Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins

[Jumping Cruiser]

41 minutes ago, cruiseboy89130 said:

And that is?

Liberty OTS.

[cruiseboy89130]

22 minutes ago, Jumping Cruiser said:

Liberty OTS.

Interesting! Wonder what happened to Indy....

[Chiliburn]

45 minutes ago, Jumping Cruiser said:

Liberty OTS.

Any idea where Radiance will be over Christmas ,2025 ?

[springaussie]

St Maarten August 2026

 

 

 

[little britain]

9 hours ago, Jumping Cruiser said:

Liberty OTS.

Seriously?! So they take away a ship launched in 2008 and now give the Brits a ship launched in 2007!!! 
Jeez they really treasure that UK market don’t they ?! 🤦‍♀️

[gumshoe958]

10 minutes ago, little britain said:

Seriously?! So they take away a ship launched in 2008 and now give the Brits a ship launched in 2007!!! 
Jeez they really treasure that UK market don’t they ?! 🤦‍♀️

Sadly the UK doesn’t fit all that well with Royal’s new strategy of short sailings, repetitive itineraries, ship is the destination (for which you need warm, sunny weather).
 

Maybe they’ve found out the hard way that there’s only so much demand for expensive short breaks to Hamburg, Rotterdam and Zeebrugge, and for Norwegian fjords cruises that can’t visit the ports people really want to see.

 

From Anthem to Independence to Liberty is quite the downgrade and, if true, would indeed prove that the UK is no longer a key market for Royal under Jason Liberty.

[springaussie]

58 minutes ago, little britain said:

Seriously?! So they take away a ship launched in 2008 and now give the Brits a ship launched in 2007!!! 
Jeez they really treasure that UK market don’t they ?! 🤦‍♀️

Liberty probably needs a Cadiz Dry Dock then. 

[Blue Eyed Belfast Belle]

I liked Liberty but agree that it is giving us a downgrade

[Norwich Cruiser]

1 hour ago, gumshoe958 said:

Sadly the UK doesn’t fit all that well with Royal’s new strategy of short sailings, repetitive itineraries, ship is the destination (for which you need warm, sunny weather).
 

Maybe they’ve found out the hard way that there’s only so much demand for expensive short breaks to Hamburg, Rotterdam and Zeebrugge, and for Norwegian fjords cruises that can’t visit the ports people really want to see.

 

From Anthem to Independence to Liberty is quite the downgrade and, if true, would indeed prove that the UK is no longer a key market for Royal under Jason Liberty.

MSC although not everyones cup of Darjeeling have much better ships sailing in the Mediterranean lots of Barcelona departures and Virtuoso from Southampton.

[Norwich Cruiser]

2 minutes ago, Blue Eyed Belfast Belle said:

I liked Liberty but agree that it is giving us a downgrade

From memory Liberty was last dry docked in 2016 and the 2021 upgrades were cancelled because of Covid.

 

So she’s certainly due for a serious makeover.

[Blue Eyed Belfast Belle]

14 minutes ago, Norwich Cruiser said:

MSC although not everyones cup of Darjeeling have much better ships sailing in the Mediterranean lots of Barcelona departures and Virtuoso from Southampton.

I did a 3 nighter on MSC at the beginning of the month and all I can say is I see why Royal does not sell drinks packages on short sailings out of Southampton!

 

Virtuosa was a beautiful ship but it was like feeding time at the zoo at the bars ( up to 20 mins wait time)  and I personally saw 2 fights also hearing that there was a free for all punch up on the pool deck!

 

Never again! 

Edited May 26 by Blue Eyed Belfast Belle

[twangster]

Some see it as Royal choosing not to service a region but there in some cases they are being pushed to this outcome partially by their own choices going back several years now.

 

Between IMO 2023 and Norway closing the fjords in many cases deployment choices are being impacted for the cruise industry.  The UK/EU market is a good example.  Iceland from Europe on older ships is all but being eliminated.  Newer ships with lower emissions using fuel sources like LNG could do it, but Royal has very few ships with LNG and the ones they do have are too large for the Iceland market.   

 

It's not just a matter of Royal choosing not to serve the UK or EU markets as they have in the past, they don't have right sized ships that meet the technical requirements to service these routes given new operational requirements designed to lower ship emissions impacting the entire global shipping industry.

