A number of cruise sites are reporting that Royal Caribbean Empress of the Seas is experiencing problems with one of its engines, causing the cruise line to alter the cruise ship’s current itinerary.
The popular Cruise Critic site says that the ship called on Nassau yesterday and visited CocoCay today but did not call on Grand Cayman as originally planned. The ship will call on Key West on Wednesday as planned. Cruise Critic quoted Royal Caribbean saying that the cruise line “will work on the issue, (while) the ship is sailing at a reduced rate of speed.”
There is no indication from Royal Caribbean when the problem will be fixed or whether future sailings will be altered as well.
Royal Caribbean is offering an onboard credit in the amount of 10 percent of the cruise fare paid, per cabin.
This gesture will not sit well with some cruise passengers currently on the Empress of the Seas, I suspect. Bahamas is not a particularly popular port in contrast to the Cayman Islands. The ship was transferred to Royal Caribbean from Pullmantur Cruises after a 50 million dollar cosmetic renovation first in a shipyard in Spain and later in Freeport, Bahamas. The delay resulted in at least a dozen cruises to be missed, much to the aggravation of families booked on the canceled cruises. Its a shame if there are passengers aboard who were on previous canceled cruises.
We last mentioned the Empress of the Seas in an April Fool’s spoof.
Photo credit: Jsausley CC BY-SA 4.0.