Last-minute bookings helped lift Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. to a better-than-expected profit for the third quarter, but Florida's bleak economy is hurting its fourth quarter, which traditionally relies heavily on state residents to fill ships.

Miami-based Royal Caribbean -- which will debut Oasis of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship, in Fort Lauderdale later this month -- reported third-quarter net income plunged 44 percent to $230.4 million from $411.9 million a year earlier.

The company continued deep discounting to persuade recession-rattled consumers to sail during the peak summer season, and it now expects discounts even for Christmas holiday voyages. Per-share earnings dropped to $1.07 for the third quarter compared to $1.92 a year earlier but were still above Wall Street's consensus expectation of $1.01 per share.

Royal Caribbean's new $1.4 billion Oasis of the Seas, which is 40 percent bigger than the next largest cruise ship, is en route to its home port at Port Everglades from a Finnish shipyard, and the cruise giant is preparing to show off the 5,400-passenger vessel to travel agents and news media to ratchet up the buzz.

ABC's Good Morning America will broadcast live from Oasis from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Nov. 20, offering a tour of the ship's seven themed ``neighborhoods,'' including ``Central Park.''

The radically wider beam on the 225,000-ton colossus enabled Royal Caribbean to open up the middle of the ship to the sky for the ``Central Park'' -- an open-air dining and entertainment center that will be planted with 12,000 trees and shrubs once the ship arrives Nov. 11 in Port Everglades. Terminal 18 got a $75 million upgrade to welcome Oasis.

In a conference call, Royal Caribbean executives tried to quell speculation that Oasis tickets aren't selling as well as they should for a ship that is being hyped as an industry ``game-changer.''

Some travel agents say the high ticket prices for Oasis are deterring some budget-minded vacationers, and space is still available on early sailings. But Royal Caribbean executives say they are pleased with the bookings and with the premium prices the glitzy ship is fetching. They said they are managing the sale of cabins on the ship, which begins regular service Dec. 1, so they don't sell out too cheaply.

Richard D. Fain, Royal Caribbean's chairman and chief executive, who has been intimately involved in the design and construction of the ship, told Wall Street analysts Tuesday that having all cabins sold out on early sailings at this juncture would amount to ``yield-management malpractice.''

For the third quarter, revenue, trimmed by lower cruise prices and less onboard spending, fell 14.5 percent to $1.76 billion from $2.06 billion a year earlier at Royal Caribbean, which operates five brands and is the No. 2 cruise operator behind Miami-based Carnival.

Shares of Royal Caribbean fell 92 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $19.75 in New York Stock Exchange trading Tuesday. The stock has rebounded from a 52-week low of $5.40 on March 3, 2009 when many were wondering whether the United States economy might tip into a full-blown depression. The volume of bookings since mid-September was up about 40 percent over the year-ago period, the company said, predicting that its yield, or the revenue it generates per available berth each day, would improve in 2010.

However, the fourth quarter is shaping up slightly worse than it previously had forecast, with yields down 7 percent to 8 percent from last year, the company said. With the continued ticket discounting extending even to the Christmas holiday, Royal predicted a slight loss in the fourth quarter.

``During the fourth quarter, we historically source a disproportionate number of our guests from Florida,'' said Brian J. Rice, executive vice president and chief financial officer. With ``the weaker economy in the state,'' Rice said, Royal isn't expecting the last-minute spurt in bookings it enjoyed over the summer.