 

This is largely by their own making choosing to build only mega ships with cleaner energy solutions, or by delaying the migration to cleaner energy compared to the competition.  They saw this coming while ships like Ovation and Odyssey were being built but they choose to keep those ships running on MGO to save money on re-engineering them.  Now, years later, they are trapped by that decision making, long before Jason Liberty was leading the company.  

 

 

Combined with the market in the US changing with so many new to cruise devouring cruises as a new untapped source of revenue, a target customer that prefers short cruises, Royal is chasing the short cruise business with mostly MGO based ships while they can, in the US that as a region is behind some European countries that individually are looking at or have created emissions changes for shipping. 

[Norwich Cruiser]

14 minutes ago, Blue Eyed Belfast Belle said:

I did a 3 nighter on MSC at the beginning of the month and all I can say is I see why Royal does not sell drinks packages on short sailings out of Southampton!

 

Virtuosa was a beautiful ship but it was like feeding time at the zoo at the bars ( up to 20 mins wait time)  and I personally saw 2 fights also hearing that there was a free for all punch up on the pool deck!

 

Never again! 

We were probably on the same cruise and yes it was a bit of a nightmare.

 

Having said that we were on IOTS from Southampton a few years ago on a short weekend sailing when they were selling the drinks packages and had a similar experience.

 

I’m pretty sure they stopped selling the drinks packages on short Southampton sailings after that.

[Jomykje]

24 minutes ago, twangster said:

Some see it as Royal choosing not to service a region but there in some cases they are being pushed to this outcome partially by their own choices going back several years now.

 

Between IMO 2023 and Norway closing the fjords in many cases deployment choices are being impacted for the cruise industry.  The UK/EU market is a good example.  Iceland from Europe on older ships is all but being eliminated.  Newer ships with lower emissions using fuel sources like LNG could do it, but Royal has very few ships with LNG and the ones they do have are too large for the Iceland market.   

 

It's not just a matter of Royal choosing not to serve the UK or EU markets as they have in the past, they don't have right sized ships that meet the technical requirements to service these routes given new operational requirements designed to lower ship emissions impacting the entire global shipping industry.

 

This is largely by their own making choosing to build only mega ships with cleaner energy solutions, or by delaying the migration to cleaner energy compared to the competition.  They saw this coming while ships like Ovation and Odyssey were being built but they choose to keep those ships running on MGO to save money on re-engineering them.  Now, years later, they are trapped by that decision making, long before Jason Liberty was leading the company.  

 

 

Combined with the market in the US changing with so many new to cruise devouring cruises as a new untapped source of revenue, a target customer that prefers short cruises, Royal is chasing the short cruise business with mostly MGO based ships while they can, in the US that as a region is behind some European countries that individually are looking at or have created emissions changes for shipping. 

Thank you for this explanation. I am a bit sad Royal will not sail out of Amsterdam next year, but now it makes more sense. 
 

[little britain]

1 hour ago, Norwich Cruiser said:

We were probably on the same cruise and yes it was a bit of a nightmare.

 

Having said that we were on IOTS from Southampton a few years ago on a short weekend sailing when they were selling the drinks packages and had a similar experience.

 

I’m pretty sure they stopped selling the drinks packages on short Southampton sailings after that.

Notable: It’s only on the Southampton short sailings where they don’t sell the drinks packages… on an ex-USA short sailing they do!!  Us Brits and our booze eh 🤷‍♀️!!

 

Even the short Anthem sailings now without drinks packages are still carnage.  If that was your first RCI experience you would say never again. 
 

I would never use a short sailing as a good trial of what a product is like @Blue Eyed Belfast Belle; MSC is an excellent product with beautiful ships. I certainly wouldn’t dismiss them 

[gumshoe958]

Southampton is a problem for Royal now.

 

The new strategy is all about getting families on short cruises to the sun. But from Southampton, the places in the sun where families want to go are at least a week away, and longer cruises are no longer Royal’s thing.

 

So they’re a bit stuck. Either sell longer cruises to the Med or the Canaries, or short booze cruises to northern Europe which aren’t appealing to families. Neither of which fit into the new strategy.

[Aaron3]

2 minutes ago, little britain said:

Notable: It’s only on the Southampton short sailings where they don’t sell the drinks packages… on an ex-USA short sailing they do!!  Us Brits and our booze eh 🤷‍♀️!!

 

Even the short Anthem sailings now without drinks packages are still carnage.  If that was your first RCI experience you would say never again. 
 

I would never use a short sailing as a good trial of what a product is like @Blue Eyed Belfast Belle; MSC is an excellent product with beautiful ships. I certainly wouldn’t dismiss them 

We were on anthem 2 nighter a few weeks ago. Drinks package was available (it appeared maybe 2 months out vs 12 months out for refreshments), came in at £110pppd. 
on the 2nd day they started selling a 10 drink package for £120 (I assume these could be shared for the less big drinkers)

 

Having said that, every part of the experience was far better than a similar MSc virtuosa 2 night we had. 
 

the big difference seemed to be anthem had a good volume of families as well as drinkers, plus a sizeable US contingent ( I assume as it was 2 night following transatlantic and going straight in to Norwegian fjords)

[bigeck]

2 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

Southampton is a problem for Royal now.

 

The new strategy is all about getting families on short cruises to the sun. But from Southampton, the places in the sun where families want to go are at least a week away, and longer cruises are no longer Royal’s thing.

 

So they’re a bit stuck. Either sell longer cruises to the Med or the Canaries, or short booze cruises to northern Europe which aren’t appealing to families. Neither of which fit into the new strategy.

I think they need to change the strategy then.

Getting families to the sun is all good in the Winter. Majority of the days in Summer around Florida is sunny.

In Europe, we don't have any ships. Personally, I can't see myself flying to Miami to take a 14 night cruise and visit Miami 4 times.

They are taking a gamble with the big ships thinking short cruises are the way forward. Maybe for now as we are all still getting back to normal after the pandemic.

A lot of ships are doing the Baltics again, so that might be a decent earner from Southampton. 

[Jimbo]

12 hours ago, springaussie said:

St Maarten August 2026

 

 

 

Simply "Oversaturation" is going to lead cruisers to other cruise lines.

[cruise_co]

On 5/15/2024 at 12:37 AM, ONECRUISER said:

That's too bad I just saved over $1000 USD on 3 Booked Cruises sailing in 2025. 

I have 3 cabins on Star, fall 2025. The past couple of weeks I have saved a bit over $1,500. 

[smokeybandit]

I've had 5 price drops on 2 cruises in the last 4-6 weeks. Maybe things are finally starting to balance out.

[Southern Dan]

I read in another thread that Liberty is getting her much needed amplification beginning in April 2026 so you nice folks over in Europe will have a very nice updated Freedom Class ship to enjoy for the summer 2026 cruising season.

 

That leaves Adventure of the Seas as the last ship on the OG list that we don't know if/when it will be amplified as Allure is getting hers in March/April of 2025.

Edited May 26 by Southern Dan
more thoughts

[smokeybandit]

23 minutes ago, Southern Dan said:

 

 

That leaves Adventure of the Seas as the last ship on the OG list that we don't know if/when it will be amplified as Allure is getting hers in March/April of 2025.

According to a recent Adventure captain's corner, Adventure's next dry dock won't include anything new.

[Blue Eyed Belfast Belle]

8 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

According to a recent Adventure captain's corner, Adventure's next dry dock won't include anything new.

 

9 hours ago, Southern Dan said:

I read in another thread that Liberty is getting her much needed amplification beginning in April 2026 so you nice folks over in Europe will have a very nice updated Freedom Class ship to enjoy for the summer 2026 cruising season.

 

That leaves Adventure of the Seas as the last ship on the OG list that we don't know if/when it will be amplified as Allure is getting hers in March/April of 2025.

 

8 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

According to a recent Adventure captain's corner, Adventure's next dry dock won't include anything new.

Adventure is going to Spain Oct 2024 for a TA, having a dry dock in Cadiz and then heading back for another TA Nov 24.I know a few who are doing both TAs

[brevardcruiser]

12 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

According to a recent Adventure captain's corner, Adventure's next dry dock won't include anything new.

1000% accurate.  Captain was asked. Response some windows minor paint and decor.  Very minimal.