Summer 2025 Royal Caribbean Norway

[Jennywren113]

My husband and I previous did a few Royal Caribbean cruises (pre-pandemic). Our last cruise was summer 2019 (Brilliance - Iberian), we stopped as we bought a campervan and have spent lots of time travelling in that. However we are thinking of returning to Cruising in the next few years. 

We live in Bournemouth which is basically about 30 minutes drive from Southampton so it makes sense to sail from there to keep the costs down. I turn 50(!!!!) in 2025 so fancy doing the Norwegian Fjords again, our first ever cruise was on Indy in 2013 and where my husband proposed so it would be nice to return.

    

I was originally looking at going on P&O Iona but then started looking at videos of RCI cruises and have come full circle again. All of our cruises have been Royal except for a short 2 night (booze cruise) on Celebrity Silhouette so it makes sense really to stick with Royal as we are only 20 points from Diamond status. 

 

Anyway......Does anyone know or have a rough idea when Royal release their Summer 2025 schedule for sale?  Also, it has been so long since I have looked into any of this, is immediate release the absolute best time to book?  Presuming the ship will still be Anthem, or do we think they might swap in something different? Hoping to book a balcony midship (we went on Ovation Inaugural sailing and that's what we had then and it was perfect) but if the money was right I would happily take a junior suite (double points means we are closer to diamond obviously) plus it's a suite, so you know!! 

 

Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on this 🙂 Thanks 

[little britain]

Itineraries should be released towards the end of this year. Rumour has it Odyssey will be coming to Southampton summer 2025 🤞 but assume Anthem which is a fabulous ship anyhow. JS on Anthem are good sized cabins too 

[sgmn]

This is a good thread to follow, though it sometimes goes off on unrelated tangents 

 

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, Jennywren113 said:

Does anyone know or have a rough idea when Royal release their Summer 2025 schedule for sale? 

Look for the 2025-2026 deployment thread (which will discuss this) in late summer.

[Jennywren113]

4 hours ago, little britain said:

Itineraries should be released towards the end of this year. Rumour has it Odyssey will be coming to Southampton summer 2025 🤞 but assume Anthem which is a fabulous ship anyhow. JS on Anthem are good sized cabins too 

Excellent, I like rumours like that 🙂 We did wonder if they would mix it up a bit. Thanks, I shall now be searching loads of Odyssey vids on YouTUbe, that will keep me busy for a while.   

[Jennywren113]

2 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Look for the 2025-2026 deployment thread (which will discuss this) in late summer.

Thanks, I tried to find a thread like this but wasn't sure where or what to search for 🙂 

[Jennywren113]

3 hours ago, sgmn said:

This is a good thread to follow, though it sometimes goes off on unrelated tangents 

 

Haha, I will check it out 🙂 Thanks 

[Biker19]

5 minutes ago, Jennywren113 said:

Thanks, I tried to find a thread like this but wasn't sure where or what to search for 🙂 

Before the summer, there's virtually no info that far out so the thread is usually not started till then.

[sgmn]

15 hours ago, Jennywren113 said:

Thanks, I tried to find a thread like this but wasn't sure where or what to search for 🙂 

The 25/26 hasn't been started yet as far as I know. 

@Biker19usually starts it in August 

Edited April 12, 2023 by sgmn

[FionaMG]

@Jennywren113

If you want to do Norway, don't leave it any later than 2025. It's looking likely that the big cruise ships will be banned from the fjords from 2026.

And if returning to the fjords is a real bucket list trip and you can make it work, I would consider going next year (2024) instead, just in case. I'm sure you can find somewhere else amazing for your big five-oh! 😉

[Jennywren113]

1 hour ago, FionaMG said:

@Jennywren113

If you want to do Norway, don't leave it any later than 2025. It's looking likely that the big cruise ships will be banned from the fjords from 2026.

