Celebrity Cruises Reschedule Apex’s Drydock

Celebrity Cruises Reschedule Apex’s Drydock

Celebrity Apex arriving into Liverpool photo credit Spacejunkie2 (Flickr)

According to a statement sent to booked guests, Celebrity Cruises is rescheduling Celebrity Apex’s 2024 drydock.

“At Celebrity Cruises, we are passionate about providing award-winning vacation experiences. With this goal in mind, and in accordance with global safety guidelines, Celebrity Cruises will be revising Celebrity Apex’s season schedule to include drydock or routine inspection in 2025, instead of 2024 as originally planned,” the company said.

As a result, sailings onboard the ship which were scheduled to embark on November 9 and 21, 2024, and March 8, 2025, through April 26, 2025, have been cancelled.

Cancelled sailings included a 12-night transatlantic crossing and a nine-night Caribbean cruise in November, in addition to a series of seven-night cruises to the Caribbean between March and April.

For any payment made toward the cancelled sailings, passengers will automatically receive a 100 per cent refund to their original method of payment, Celebrity said.

Pre-booked shore excursions, beverages, internet, speciality dining, or other onboard packages will also be fully refunded to their original method of payment, the company added.

Guests with hotel reservations booked through Flights by Celebrity will also be refunded automatically, the statement said.

“As we never wish to complicate your vacation planning, we sincerely appreciate your understanding. In hopes you’ll discover an alternative bucket-list vacation with Celebrity Cruises, we are happy to offer you $200 onboard credit per stateroom, and $400 onboard credit for Retreat accommodations, to be redeemed on a future cruise,” Celebrity concluded.

The second ship on the company’s Edge Class, the Celebrity Apex was delivered to Celebrity Cruises in April 2020.

Following several months of lay-up due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 129,500-ton ship finally entered service in June 2021, offering summer cruises in the Eastern Mediterranean.

During the 2024-2025 winter, the 2,900-guest ship is set to offer new itineraries in the Caribbean departing from the Celebrity’s homeport in Fort Lauderdale.

Norwegian Cruise Line Cancels More Sailings on Pride of America

Norwegian Cruise Line announced more cruise cancellations on Wednesday, citing ongoing travel restrictions.

Newly impacted, the company cancelled more cruises aboard the Pride of America, which will now restart in Hawaii in April as opposed to Feb. 26 as announced in an update last week.

The American-flagged ship was originally set to resume its program in Hawaii in January 2022, which has now been pushed back twice since the start of the year.

Impacted Cruises: 

• Norwegian Pearl cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 17, 2022
• Norwegian Dawn cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 18, 2022
• Norwegian Getaway cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 19, 2022
• Norwegian Escape cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 22, 2022
• Norwegian Joy cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 22, 2022
• Norwegian Breakaway cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 23, 2022
• Norwegian Sky cruises with embarkation dates through and including February 25, 2022
• Norwegian Jade cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 3, 2022
• Norwegian Star cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 19, 2022
• Norwegian Jewel cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 20, 2022
• Pride of America cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 2, 2022
• Norwegian Sun cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 19, 2022
• Norwegian Spirit cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 23, 2022

Future cruise credits touted as ‘huge opportunity’ for agents

Future cruise credits provided to customers for cancelled sailings due to Covid-19 are a “huge opportunity” for agents.

The claim came from Carnival Cruise Line as it introduced an FCC toolkit designed to support agents.

It details how agents can use FCCs to assist clients.

“With many guests opting for future cruise credits on cancelled sailings, FCCs represents a huge opportunity for travel agents to grow their business as their clients have already expressed an interest in booking their next cruise and have committed funds toward that next booking,” the US line said.

CCL global sales and trade marketing senior vice president Adolfo Perez added: “Clients with FCCs are such important leads for travel agents and this practical, easy to use took kit offers a variety of proven sales and marketing strategies, all designed to help advisors close more FCC business and expand their sales.”

The toolkit, available via a dedicated page on the GoCCL.co.uk website, includes:

• Lead reporting tool to help agencies note and follow up on pending FCCs
• Communications schedule to help agents organise client follow-ups
• Templates for FCC-focused emails, letters and phone calls
• Personalisation tools for agents to customise messages based on client needs and interests

Carnival Cruise Line cancelled all cruises from its US ports earlier this month apart from Miami and Port Canaveral for November and December.