Energy flux streamlines are compared with alternative presentations of the energy flux vector field to visualize energy coupling at the surface and inside an ensonified fluid loaded elastic cylindrical shell with vacuum interior for both forward and retrograde guided propagating waves. The present work uses a method adapted from a simpler technique due to Kaduchak and Marston [Gregory Kaduchak and Philip L. Marston, “Traveling‐wave decomposition of surface displacements associated with scattering by a cylindrical shell: Numerical evaluation displaying guided forward and backward wave properties,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98, 3501–3507 (1995)] to isolate unidirectional energy flows.