Review: Rhapsody of the Seas - 6 Night Greek Isles from Haifa - Solo

[attaboy!]

On 8/19/2022 at 4:01 PM, IgKh said:

Just back from this 6 night Greek Isles cruise on the Rhapsody of the Seas which departed on August 12th - sailing from Haifa, Israel as the home port (the second one ever for Royal) and interporting in Limassol, Cyprus - and wanted to share a brief review about my experience.

 

Royal Caribbean has been meaning to enter the Israeli market for a few years now, but the pandemic delayed that. Last year was supposed to be the debut, with the Odyssey of the Seas starting its inaugural season out of Haifa as the world’s first all-vaccinated sailing, but for various reasons this fell through in the 11th hour. Nevertheless, Royal still continued, and earlier this year it was announced that the Rhapsody of the Seas will sail from Haifa for a three month season (August to October), doing Greek Island cruises of varying lengths.

 

While the Rhapsody is not the crowning gem of Royal Caribbean's fleet, I found the opportunity to take a cruise directly out of my country without any flying really exciting - and even more so considering the madhouse that is airports in Europe this year (and Tel Aviv’s airport is no exception). I therefore booked the August 12th sailing in April, directly with Royal Caribbean.

 

The run-up to the cruise wasn’t a completely smooth one. Around May, just before the season was due to start (with MSC’s Lirica beginning to interport in Haifa) an inspection discovered that the Port of Haifa’s passenger terminal has structural flaws, which of course necessitated its immediate closure. The port authorities worked to very quickly set up a temporary terminal inside a nearby hangar. Complaints about the inadequacy of the facility and long walks in the sun carrying luggage quickly surfaced in Israeli social media groups. Those died down overtime, but still I was dreading the experience a bit.

 

More importantly, a little over two weeks before the sailing I got an email stating that due to an “inventory error”, the sailing (and all the other August sailings) was overbooked, and asking for volunteers that would cancel their booking in exchange for a full refund and 50% FCC (and with an implied threat, that if after this “special offer” expired there would still be oversold cabins, those will be canceled unilaterally). This struck me as quite strange, but I wasn’t particularly worried at that point since I had a cabin assigned already. But a few days later, I got another email that stated that the sailing is still overbooked, and improved the offer to 100% FCC or a price-protected move to another sailing out of Haifa - this year or in 2023).

 

Now, I started to worry, as this meant that the severity of the problem was large, and there was no transparency as to who’s booking exactly is oversold, and how much I was at risk. In other circumstances, I would have jumped at the offer, but I had various reasons why I wanted to go at that particular week (and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have booked a cruise in the highest of the high season). The offer’s deadline was also further extended, to less than a week before the sailing date. It was then extended again, such that I was sure I was able to go only 3 days prior to sailing.

 

At the end, according to the sailing’s WA group, many cabin assignments were changed (not mine, though) and at least a few people did end up being involuntarily ejected from the sailing all together and were moved to the September 1st one.

 

So for me at least, all’s well that ends well, but still - not a desirable situation to be in instead of getting into a vacation mood.