $6,535,203. 

The RCL stock is down over a point since CEO Fain bailed on the stock. Fain still holds 1,049,064 shares directly and 421,412 shares indirectly.

The last time we wrote about RCL's CEO was when he and other executives at the cruise line were sued for fraud for allegedly making false and misleading statements about the company's fourth quarter results for 2010. In January 2011, the day after touting the financial strength of the cruise line, CEO Fain sold 200,000 shares at a price of $46.63 for what the lawsuit alleges were total illicit proceeds of $9,326,000.  

Big bucks and cruise CEO's go hand in hand, irrespective of how the cruise industry is actually faring. A couple of weeks ago we wrote about Carniva's Micky Arison paying himself a bonus of $90,000,000 after what he describes as one of the one most challenging years for the cruise lines yet. 

January 4 2013 Update: The issue of cruise line executive compensation made our list of top ten stories for last year:

2012 was reportedly a difficult financial year for the cruise lines but you would never know it by looking at the huge sums of money, bonuses and stock options which the cruise line CEO's pay themselves. In contrast Fain' with his regular multi-million-dollar salary and the $11,500,000 from stock sales, Royal Caribbean's bar-servers were paid only $50 a month and required to work for tips carrying a dozen tropical drinks around the pool deck while balancing a bottle of rum on their heads. 

Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal Smart Money / by Jeffrey Salter / Redux 

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