andreasfcb

On the long Northern Europe itinaries you do not really have an other option than consuming on the ship. But you are probably right that the party people spend even more money.

Just a little thought from my side: Royal Caribbean has high prices (at least for European bookers) compared to their competition when they are sailing in Europe. I see prices often 1.5x or 2x per night compared to Caribbean cruises. After cruising over 10 times with Royal, we consider 200$ (per person and night in a plain double occupancy balcony cabin) as very cheap! It is normal to pay 250$ per person and night or more. Jewel was planned for the unicorn cruises (3x Iceland, 2x British Isles, 2x Arctic Circle). The prices are traditionally even higher there and cruisers are forced to book very expensive shore excursion (no other options). I highly, highly doubt that are going to profit more with their mini cruises in the Caribbean.

If I look at Celebrity cruises it looks like they have taken over all of the Northern destinations. I don't know if they already had those destinations before, but I have to admit that their decision is in line with our observations over the last years: The European crowd of cruisers in the Meds are younger (families, younger couples) than in Northern Europea (mostly older couples). The brand of Royal Caribbean shifts more and more towards action and consumation (bigger ships). Even though we are young, we don't welcome the latest changes. We cruise for the destinations, not for the ship. If I want to party or go to a beach, I don't need a ship. I just go to a nice beach in the Meds. My conclusion is that they just decided for the traditional Celebrity to take over the Northern ports that are popular only with experienced and older cruisers. They don't need the big party ships that Royal offers these days. It's probably time for us to check out Celebrity.

Time to summarize. Can't deny that I'm disappointed about the European ports: - No longer cruises anymore - Only large ships that can only stop in same Mediterranean ports - No cruises starting from Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Stockholm anymore - No regular Iceland, British Isles, Arctic Circle or Baltics anymore The only interesting we have left is Independence with some select Northern ports from Southampton. And even those cruises are mostly short, which is nonsense if you need longer to reach the starting port. This might be it for us with Royal Caribbean. At the moment, a cruise outside of Europe is not an option for us. We have already visited every Mediterranean port 2, 3 or even 4 times with Royal because they always visit the same ports.

Your images are broken @Jumping Cruiser. Probably because you dared posting Jewel.

We are not dead (yet)! 😂

Pics or it didn't happen 😄

According to Royal's logic, Jewel will be in California, Short Caribbean or China? 🤔

How is a TA possible if Jewel does not go to Europe (opposing to some people's opinion I still think Jewel will go to Amsterdam). 😉

Jewel now shows a cruise from Fort Lauderdale on October 31, 2025. Still nothing between April and October.

Does Royal usually release all the remaining cruises at this point? Still curious to see what Jewel is doing after April 2025, there is nothing out yet.

Nope, I'm basically checking every day since we have booked a cruise in summer 2024 from Southampton and depending on Jewel's schedule 2025 we might change it.

The world cruise pricing is insanity though.

Imo very low. Royal completely dropped the Stockholm/Copenhagen itinaries since Russia started the war. Seems to me, Royal thinks that people only want to visit St. Petersburg and the rest isn't interesting. We had Amsterdam for a few years now instead, but at the moment it looks like that could be dropped too. Independence does some limited Baltics sailings from Southampton, but that's it so far.

We only cruise Royal and we also hope for an Amsterdam cruise in 2025. There is still hope because the deployment of Jewel is not released yet and Royal still has reservations on a dozen of ports for Brilliance (Amsterdam, Scotland, Iceland). This could just be a random reservation, but they would have lifted it if no ship were coming.