Royal Caribbean cause uproar.

As a cruise specialist and someone that specialises in tailor-making and recommending certain products/ships to customers, the one thing I hate is when things get changed after everything has been booked. Royal Caribbean has been the main culprit of this of late with changes to an itinerary on the Voyager of the Seas in the Far East travelling in June 2020. The reasons for the changes were understandable with construction work in one port, and environmental protection enforcement in the other. The main issue lies with the fact that rather than replace the missed ports with another option in the same country, they have used 2 ports that the ship is visiting on the previous sailing. This would not normally be an issue, however, a large number of customers had booked both sailings as a back to back trip. In true large company fashion, booked guests were offered nothing by the cruise line and just pointed to the terms and conditions.

Just as the dust settled from this change, the BIG change dropped. Independence of the Seas taken out of Southampton for the summer season of 2020 cancelling thousands of already booked cruises.

The Independence of the Seas has been a huge favourite of the UK market and understandably, people were not happy. Royal Caribbean offered booked guests a 25% future cruise credit to help appease the situation, which was nice of them. On the flip side though, with just the Anthem of the Seas based in Southampton for the 2020 season, demand has increased and prices have increased dramatically.

The Independence will instead be deployed from The USA to maximise the capacity the cruise line can take to their private island, Coco Cay, which has undergone a huge renovation and will no doubt be hugely popular. It’s just such a shame that they had to disrupt so many customers holidays.