Celebrity Millennium and Adventure of the Seas to set sail for Caribbean a week apart in early June

Royal Caribbean has just announced a new timetable for its return to cruising in the Caribbean, come June.

According to the company, travelers will first be able to set sail again on its ship Adventure of the Seas for seven-night cruises starting in June onboard two of its vessels, Celebrity Millennium and Adventure of the Seas.

Among the precautions the cruise line is taking to reduce the chance of COVID-19 transmission is the fact that all its crews will be fully vaccinated, only adult travelers who have been vaccinated will be permitted on board and guests under 18 will have to have negative test results.

The Celebrity Millennium will relaunch on June 5 from St Maarten. One itinerary will stop in Aruba, Curacao and Barbados and another will stop in Tortola, St Lucia and Barbados.

Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, CEO of Celebrity Cruises, a Royal Caribbean subsidiary, said returning to the Caribbean “marks the measured beginning of the end of what has been a uniquely challenging time for everyone”.

The Adventure of the Seas will start a week later with a voyage leaving from its new home port in Nassau, Bahamas.

The trips will take an itinerary that brings vacationers to islands including Royal Caribbean’s private island Perfect Day at CocoCay and on to Cozumel, Mexico.

Colleen McDaniel, editor of Cruise Critic, a website that reviews cruises, stated that, “with the Caribbean such a popular destination, it’s not entirely surprising to see both Celebrity and Royal Caribbean finding a way to return to the region”.

She described this news as massive for the cruise industry, and for the Caribbean itself.

Ships were grounded by CDC’s restrictions

America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has held up cruise ship operations in U.S. waters since March 2020, although it has laid out guidelines for cruises to resume with conditional sailing certificates.

Cruise operators have been struggling to make it through what has become a year-long suspension of sailing.

Last week, Royal Caribbean announced it had sold its upmarket cruise line, Azamara, to private equity firm, Sycamore Partners for just over US$200 million. That sale included three ships and related intellectual property.

Earlier this month, Royal Caribbean issued almost 17 million shares of common stock, raising about US$1.5 billion. Prior to that capital raise, Chairman and CEO Richard Fain said, in a business update, “we remain confident about the ability of our company to recover and return to the positive trajectory we were on previously”.

Post pandemic experience

The cruise industry overall has carried more than 350,000 passengers since the pandemic with “minimal disruption,” according to Fain.

He argued that, “no longer are we talking about when will cruising restart, cruising has already restarted”.

He reported that Royal Caribbean’s post-pandemic cruises have received higher ratings from guests than pre-pandemic.

He described the coronavirus vaccines are a “game changer”, but could not yet say if all Royal Caribbean sailing would require them from guests.