As the world continues to work towards a new normal, the primary goal continues to be a healthy return to of cruising for guests, crew and the communities they visit. While working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other local health and government authorities towards this shared goal Royal Caribbean Cruises and Celebrity Cruises have made a decision to further extend the list of suspended sailings through February 28, 2021.
Furthermore Australia sailings for Royal Caribbean are cancelled through April 2021 and South America Cruises with Celebrity Cruise Line have cancelled their South America cruises through April 7, 2021.
Sailings aboard Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas from Singapore and Spectrum of the Seas from China remain as scheduled.
There are of course option for guests to either Lift & Shift their reservation to another date or receive full refunds.
So how confident are we that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruises will resume in 2021? With the fact that vaccines will start being distributed and the CDC setting the guidelines. We should see volunteer cruises starting in January and if those go smoothly, we feel pretty confident that cruises will return.
Royal Caribbean & Celebrity were not the only cruise lines to suspend more cruises. There have been several in the past couple of weeks. For example, Disney Cruise Line had already previously cancelled departures through January 31, 2021. Today three brands within Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings — Norwegian Cruises, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises all announced cruise suspensions as well. Seabourn has also cancelled sailings into 2021, with all vessels except Seabourn Odyssey delaying restart until April, May and June.
