Hurricane Rina has forced Royal Caribbean to change the itinerary for Allure of the Seas. Royal Caribbean announced that Allure of the Seas will not stop in Cozumel, Mexico as scheduled on Friday.
Instead, Allure of the Seas will stop in Nassau, Bahamas on Friday. Royal Caribbean made no other changes to its schedule.
Royal Caribbean has announced that Independence of the Seas, which has been based out of the United Kingdom, will be based in the Caribbean for the 2012-13 season. The move will offer American three Freedom-class ship options in 2012-2013 cruise season
Independence will depart her home in Southampton, England on November 22, 2012 and arrive at Port Everglades, Florida on December 5. She will offer six and eight-night itineraries before returning to the UK in April 2013.
Royal Caribbean's president and group managing director, UK, Ireland and Northern Europe, Dominic Paul, commented on the move, “Independence of the Seas has been an instant hit with British guests and homeporting it out of Southampton has played a significant role in growing our market share and building brand awareness. We continue to gain great support from our trade partners and know that they will support Independence of the Seas during her winter season in the Caribbean."
The cruise business was good for Royal Caribbean in the Middle East, as the company reported a record year of business for Middle Eastern cruises in 2011. The amount of guests Royal Caribbean saw rose 34% compared to the previous year.
Europe remained the most popular destination for passengers from the Middle East. with approximately 75 percent of all bookings from the region were made for European cruises. Following Europe was the Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean's Executive Director of the Middle East, Lakshmi Durai, commented on the news, "All markets performed well and showed positive growth compared to last year. We are very happy with the support we get from travel agencies around the region and our education programme as well as marketing and PR activities are successfully demonstrating the advantages of cruising as a holiday option for guests in the Middle East."
For the 2010/2011 cruise season, 135 ships brought a total of around 375,000 passengers to Dubai. Abu Dhabi received 78 calls by cruise liners with around 140,000 passengers disembarking and 109 cruise ships called at Muscat Port carrying 340,000 passengers in 2010.
Some bad weather in the Caribbean yesterday forced Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas to miss a port of call. Freedom of the Seas was scheduled to stop at Grand Cayman yesterday but instead took a sea day.
The main reason for not stopping at Grand Cayman was the waves were too big for tenders to safely transport passengers to and from the ship.
Freedom of the Seas was the only Royal Caribbean ship affected by the foul weather, whereas five Carinval Cruise ships and a Norwegian Cruise Line ship had to alter their itineraries in one way or another.
Legend of the Seas kick started the start of cruise travel between the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong with a 5-night cruise to Hong Kong and Taiwan from Xiamen, China on October 19th.
Two thousand passengers boarded the Vision class ship and it's the first cruise route with Xiamen as the port of embarkation.
A total of 21 cruise routes (13 start from Xiamen) will be launched from March to October next year to cover trips to Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.
Thanks to an increased demand in the Persian Gulf region, Royal Caribbean has decided to extend its third consecutive season in the Gulf to six months. This will run from November 2011 through April 2012 and will be the longest season ever for Royal Caribbean in the region.
Cruises during this season will be comprised of 18 round trip 7-night sailings and two Dubai and India 12-nights sailings. Brilliance will starts her 7-night itineraries in Dubai, then sail to Fujairah and dock in Muscat, where guests can enjoy an overnight stay in the port. Brilliance then continues with a sea day, via Abu Dhabi and then back to Dubai.
In addition, Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line in the region that will offer two new 12-night sailings that include stops in India. Coming from Dubai, Brilliance of the Seas will spend three days at sea before stopping in Goa, New Mangalore and Cochin before docking in Muscat and then sailing back to Dubai.
The Allure of the Seas will be the backdrop for a new TV travel series hosted by comedian Paul Merton in the United Kingdom. The Channel 5 show, Paul Merton’s Adventures, is begins on Wednesday October 19 at 9pm.
Merton will take a cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's mega-shop and will showcase Merton's onboard activities such as zip lining.
During the filming, Merton was impressed by the size of the ship, "I was amazed by the vastness of the vessel. You only appreciate how tall the ship is when you disembark and realise you’ve been in a floating tower block.”
Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas was the site for the premiere of DreamWorks' new animated film, "Puss in Boots" and Hollywood's celebrities showed up for the event.
Stars of the film Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek walked the red carpet along with the film's director, Chris Miller, and DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Joining them was Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein.
Katzenberg described the process to create the film as needing 400 artists working for four years to complete the project. Puss in Boots is a prequel to the events of the Shrek fims.
The movie premiere was described as the first-ever movie premiere at sea.
Royal Caribbean Australia is helping to provide fun experience for the children of Camp Quality, a camp for children who are living with cancer. Recently, Royal Caribbean held a fun day aboard Rhapsody of the Seas when it was docked in Sydney harbor.
Royal Caribbean's Public Relations Consultants, Gail D'Arcy of The D'Arcy Partnership, spoke about the experience, ""We invited not just the children who were unwell and their parents, but their siblings, who also share the stress of living with someone with cancer. The staff at Adventure Ocean kids' club were on hand to welcome our young guests, who spent the morning there and at the rock-climbing wall. Everyone had lunch in the main dining room and spent the afternoon in the swimming pool. It was such a great success, we did it again in Sydney in December that year."
In the coming year, Royal Caribbean will hold similar events aboard Radiance of he Seas when ti joins Rhapsody of the Seas from October until April 2012.
D'Arcy says Royal Caribbean will donate a nine-night South Pacific cruise aboard Rhapsody of the Seas again this November. Last November it gave Camp Quality a cruise to Noumea and Isle of Pines, to go to a family that deserved a holiday.
Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein spoke with the media following meetings with New South Wales, Australian authorities. Goldstein urged the leaders in New South Waves to do more, as they have "not fully taken on" the responsibility they have for the future of the cruising industry in Australia because of local issues.
Goldstein feels that Australia is starting to realize the economic benefits cruising brings to the country but it needs to do more to secure its spot. Goldstein said he has witnessed a "greater determination" by Australia since his last visit in 2009 but there's still more the country can do.
“I am not sure that New South Wales fully understands how critical it is that the cruising equation be right here in Sydney not only for its own benefit but for the benefit of the country,” he said. “Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and other cities will all benefit if Sydney is a robust hub of the cruise wheel but I don’t think the leadership in New South Wales has fully taken that on yet. They are very focused on their own issues and their own opportunities rather than viewing it in a more holistic way.”
Goldstein did say Royal Caribbean was involved in "preliminary discussions" about long term infrastructure issues as well as “touching on a number” of possible solutions, but declined to elaborate any further.