Most if not all of you will have seen that Royal Caribbean has pulled the Independence of the seas from Southampton for 2020, this is one of the most popular ships that sail from the UK. The reasoning behind this is that they have a new private island and will be using 11 of their ships to sail there.
This is great and it will generate a lot of interest but there are a lot of people and families already booked on the Independence of the seas from Southampton next year, there are no ships replacing her and the Anthem of the seas cabins are already getting booked up.
I had 6 lots of families traveling and there was not much notice given, in fact, one of the families read about it before we even knew about it, that is naughty.
The ship will now sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, rather than Southampton as originally planned.
The decision has been made in order to respond to the high interest in the line’s new Caribbean private destination, Perfect Day at CocoCay.
Royal Caribbean are offering full refunds and a ‘Future Cruise Credit’ for use on an alternative sailing with the line which is valued at 25% of the cruise fare paid on the canceled sailings.
The Anthem of the seas which will be the only Ship from Royal Caribbean from the UK in 2020 is an amazing ship but lots of people chose Independence as it was a lot cheaper, Suddenly the prices increased in the blink of an eye by a lot of money which we thought was a bit odd, prices do fluctuate but this was a big jump.
Hopefully, everyone will find another perfect holiday and won’t find it too difficult to change their dates and that Royal Caribbean has not angered their database of people too much, they have taken a big gamble I think.
I guess it is just a case now of watch this space and see what develops from this and hopefully, they will look after their loyal customers, maybe though if they do something like this in the future they should not put it out there until we have had the word and managed to contact everyone who was booked on it.
Rant over.
