Shares of Carnival Corporation (CCL -1.38%) rallied 24.1% in June, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Carnival actually didn't start the month particularly well, as one prominent Wall Street analyst warned investors over cruise companies' pricing power as May turned to June. Yet, Carnival's second-quarter earnings report told a much different story, as the company's revenue and profitability trounced expectations, as did its guidance.

Revenue, earnings, bookings, and guidance: All good news

Carnival actually started June on a downbeat note after Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora wrote a note saying that cruise prices had come down slightly in June relative to early May.

However, if Carnival suffered from lower pricing, it didn't seem to show up in its results. In its second-quarter report released late in the month, Carnival handily beat expectations for revenue, which was up 17.7%, and earnings per share, which switched from a $0.31 loss in the year-ago quarter to a positive $0.11.

Management also struck a very optimistic tone for the rest of this year and 2025, noting an all-time high in bookings while raising its year-end profit forecast by $275 million. Further, management said it had made substantial progress toward its 2026 "SEA Change" goals of sustainability; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) per available lower berth day; and return on invested capital (ROIC). CEO Josh Weinstein even noted that the company was already two-thirds of the way there toward its 2026 goal despite only being in year one of the turnaround plan.

Carnival will need more of this

While the cruise industry remains strong and Carnival's results were especially good, the company still has a big hole to dig itself out of. Due to the non-cruising during the pandemic and cruise companies not being eligible to receive Federal help due to their incorporation overseas, all cruise lines racked up a healthy amount of debt to make it through the lockdown period.

Even though Carnival has begun chipping away at it, that debt total still stands at $29.3 billion after Q2, even larger than Carnival's $26.3 billion market cap. Thus, Carnival will need to sustain this level of performance for years to make a substantial dent in its huge debt load. But June's earnings report was certainly a good start.