Royal Caribbean is delaying the sailings of their global fleet through April 30th, 2021

By: Alana DeRose

Royal Carribean tweeted an operations update about the delay of their international cruises through April 30th 2021.

On October 30th, 2020 Royal Carribean was able to start sailing again due to the CDC’s uplifting of the “No Sail Order” and in place put down the “Conditional Sailing Order”.

According to the Royal Carribean website, “This includes training our crew in new health and safety protocols and conducting a number of trial sailings to stress - test those protocols in real-world conditions.”

Safety is Royal Carribean’s top priority, and because of this Royal Carribean has been working closely with the CDC and Healthy Sail Panel.

“We will continue to work closely with both CDC and the Healthy Sail Panel as we make our plans, and we are confident in our ability to mitigate the risks of the pandemic and protect the health of our guests, our crew, and the communities where we sail.”, RCCL said.

Upon working with the CDC Royal Carribean has delayed the sailings of their global fleet through April 30th, 2021 with some exceptions, on January 12th, 2021.

“After further consulting with our partners at Cruise Lines International Association and in conjunction with the CDC, we have decided to extend the suspension of sailings for our global fleet for all sailings through April 30th, 2021 - excluding sailings onboard Quantum of the Seas in Singapore and Spectrum of the Seas in China.”, according to the Royal Carribean website.

Royal Carribean informed their fellow cruisers of this delay among their global fleet in a tweet they’ve taken down stating “Important update on sailings through April 30th, 2021.”

However they’ve replaced the taken down tweet changing the April 30th, 2021 date to the two month earlier date of February 28th, 2021.

Edited vs. Original post

The tweet now states “Global sailings will be suspended through February 28th, 2021, with some exceptions.”, with a link taking you to their website that gives you the same information I just provided earlier.

On the website RCCL has provided many options for these cruisers that have been affected by the delays such as

• Future Cruise Credit

• Lift and Shift. A process in which you can take your money and move it to a different cruise date.

• Full Refund, will only give you the lower value

• Cruise Planner Purchases. A system in which if you purchased Cruise Planner items you may be eligible to receive an onboard credit of 125%.

• Air & Hotel Purchases. A system in which if you purchased refundable air or hotel accommodations through Royal Carribean, they’ll automatically be refunded to you within 45 days after they process the cancellation.

Royal Carribean expresses gratitude and apologies to those who’ve been affected, and hopes to see us again.

“Please accept our gratitude for your patience and sincere apology for this setback. We can’t wait for the day to welcome you onboard with us once again. Until then we hope you and your loved ones continue to stay safe.”