andreasfcb

I'm closely following it because Jewel seems our only possible option to cruise Royal in 2025. There is nothing new yet as far as I know.

I'm from Switzerland (as my profile says), but we have a similar POV as Germany regarding credit card debt. It is also strictly regulated (see below). This is an interesting stat, please let me clarify: Short version: Switzerland has mostly mortgage debt, nothing else. Long version: In Switzerland, you cannot get a credit card limit higher than a fraction of your monthly salary. Due to this regulation we have close to 0 credit card debt in average. We also have basically 0 student loans because public schools are free and universities cost around USD 1500 per year. The reason for the seemingly "extreme" debt is our mortgage system. In Switzerland, you never have (and you never want) to pay off your mortgage of your house. By law, you only need to pay back 33 % of the total value of the house, the rest can be loaned for ever. Due to low interest rates (low inflation leads to low interest rates, right now a 10 year loan on a house costs around 2 % per year), it is not really desirable to pay off your house. You can even deduct the interest rate from your taxes. Due to this system, housing prices are pretty high: An average house never goes for lower than 1 Million USD, except if you completely move outside of metropolitan areas. This means that, even though people have high debt (due to their loans that they never pay back), they have even higher wealth (because the houses have a high value). So if you take the wealth minus the debt, there is still a big plus. // Sorry for the off-topic. Where is the damn Jewel cruise from Amsterdam. 😄

As a European, I cannot understand how something like credit card debt exists. We get a bill for the credit card in the end of the month which has to be paid to get a zero balance.

Damn, I feel old now.

I am still hopeful Royal sends a ship (Jewel) to Northern Europe in 2025. As mentioned in this thread, several ports show bookings for Brilliance (probably placeholder) on multiple dates. I don't think they just do that for fun. Here are the dates I found so far from the ports and/or this thread: 14.05.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) ???? 26.05.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) ???? 07.06.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) ???? 19.06.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) 22.06.2025 Seydisfjordur 23.06.2025 Akureyri 24.06.2025 Isafjordur 25.06.2025 Reykjavik 01.07.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) 16.07.2025 Lerwick 13.07.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) ???? 25.07.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) 28.07.2025 Reykjavik 29.07.2025 Isafjordur 30.07.2025 Akureyri 31.07.2025 Seydisfjordur 06.08.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) ???? 18.08.2025 Amsterdam (12 Nights) ???? 30.08.2025 Amsterdam (TA) 01.09.2025 Lerwick 03.09.2025 Reykjavik 04.09.2025 Reykjavik

There is still hope for Jewel. I haven’t read any confirmation that Jewel won’t come to Amsterdam.

You should go for that. Absolutely fantastic cruise! The only downside is the short stay on Svaldbard and the weird overnight stop in Honningsvag. We have already visited Geiranger twice, so that missing port wouldn't bother us so much.

This cruise seems insane! A shame though that it is in August, I would go in June, If I remember correctly it only stays in Svalbard for one day. That's a bit a shame for such a long trip.

Joke's on you, it literally says Royal Caribbean International.

Let's hope for the best that it won't be too long until we find out. It would suck to wait for something better and then be too late to book another one.

Just FYI, the blog does not mention any official confirmation of the reduction in Europe. All they did was checking the current deployment according to the website. There is still hope for Jewel.

Looking closer, I think they even had better arctic TA before. Only one stop in Iceland (could easily add Isafjordur in the West) and only two in Greenland.

I actually got it from the page Jumping Cruiser gave me above. Direct link: https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/2025_Unique_Sailings

I just found the missing information. Apparently, Brilliance directly crosses the Atlantic after the repositioning: Brilliance of the Seas 8-Night Spain & Portugal August 22, 2025 Barcelona, Spain • Palma De Mallorca, Spain • Valencia, Spain • Cruising • Lisbon, Portugal • Porto (Leixoes), Portugal • La Coruna, Spain • Cruising • Southampton, England Brilliance of the Seas 15-Night Iceland & Greenland August 30, 2025 Southampton, England • Cruising • Glasgow (Greenock), Scotland • Cruising • Reykjavik, Iceland (2 days) • Cruising • Qaqortoq, Greenland • Cruising • Nuuk, Greenland • Cruising (2 days) • Sydney, Nova Scotia • Halifax, Nova Scotia • Cruising • Boston, Massachusetts

Thanks a lot, I could not remember the site and I searched for ages... All I came up was creative.rccl.com, but this URL does not have a public site (anymore?).

Does anybody have the official documents (PDF) of all European cruises in 2025? I have only seen partial screenshots in this thread, but I would like to see and print the documents to get a better overview.

It would be nice if they were overnight, so you could actually get a taste of those places. But many Greek islands are overcrowded and tendering, which may be unattractive for many people. To be fair, RC probably didn't plan so many Greek cruises, but they decided to cancel all stops in Israel (at least Odyssey).

We share your sentiment. As Europeans, we have done many cruises in the Med, Northern and Baltics. To be honest, we feel a little bit disappointed because Royal seems to offer the very same cruises every year. There would be many interesting places that other companies offer. We have not cruised with other companies yet, but are slowly considering it.

Interesting. I closely followed the booking status of the long Anthem cruises and we never managed to get a decent cabin or price. Suites are sold out for ages on the beaches or cities cruise, and the prices were horrible when they still were available. As of now, they have reduced the prices of balcony canons by at least 50 %, so maybe they were not able to sell those.

Obviously I meant midnight sun, or polar day. 😉

If I understand correctly, Indy is replacing Anthem. But where are the longer cruises? There seems no European (Southern) Cities or Beaches cruise anymore. These were quite popular and long (14 nights). Now I only see one Canaries cruise (12 nights), the rest is quite short.

Late summer/fall makes no sense for Northern Europe, you will miss the polar night and get choppy seas instead. The only thing that would make sense to me: an August transatlantic crossing through Iceland and Greenland.

I cannot imagine that they would do that. They normally don't release all cruises at once. Isn't Jewel still an option?

Nope. Looking at the map, I think it was somewhere at Westpoort. I don't remember which branch exactly though.

We had to disembark there. It was not too far, but not at all nicely accessible in comparison to the city port.