And if returning to the fjords is a real bucket list trip and you can make it work, I would consider going next year (2024) instead, just in case. I'm sure you can find somewhere else amazing for your big five-oh! 😉

Oh wow, I didn’t realise this was a thing. Just looked it up. Similar situation to Venice I guess. I naively hadn’t really considered the environmental factors of cruising. Lots to think about, not sure I’m ready to go down that rabbit hole 😞 

[RobInMN]

I completely understand how Southampton is obviously much cheaper and easier for you, but if you can get to Amsterdam easily, they run the Radiance class from Amsterdam (Jewel the last few years and next), on itineraries they call "Arctic Circle", it's basically a Norwegian Fjord cruise, but does a couple ports above the Arctic Circle, including the northern most port Honningsvag. From there, the main tour (ship or 3rd party) will take you to Nordkapp (North Cape), the northern most point in continental Europe.

We loved doing that, and feel that only doing the lower Fords and more populous cities in the south, you kind of miss part of the beauty of Norway. Not to mention ticking off the Arctic Circle box, and experiencing 24 hours of daylight (actual day light, not twilight). 

 

[Jennywren113]

1 hour ago, RobInMN said:

I completely understand how Southampton is obviously much cheaper and easier for you, but if you can get to Amsterdam easily, they run the Radiance class from Amsterdam (Jewel the last few years and next), on itineraries they call "Arctic Circle", it's basically a Norwegian Fjord cruise, but does a couple ports above the Arctic Circle, including the northern most port Honningsvag. From there, the main tour (ship or 3rd party) will take you to Nordkapp (North Cape), the northern most point in continental Europe.

We loved doing that, and feel that only doing the lower Fords and more populous cities in the south, you kind of miss part of the beauty of Norway. Not to mention ticking off the Arctic Circle box, and experiencing 24 hours of daylight (actual day light, not twilight). 

 

This sounds amazing and it is a fantastic itinerary.  However like you said, it does mean added expense of travelling to Amsterdam. We have also been on three radiance class ships (Serenade, Jewel and Brilliance) and as much as they are lovely ships we wanted a change to a different class to change things up. Brilliance was very tired in 2019 but chose that for the itinerary (Iberian) and we were a little underwhelmed to be honest. Maybe being spoiled on Serenade for our honeymoon and Jewel for Greek islands, radiance class became a little too familiar. 
When we did Norway on Indy in 2013 the one thing we wanted was more inside areas where you could see out so I guess Quantum class ticks those boxes for us. 
Oh, to have loads of money to do it all! I would spend my whole life alternating between the campervan and cruise holidays! 
Thanks for the suggestion though! I would love to see the 24hr daylight thing. 

[Jenna1983]

7 hours ago, Jennywren113 said:

Oh wow, I didn’t realise this was a thing. Just looked it up. Similar situation to Venice I guess. I naively hadn’t really considered the environmental factors of cruising. Lots to think about, not sure I’m ready to go down that rabbit hole 😞 

Oh it’s a big thing. I was in Bergen/Oslo/other parts of Norway in the fjord towns last fall by land/public transport/electric boat stuff. I expressed a fjord safari interest on a Norway forum and the amount of people who downvoted me was unreal. I had no idea. I spoke with a good amount of people who expressed their dislike for the cruise ship industry. And there were tons of signs up everywhere (I think it’s a campaign) about how they don’t want cruise ships and passengers. Norwegians really  don’t need cruise ships to survive. And they want them gone. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Jenna1983

[Mikamarii]

Norway has always been my number 1 bucket list country. We had a trip planned in 2021 but something happened....can't quite remember what...but everyone had to cancel all their travel plans.

 

We're are doing a 2025 trip as well and have my TA already putting us on a list to book rooms the day they are released. Looking at 2024 prices now compared to last Oct/Nov they have jumped quite a bit. I want to do a land trip to Norway but being able to visit the northern tip feels like a must do and with kids in tow, cruising is the best/easiest way