Independence UK 2020 sailings cancelled

[kernow]

8 minutes ago, akb5k said:

Just got my email canceling Independence of the Seas- and I had such a great deal because I booked early on Black Friday 😞 Wish they would honor your original booking sale/deal. We were booked to Norway, not sure why they suggested Anthem to Spain as a replacement?

Any opinions on Jewel to the Arctic Circle? What's a good price? Right now the price is crazy (to me) and it's a smaller older ship, definitely not my first choice, but I really want to see Norway! The other option is jumping ship (haha) to Crown Princess which is still more for 7 nights than my original 9 night trip on Indy, but cheaper than Jewel.

Have you looked at P and O, they usually have lots of Norway cruises?

[grapau27]

35 minutes ago, kernow said:

Have you looked at P and O, they usually have lots of Norway cruises?

P&O new ship Iona is doing a full season of 7 night Fjord cruises from Southampton next year.

[Saab4444]

48 minutes ago, akb5k said:

Just got my email canceling Independence of the Seas- and I had such a great deal because I booked early on Black Friday 😞 Wish they would honor your original booking sale/deal. We were booked to Norway, not sure why they suggested Anthem to Spain as a replacement?

Any opinions on Jewel to the Arctic Circle? What's a good price? Right now the price is crazy (to me) and it's a smaller older ship, definitely not my first choice, but I really want to see Norway! The other option is jumping ship (haha) to Crown Princess which is still more for 7 nights than my original 9 night trip on Indy, but cheaper than Jewel.

For Norway Jewel is a much better ship and she is only four years older than Indy. The Arctic Circle cruise is great but we did it for half the price some years ago.

[Saab4444]

1 hour ago, bigeck said:

Maybe Odyssey will take Indy's place in Southampton

Odyssey will be delivered in October 2020, too late for the summer season.

[Alohaaloha]

9 hours ago, rattla said:

 

Have you paid in full or only deposit as, people are saying you only get FCC for the amount you have actually PAID them so far... is this correct?

if so, as this is over a year away, I guess most have only paid deposits so far, so they would only get 25% credit on the deposit?

Future Cruise credit is on the cruise fare that would have been paid.

we've had our deposit refunded (£300) and £1200 FCC.

However, we lost our promotion of the drinks package and gratuities and we have been offered a balcony cabin for the same price as our Indy JS. 

We have rebooked Anthem.

[Windsurfer play mates]

RCCL have just lost themselves 2 Diamond Members. Presumably Loyalty means very little?

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Windsurfer play mates
Forgot something

[akb5k]

17 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

P&O new ship Iona is doing a full season of 7 night Fjord cruises from Southampton next year.

Honestly never occurred to me to check P&O- coming from the US it's not a line I'm familiar with (although I've seen their ships in port). Looks like a decent replacement option though. Think the Iona would be fairly similar to Royal Caribbean? We've also done some Princess and Disney cruises we liked. Not a fan of Norwegian or Carnival (sorry!). 

[kernow]

P&O are pretty much the British version of Princess to me, their ships are very similar. Quality wise I would say they are on a par with RCL. They are very British though, food, entertainment, and most of the passengers. 

[bigeck]

21 minutes ago, Saab4444 said:

Odyssey will be delivered in October 2020, too late for the summer season.

I wasn't sure when it was to be ready.

Maybe move Brilliance from Amsterdam. There was talk Amsterdam had substantially increased there port fees.

1 cruise line has stopped using Ijmuiden because of that. Can't remember what one 

[grapau27]

5 minutes ago, akb5k said:

Honestly never occurred to me to check P&O- coming from the US it's not a line I'm familiar with (although I've seen their ships in port). Looks like a decent replacement option though. Think the Iona would be fairly similar to Royal Caribbean? We've also done some Princess and Disney cruises we liked. Not a fan of Norwegian or Carnival (sorry!). 

It's a brand new ship being built now.

The new P&O ships are based on the sister brand Princess and not their owners Carnival.

We are D+ on RC which is our favourite line but P&O are our second favourite which we have sailed on 20+ times.

P&O are now gratuities included which is a big plus too.

Graham

[grapau27]

2 minutes ago, bigeck said:

I wasn't sure when it was to be ready.

Maybe move Brilliance from Amsterdam. There was talk Amsterdam had substantially increased there port fees.

1 cruise line has stopped using Ijmuiden because of that. Can't remember what one 

Hi Alec P&O now go to Ijmuiden instead of Amsterdam city because the port wanted to impose a tax per passenger of I believe €10.

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by grapau27

[bigeck]

34 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Hi Alec P&O now go to Ijmuiden instead of Amsterdam city because the port wanted to impose a tax per passenger of I believe €10.

 

Thanks Graham.

I couldn't remember the proper story

[Tin can]

10 hours ago, twangster said:

Sorry for the folks impacted but it was foreshadowed in recent earning calls with investors and subsequent executive interviews such as this one with Jason Liberty, CFO.

