Chaos at Royal Caribbean?

So, Royal have announced they are moving  the Independence of the Seas away from Southampton after having the sailing on sale for over 6 months already.   This will affect literally 100,000 cruisers who were expecting to board not only for their Summer holidays but mini breaks and special occasions too.

The official line is  “This decision has been made in  we deploy our ships to give guests the most desired destinations and experiences.  This led us to keep Independence of the Seas in the Caribbean in 2020, due to her large success there and the evolution of our private destination, Perfect Day at CocoCay”   Read in to that what you will.

They do go on to say that Anthem will be here for 2020, which is great news as it is an amazing ship and the Explorer, another vast ship, will be sailing in the Mediterranean from Rome.

Indy will depart her final sailing Southampton on 26th October 2020 with a transatlantic sailing across to Fort Lauderdale and Anthem will head over from Cape Liberty on 12th April for her Summer season here.

We, here at cruise. will be contacting passengers as soon as we can to find alternatives, Royal are offering a free of charge cancellation (should they even think of doing anything else!?) and offering a Future Cruise Credit which can be used against another Royal Caribbean cruise, excluding Celebrity or Azamara.  The Future Cruise Credit will be for 25% of the Cruise Fare (which won’t include the costs of port fees etc) which will be eligible for 2 years.

Maybe other other lines, P&O, MSC will be rubbing their hands together and the race will be on to book cabins immediately, particular 3 & 4 berth for the holidays, if you are affected, if we have not managed to reach you yet, please get in touch as soon as you can as we will find another cruise for you.

Are you pre booked on Independence?  What do you think?