Royal Caribbean informed travel agents that because of the Canadian Government restricting all cruise traffic through October, its Alaska, Hawaii, Canada & New England cruises were cancelled.
The cruise company indicated that itineraries touching on a Canadian cruise port through October were suspended.
Similar to other cancelled sailings due to the current global health crisis, RCC-Royal Caribbean Cruises is offering passengers 3 options:
- Lift & Shift. Guests can move their existing booking to next year, protecting the current price by electing to remain on the same sailing length, itinerary type, stateroom category, and within the same 4-week period of the original cruise date same-time-next-year. Opt-in deadlines include sailings departing June 12-July 31 (on-or-before June 10, 2020), Canada Port closures departing August 1-October 31 (on-or-before June 17, 2020).
- Future Cruise Credit (FCC). Passengers can receive an FCC for 125% of the money paid, to be redeemed on/before December 31, 2021, on voyages through April 2022. The option is automatic and defaults if neither of the other options is selected.
- Refund. If a refund is preferred, guests can opt to receive a 100% refund of the cruise fare. Refund requests are available through December 31.
Last week, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced it was extending the ban on cruises ships with over 100 people through October 31. Canada had originally closed off its borders to all cruise vessels carrying more than 500 crew and passengers until between April 2-July 1, 2020.
With no ability to visit ports in Canada, Royal Caribbean cannot legally offer sailings due to the U.S. cabotage laws that require foreign-flagged ships leaving from a U.S. port of call to first call on a "distant foreign port" prior to returning to the USA.
The list of affected RCI ships (with cancelled cruises) includes the Alaskan ships Ovation OTS, Radiance OTS, Serenade OTS, and the Canada-New England ships (in brackets are their homeports) Empress OTS and Adventure OTS (roundtrips from NYC), Grandeur OTS (from Baltimore) and Brilliance OTS (from Boston). The cancelled Hawaiian itineraries were relocation voyages (RepositionCruises.com) from Alaska to Australia.