 

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/05/08/what-royal-caribbean-wants-investors-to-know.aspx\

 

    " Geographic hits and misses

 

     It's rare that booking patterns are strong in all regions of the world and like most years, we are seeing some variation this year.

          -- Liberty (on the call)

 

      The cruise line operator noted strong demand in the core Caribbean geography that accounts for about half of its global business. Volumes were surprisingly weak in Europe, meanwhile, likely due to economic uncertainty around Brexit.

 

      The company is responding by shifting some assets toward the U.S., and that move highlights a key advantage of Royal Caribbean's diversified approach to deploying its ships. "We've built a business model that can play in the rain," Liberty told me, so sluggish demand in any one area isn't likely to drag down overall results."

 

Brexit may not be the primary factor as this journalist speculates but regardless of the reason, bookings are soft in Europe.  Royal will always follow the money and put ships where they make money.  Shareholders expect no less.  

 

I don’t think Brexit has much to do with this. The cruise market in the UK was small but now is one of the fastest growing holiday markets here but TUI, MSC and P & O take the lions share.

 

The reason for this in my opinion is RCI have made a bit of a mess of the business model. Summer bookings are blighted by the ‘free’ drinks packages that Royal offers thinking that all of us need all inclusive. We don’t and I certainly don’t want to cruise with the associated problems that this brings. You only have to read UK sailing reviews over the summer to see constant references to drunken problems and brawls etc.

 

The second problem is the eye watering cost of UK Royal cruises. We are this summer flying to New York to sail 8 days on Adventure and it’s still the equivalent of $1000 cheaper than a week on the UK based ships.

 

I am UK based, I love Royal but my last two cruises with Royal were from Dubai and Port Canaveral and my next is from New York so this tells its own story of my view of Royal from the UK which is a shame.

 

Absolute sympathy for people affected though. 

[jimmieg]

6 hours ago, akb5k said:

Just got my email canceling Independence of the Seas- and I had such a great deal because I booked early on Black Friday 😞 Wish they would honor your original booking sale/deal. We were booked to Norway, not sure why they suggested Anthem to Spain as a replacement?

Any opinions on Jewel to the Arctic Circle? What's a good price? Right now the price is crazy (to me) and it's a smaller older ship, definitely not my first choice, but I really want to see Norway! The other option is jumping ship (haha) to Crown Princess which is still more for 7 nights than my original 9 night trip on Indy, but cheaper than Jewel.

If you can catch a break on one of the two Princess 14-day Norway cruises each summer out of Southampton, grab it.  One of the best cruises in 40+ and plan to do it again.

[ReneeFLL]

14 hours ago, kalaniiwow said:

Wow... I am so upset. I waited for nearly a year for these sailings to open, booked on one of the first days they were open to get the exact room I wanted (a balcony off the back of the ship) for the Canaries/North Africa cruise in Sept 2020 which was over my 40th birthday and which was also planned to coincide with a London trip. The ONE remaining itinerary on Anthem during that time period doesn't have the room type I wanted available and doesn't include some of the stops that I really wanted (Morocco, Normandy, etc).

I know this is totally #firstworldproblems but damn, I am really really upset. This was a huge trip for me (a bucket list 40th birthday trip) that I've spent dozens and dozens of hours researching and planning. Now that's all in the drain and I have to figure out something else.

 

Same here. We also had an aft facing balcony which are our favorite. We were on a b2b in the same cabin. There aren't any available now. Really sucks.

Edited May 10, 2019 by ReneeFLL

[ReneeFLL]

13 hours ago, upwarduk said:

Have you looked at Celebrity and Azamara, who are part of the same company?

We had a cruise cancelled on Indy, which was for my 70 th birthday. We were allowed to book a Celebrity cruise to Hawaii, although it wasn’t actually on my birthday. However, I was more than happy, as we had never been to Hawaii befiore.

 

13 hours ago, twangster said:

 

I've often assumed that European's are more savvy with their money spending less on board compared to American's.  Is that a fair assessment?

 

Do you think the higher base rates in Europe driven by the reduced revenue on board? Why are base fares so much higher in Europe?

 

We spend very, very little on board on Caribbean cruises.

 

13 hours ago, kalaniiwow said:

OK, they changed their minds on twitter. It's now 25% FCC based on the fare (no matter what you've actually paid as a deposit).

 

That's good to know. At least they aren't gutting us as much.

[Saab4444]

8 hours ago, bigeck said:

Thanks Graham.

I couldn't remember the proper story

Same applies for Cunard, MSC and some others, Ijmuiden or Rotterdam replacing Amsterdam.

[Saab4444]

9 hours ago, grapau27 said:

It's a brand new ship being built now.

The new P&O ships are based on the sister brand Princess and not their owners Carnival.

We are D+ on RC which is our favourite line but P&O are our second favourite which we have sailed on 20+ times.

P&O are now gratuities included which is a big plus too.

Graham

Iona is based on the AidaNova design, she will be a great option for 7 days Norway if you want a big new ship. She is bigger than Anthem or Indy and 7 days in a standard balcony cost about 1300 Euro including tips, this is half of Royal‘s 2020 Northern Europe fares. I also trust that the days of a very traditional British style are over with this class of ships.

