Empress moved to Tampa for Cuba sailings

[MADflyer]

It appears that Empress of the Seas will sail the first Cuba sailing from Miami on the 19th of April.

 

The ship will move to Tampa on April 29th without passengers and begin service from Tampa.

 

Sailing from Tampa appear to continue from the port of Tampa with the first sailing on April 30th.

[MADflyer]

Port bookings currently would show Empress moving back to Miami for Cuba sailings upon the return of Rhapsody and Brilliance to Tampa in November of 2017.

[cruisinfromtampa]

Such an exciting development!

 

 

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[MADflyer]

Yes. The move to Tampa, while Rhapsody and Brilliance are away was a nice last minute surprise for the summer season.

 

I am not sure if these will be the first year that RCI will have year round sailings from Tampa or not.

 

As stated, it appears the ship moves back to the Miami home port again when the other ships return.

[cruisinfromtampa]

I do not recall Royal having a ship here year round, but I'm not positive. We're both in education, so it will be nice to have an option over the summer to get out for a few days without having to drive.

 

 

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[MADflyer]

Empress is confirmed to only be deployed to Tampa for the Summer season of 2017.

 

The ship will sail on a series of 4 and 5 night sailings.

 

http://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/16101-empress-of-the-seas-to-move-to-tampa-for-cuba-cruises.html

[troykahack]

Very old news

[TravelerThom]

Very old news

 

Really? It is news to me. When and where had you heard this?

[troykahack]

Really? It is news to me. When and where had you heard this?

 

On this board about 4 or 5 other Threads

[EatonDoolittle]

Really? It is news to me. When and where had you heard this?

 

I think you are kidding, but just in case, here is just one of the existing threads. Mods may have put them all together, there were so many yesterday.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2430367

[MADflyer]

And if you notice there, the first post on those merged threads is about 3 hours and 50 minutes after the first post on this thread. But anyway.....

 

This was a very last minute decision by RCI as far as port bookings go and they were done just the day prior to the cruises being posted on the RCI website.

 

What was later determined and released in the afternoon from RCI was the facts that this was only for the summer season and that the cruises following those posted earlier in the day would actually be a series of 4 and 5 day sailings.

 

That was not determined until they posted their press release and that was the purpose of the later post after they had made that announcement.