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Riddle me this: Independence to Galveston?


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The RCL site has Independence sailing in the eastern Caribbean, and only Liberty and Explorer scheduled to be sailing from Galveston in July.  I've been watching Independence sail from Miami towards Galveston all night now. Or did I embarrassingly miss a memo? Test cruises?

image.png.e9f1b1d16dab902e0878711b03ce5925.png

 

Also .... where's @twangster been? 

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10 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

The RCL site has Independence sailing in the eastern Caribbean, and only Liberty and Explorer scheduled to be sailing from Galveston in July.  I've been watching Independence sail from Miami towards Galveston all night now. Or did I embarrassingly miss a memo? Test cruises?


Liberty is currently double-booked in July.   Yes, there are cruises scheduled, but Matt posted a blog article April 5 this year, on the 4 ships scheduled for dry-dock at Cadiz from May through July.  Liberty is scheduled there in July.  

Sorry couldn’t get the whole link to copy.  Excerpt: 

The work on Harmony of the Seas is expected to last about a month.    The Navantia shipyards said Jewel of the Seas and Symphony of the Seas will follow in May 2021, followed by Liberty of the Seas in July 2021.“

I would not expect Liberty to do a test cruise until she returns to Galveston after the dry dock.    So - Is Independence going to step in for  a month or so?

 

 

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1 hour ago, VAPAO said:

When will Royal address the Liberty sailings from Galveston.  It’s just a little over a month out.

Believe it or not, this isn't the closest we've gotten to sail date without an announcement

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/02/18/there-pattern-when-royal-caribbean-cancels-cruises

Short answer to your question is "no one knows"

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The difference is that no one actually believed that there would be sailings in November or December when we see the shortest lead times to cancel.

Royal wasn’t pretending that all cruises would start back up especially given the no sail order in 2020. 
 

BUT because Royal is communicating that They will resume sailings in July, then there are a large portion of people booked on those sailings that really think they will be sailing in July because they are not as informed as people who frequent message boards like this. 
 

there is only one Test sailing announced in June and we know every ship that wants to sail in July has to have a test cruise or have to meet the CDC threshold for vaccinated passengers and in some sailings that might not even be possible with the makeup of passengers sailing with children under 12 

Royal is still selling July cruises.

Symphony is currently in dry dock in Cadiz Spain and you can buy a spot in their “supposed”  July 3rd sailing 

tomorrow is June 1st. NCL and carnival has put out their schedules with July cruising but royal has not. One could argue if carnival will meet their early July dates since they have not announced test sailings. 
 

I get that Royal has a sincere desire to start cruising in July and is waiting to see if things change even more in a very fluid situation with Florida, the CDC, PHE and the lawsuit 

if I were running the business I wouldn’t want to cancel any more cruises either but at some point you have to stop being so short sighted and think about future business when you take these July customers that have fully paid for granted. 
 

I hope by the end of the week, we have a full picture of Royals plans for July. Stop the silence. It’s terrible PR

 

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Galveston confirms a port agreement with Royal Caribbean is close.

Source

Quote

The CDC requires the agreements as part of its Conditional Sailing Order issued in October 2020 and updated in April. Royal Caribbean International’s agreement was near completion on May 26.

 

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Funnily enough, when I clicked the above link, there’s the Carnival Vista moored at the dock. That’s ok, last Thursday, Carnival Players Club sent hubby a casino offer for a cruise in either July or August. We could not say no ( Club Royale has not been so generous lately ) and we’re booked on the Vista for the July 17th cruise. It’s all good, lol. Hope to sail out of Galveston on the Explorer in late August. 

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On 6/2/2021 at 12:24 PM, SpeedNoodles said:

Live footage of her arriving in Galveston (so this view is only good for a little while here, lol)

https://www.cruisin.me/cruise-port-webcams/united-states/galveston-texas3/

She's not moving anymore but that's okay to me! I'll just stare at her and the carnival vista and just enjoy them actually being here ??

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I just spoke with RC and confirmed my Liberty of the Seas reservation for 8/29/21 will be automatically changed to sail on Independence of the Seas. Everything the same except different ship! She said it would reflect the change on June 18th. So excited to still be sailing from Galveston in August! 

 

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9 minutes ago, Rory said:

I just spoke with RC and confirmed my Liberty of the Seas reservation for 8/29/21 will be automatically changed to sail on Independence of the Seas. Everything the same except different ship! She said it would reflect the change on June 18th. So excited to still be sailing from Galveston in August! 

 

That is great!  We are on Liberty in September and we're wondering how that would work.

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6 hours ago, redraider629 said:

Hopefully that happens, our reservation is showing up as cancelled on the cruise planner.

Update:  I was also told by Royal that our sailing is being transferred to indy as well.  Plus we get an extra day! Yay!

Same. Our Liberty cruise was available as of about 8 hours ago. Now it shows cancelled.

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I am wondering how long they are going to keep Independence in Galveston.  If I am correct to move to a different port would they not yet again have to do a test cruise since the ship will have a different port agreement.  Sounds like till the current requirements are through they will probably not want to constantly have to do test cruises to move ships since they lose money on those which would put Independence in Galveston for the next 6 months to a year and Liberty elsewhere.

Will be interesting to see though since I am booked B2B on Liberty starting Oct24th.  

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3 hours ago, MuttMutt said:

I am wondering how long they are going to keep Independence in Galveston.  If I am correct to move to a different port would they not yet again have to do a test cruise since the ship will have a different port agreement.  Sounds like till the current requirements are through they will probably not want to constantly have to do test cruises to move ships since they lose money on those which would put Independence in Galveston for the next 6 months to a year and Liberty elsewhere.

Will be interesting to see though since I am booked B2B on Liberty starting Oct24th.  

My mid-October Explorer out of Galveston was canceled today.  C&A rep advised (after Liberty returns from dry dock) that Indy would then replace Explorer from Galveston.   Explorer had been scheduled to sail short cruises up to October 25. 

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49 minutes ago, Zurc said:

My mid-October Explorer out of Galveston was canceled today.  C&A rep advised (after Liberty returns from dry dock) that Indy would then replace Explorer from Galveston.   Explorer had been scheduled to sail short cruises up to October 25. 

So Indy will take over the 4 and 5 night sailings from Galveston? We are scheduled on Adventure out of Galveston for 5 nights in November. We have not been canceled yet. 

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1 hour ago, Landry_TX said:

So Indy will take over the 4 and 5 night sailings from Galveston? We are scheduled on Adventure out of Galveston for 5 nights in November. We have not been canceled yet. 

I was just told about Explorer to Indy.  (Explorer was to leave Galveston October 25 on a repo).   Haven’t heard anything  about Adventure.

 

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5 hours ago, Mpr said:

We were booked on Indy out of miami July 3 2021 and just had our reservation moved to same room type of room at no extra cost on Odyssey for that same sailing date out of Fort Lauderdale. 

Nice!  You must be excited to sail on a new ship!! So will yours be her inaugural sailing?

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