[grapau27]

2 hours ago, Saab4444 said:

Iona is based on the AidaNova design, she will be a great option for 7 days Norway if you want a big new ship. She is bigger than Anthem or Indy and 7 days in a standard balcony cost about 1300 Euro including tips, this is half of Royal‘s 2020 Northern Europe fares. I also trust that the days of a very traditional British style are over with this class of ships.

Thanks,at 184,700 tons the new Iona is indeed a different class of ship.

[little britain]

....so in addition to removing 50% of the Uk capacity it looks like a 2 week September Anthem sailing has also disappeared... rumours of a charter...?

 

[molsonschooner]

20 hours ago, SAmome said:

Have you seen the prices they are charging for 3 night sailings that include coco cay 2020?  I think they'd make more money running 3 and 4 night sailings.

 

I think they need some 7 nighters as well as the short cruises. For a lot of people who have to either fly or drive a long distance the short cruises don't seem very appealing 

[beardedladies]

It's certainly an interesting strategy from RCI - they now have a lot of very annoyed UK customers (you should see the facebook comments!), it's now left many here in the UK with the impression of Royal as the line that will just cancel your holiday on you. And they now have a single ship in the UK next year that is literally priced 50% higher than the competition, including a brand new ship from P&O (and I'd expect to pay a premium for a new ship over a 5 year old one).

 

We were lucky that we have not booked Indy next year, having left booking a cruise September/October time due to the insane prices and had planned to see if prices crashed next year as they have this year once Royal realised it was very hard to sell with a 50% mark up.... seems they've instead gone with the strategy of pump up prices and count on enough die-hard loyalists stumping up the cash to fill one ship.

 

For the first time ever we're now seriously looking at P&O, one of those fjords trips looks mightily tempting.

 

 

[Marc47]

On 5/9/2019 at 11:55 AM, CruisingJoe09 said:

Could the Allure TA work better? 

 

And I totally agree that RCCL's actions were shambolic.

My wife and I have booked on Allure for the TA back to the US. I know we have to fly to Barcelona to board the ship but, it's a newer, bigger ship that will have had a major refit to bring her in line with Symphony before we sail. We had a great deal as we booked early and managed to snag an all inclusive drinks package into the deal. I do think however it's absolutely disgusting of RCI to pull Indy out in 2020 when so many people have booked on her. They obviously need high capacity ships in Coco Cay every day to help pay for the upgrade of the island, of which most things that you want to do whilst there are very expensive!!! Greed, greed ,greed.

[Marc47]

8 minutes ago, beardedladies said:

It's certainly an interesting strategy from RCI - they now have a lot of very annoyed UK customers (you should see the facebook comments!), it's now left many here in the UK with the impression of Royal as the line that will just cancel your holiday on you. And they now have a single ship in the UK next year that is literally priced 50% higher than the competition, including a brand new ship from P&O (and I'd expect to pay a premium for a new ship over a 5 year old one).

 

We were lucky that we have not booked Indy next year, having left booking a cruise September/October time due to the insane prices and had planned to see if prices crashed next year as they have this year once Royal realised it was very hard to sell with a 50% mark up.... seems they've instead gone with the strategy of pump up prices and count on enough die-hard loyalists stumping up the cash to fill one ship.

 

For the first time ever we're now seriously looking at P&O, one of those fjords trips looks mightily tempting.

 

 

My wife and I did our first P&O cruise just recently having previously sailed with RCI, Celebrity and Norwegian. To be honest we had a great time and have a 14 night Mediterranean cruise booked on Brittania next year purely because the prices are so much more reasonable. RCI have done a very bad thing to the British public that boils down to nothing more than pure greed. 

It's good now that there are so many other cruise lines to choose from with new ships offering much better value for money.

[cublet]

10 minutes ago, beardedladies said:

It's certainly an interesting strategy from RCI - they now have a lot of very annoyed UK customers (you should see the facebook comments!), it's now left many here in the UK with the impression of Royal as the line that will just cancel your holiday on you. And they now have a single ship in the UK next year that is literally priced 50% higher than the competition, including a brand new ship from P&O (and I'd expect to pay a premium for a new ship over a 5 year old one).

 

We were lucky that we have not booked Indy next year, having left booking a cruise September/October time due to the insane prices and had planned to see if prices crashed next year as they have this year once Royal realised it was very hard to sell with a 50% mark up.... seems they've instead gone with the strategy of pump up prices and count on enough die-hard loyalists stumping up the cash to fill one ship.

 

For the first time ever we're now seriously looking at P&O, one of those fjords trips looks mightily tempting.

 

 

Hello,

 

I think the whole RCL pricing model is seriously suspect as Celebrity is dearer than Cunard. OK, it's a value judgement over which of the two you prefer but I would say Cunard has the edge on service.

 

I find P&O claustrophobic as the ceilings are lower.

 

I'm glad I've already booked for Anthem but I think the chance of seeing a price reduction is less than zero.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet