Royal Caribbean has been forced to extend the current sailing of Explorer of the Seas by three days due to impending storms – which means the ship will leave late for its repositioning cruise and will miss out three Caribbean islands.
The next cruise was due to depart tomorrow, but will instead depart on Friday – skipping St Lucia, Barbados, Dominica and Antigua, and calling at St Maarten instead.
The cruise is till due to end in Miami on November 19th.
Passengers on both cruises have been offered compensation by Royal Caribbean.
Those on the current cruise can choose to fly home from Lisbon and Royal will cover up to £310 of expenses.
Those on the Transatlantic cruise can choose to cancel and receive a full credit against a future cruise, valid for two years.
Or, if they stay onboard they will receive:
• a pro-rata amount of credit on their onboard account for the missed days;
• Plus as a gesture of goodwill they will also receive a future cruise credit for the same value, valid for two years.
• Loyalty card members will receive the full number of loyalty points, despite the shortened length of cruise.
Royal sent the following letter to those due to depart on the Transatlantic cruise:
“We’ve been carefully monitoring four storms with our Chief Meteorologist, James Van Fleet, that have impacted the current Explorer of the Seas sailing, which in turn impacts our route while crossing the Transatlantic.
These storms are large, growing, and moving quickly, at different times. Unfortunately, when one passes, the other makes its way into our path. So, to avoid rough seas and a bumpy journey, we were forced to change our current itinerary, causing the ship to arrive in Southampton on November 8th, instead of November 5th.
As a result, we’ll set sail on November 8th and we’ll visit Philipsburg, St. Maarten as we make our way to Miami, Florida.
We are terribly sorry for this last-minute change, but know we made this decision to maintain a safe and comfortable journey.”
