Occasionally there can be oversold cruises, which leads to the question of why it can happen in the first place.
From a business perspective, the goal of every Royal Caribbean ship is to sail completely full, similar to how a restaurant wants to fill every table.
However, sometimes a few weeks before a cruise is scheduled to sail, it becomes clear the ship is oversold.
It's not that common, but there have been a few instances so far this summer that have garnered attention.
Incentive to change plans
Select guests booked on the Adventure of the Seas June 7 sailing received an email last week asking if they'd consider changing plans.
The email does not specifically say the ship is oversold, but similar emails to this have been sent in the past that we know allude to the fact the sailing is oversold and volunteers are needed.
"Ahead of our Adventure of the Seas, June 7, 2025, sailing, we are looking to see if you and your travel party have flexible travel arrangements," the email reads.
There are two options, if a passenger is interested in changing their plans, and both are quite lucrative.
The first is to change to a different 2025 sailing, and get a 50% refund of the cruise fare, plus $300 in onboard credit.
The other option is to cancel and get a 100% refund, plus a 100% future cruise credit to book an alternative sailing.
With each oversold ship, the offer from the cruise line differs, but essentially the proposition is the same: a full or partial refund, plus free money to spend on another cruise.
The emails go out and to date, have been effective in garnering volunteers as there have been no reports of guests showing up to the cruise terminal and denied boarding because there isn't a cabin for them.
Why Royal Caribbean oversells its ships
Some cruise fans want to know why cruise ships are oversold to begin with, and the answer lies with revenue management.
Royal Caribbean sails its ships every week, and they have a good handle on the rate of cancellations that regularly occur. It's a kind of prediction, where the line sells guaranteed cabins as a method to fill in cancelled rooms.
Guaranteed rooms don't have a cabin assigned at the time of booking. Instead, they get a room assignment at some point up until the sail date when an unsold cabin becomes available.
In some cases, the predictions don't work out and the ship is oversold. That's when emails similar to the one shown earlier in this article are sent out.
Royal Caribbean International Senior Vice President of Sales and Trade Support & Service, Vicki Freed, talked about why it happens during a question and answer session aboard Ovation of the Seas this past weekend.
A travel advisor asked her, "I've seen recently ships being oversold and clients being asked to change their sailing a week or two before departure. Seems like you've sold more guarantees than you have cabins. Can you explain how common that is and what the philosophy with that practice?"
The answer is selling guarantee cabins is something customers ask for, because it gets them a discounted rate. It's popular to begin with, and it serves a business need Royal Caribbean has to cover cancellations.
"Because of such high demand, we have been selling a lot more guarantees because travel partners said please have a lower price point," Ms. Freed explained.
She went on to say, "Occasionally we don't get the wash or the cancellations on the guarantees. And we are in an oversold situation."
To be clear, the cruise line prefers to avoid this situation from ever happening whenver possible, "we're not trying to do an oversold situation. That's not our goal. But we have to make sure that our ships are sailing at full capacity."
In that case, Royal Caribbean acts to fix it and emails like this are sent out.
"We never want to have people show up at the pier and saying, you are not going on the ship. It's not like an airline. We don't want to do that," she said.
And she's right. There have been no reports of anyone being turned away at the cruise terminal this year or last year because there aren't cabins available.
According to Ms. Freed, the cruise line reaches out to certain passengers who are more likely to want to cancel:
- People that live near the cruise port
- People that didn't buy airfare to get to the ship
- Passenger ages
"We'll just kind of say, do you think these people are flexible? And then we do offer them quite beautiful compensation to kind of go on to a different sailing with a nice upgrade."
Not only is there not a problem with someone getting denied boarding because there volunteers, but Royal Caribbean actually gets too much interest.
"Actually, many guests would love to be asked if they could have a refund on their cruise and a complimentary cruise," she quipped.
