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Serenade - Cozumel changed to Bahamas for September and October cruises - Wondering about December


levib2

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interesting.  everything on Royal's website in October on Serenade is showing Bahamas stops (the 5-nighters to Nassau & Coco Cay, the 4 nighters to just Coco Cay).  

Then in November, everything shows Mexican stops, until Nov 27th, where it switches back to the Bahamas.  I have a Nov 8th sailing on Serenade so mine is still showing Cozumel / Costa Maya for now.  No changes.  I just booked it this week.

Our Nov 3rd sailing on Oasis was swapped from Labadee to Cozumel due to geo-political reasons, so I wonder if early and Mid November they are just maxxed out at Nassau and Coco Cay and can't re-direct any more vessels there?  I like Matt's theory, but maybe they can't do Bahamas with every ship & have to pick their battles.  🤔

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Our itinerary on Mariner Nov 20-25 was originally stopping Cozumel and Costa Maya, now the Costa Maya day changed to Perfect day, but only on the shore excursion calendar, where it was previously Costa Maya, but the change is not on made on the full calendar yet. I wonder if the change is in the works but not fully cycled through yet.  I'd be happy either way, but it is interesting. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

update: 

signed into rc.com today, and our Nov 3rd 4-nighter on Oasis has changed from Cozumel to Nassau / Coco Cay.  The cruise planner reflects the stops although there are virtually no excursions to choose from (Thrill water park at Coco Cay not even showing up).  I think this is a very recent change.  Have not received an email from the TA yet.  This sailing was already swapped once, from Labadee, to Cozumel, and now to the Bahamas.

I have a Side-to-Side right after that, on Monday Nov 7th on Serenade out of Tampa, and that one is still showing Cozumel / Costa Maya.  I wonder if this will be the next domino to fall. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have no doubt that part of what is playing here is that Caribbean ports - the ones that are ostensibly open to cruise ships - are limiting how many ships they will host. Part of that is country or locally specific mitigation measures to reduce cruise passenger overload in the surrounding city.

As RCL sets out to ramp up sailings, they're finding that operationally berthing space is limited and port agents may be finding local authorities reluctant to have 6000 or more cruise passengers descend on their city. There's still a lot of COVID fear and apprehension. I know berthing space was a factor on our recent Apex sailing that was to port in Lisbon Portugal. That port call got cancelled and replaced with a sea day.

This weekend there was an article in the Economist about Asia reopening to tourism.  The most striking finding involving this process was that the Asian countries that most depended on tourism as a staple of their economies were the one's opening up much slower to tourists, being selective about which citizens can visit for a holiday and were likely to have more restrictive COVID mitgation measures in place.

One factor dictating slow openings according to the various Asian travel ministers interviewed for the article was concern about overwhelming hotels, bars and restaurants that had been closed for nearly 2y. One has to acknowledge, restarting travel and leisure dependent economies is not a whole lot different than restarting a cruise ship, just on a much larger scale. 

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1 hour ago, JeffB said:

I have no doubt that part of what is playing here is that Caribbean ports - the ones that are ostensibly open to cruise ships - are limiting how many ships they will host. Part of that is country or locally specific mitigation measures to reduce cruise passenger overload in the surrounding city.

As RCL sets out to ramp up sailings, they're finding that operationally berthing space is limited and port agents may be finding local authorities reluctant to have 6000 or more cruise passengers descend on their city. There's still a lot of COVID fear and apprehension. I know berthing space was a factor on our recent Apex sailing that was to port in Lisbon Portugal. That port call got cancelled and replaced with a sea day.

This weekend there was an article in the Economist about Asia reopening to tourism.  The most striking finding involving this process was that the Asian countries that most depended on tourism as a staple of their economies were the one's opening up much slower to tourists, being selective about which citizens can visit for a holiday and were likely to have more restrictive COVID mitgation measures in place.

One factor dictating slow openings according to the various Asian travel ministers interviewed for the article was concern about overwhelming hotels, bars and restaurants that had been closed for nearly 2y. One has to acknowledge, restarting travel and leisure dependent economies is not a whole lot different than restarting a cruise ship, just on a much larger scale. 

I don't think it's as much limiting how many ships can be there (with regard to covid), but the fact that having 3 destinations closed for various reasons (Cayman, DR, Labadee), 1 just ramping up (Jamaica), and the geography of the Caribbean making it not practical to go to other countries with those others closed just causes a log jam at the countries that are open

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