Adventure of the Seas

Royal Caribbean announced this evening that due to the anticipated path of Hurricane Danny in the Atlantic, two Royal Caribbean cruise ships will have their itinerary changed.

Adventure of the Seas, which departs from San Juan, Puerto Rico, will not call on St. Johns, Antigua, Castries, St. Lucia and Bridgetown, Barbados this weekend.

Oasis of the Seas will also skip her scheduled Eastern Caribbean itinerary and instead, sail a Western Caribbean route with stops in Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico.

Royal Caribbean also indicated passengers sailing on Freedom of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas and Independence of the Seas to stay tuned for further updates if the storm's track will impact their itinerary.

Royal Caribbean is monitoring the progress of Hurricane Danny and will make further updates as needed.

Southampton, England is welcoming back two Royal Caribbean ships for the summer 2014 season, Independence of the Seas and Adventure of the Seas.  Their arrival kicks off the 2014 summer seasons for the second year in a row.

Adventure of the Seas arrived back on May 4th while Independence of the Seas will return on May 17.

Adventure of the Seas returns with new upgrades and features, including flat screen TVs in every stateroom. Giovanni's Table, Wi-Fi throughout the ship, a new Concierge Lounge for suite guests, a Diamond Lounge for Crown & Anchor Society members and digital signage throughout the ship.

Adventure of the Seas will offer 7 to 16-night cruises around the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, in addition to shorter sailings closer to home.

Independence of the Seas will offer new itineraries, including more, shorter sailings such as  three-night cruises to Le Havre for Paris and four night cruises to Le Havre for Paris and Zeebrugge for Bruges.

The ship will also offer six night cruises to France and Spain, an eight-night cruise to Norway, various 14-night Mediterranean cruises, plus 11 and 12-night Canary Islands cruises as part of its 2014 summer season.

Royal Caribbean announced it will offer a full refund to all passengers on the March 23rd sailing of Adventure of the Seas and 50% off a future cruise after mechanical problems crippled the ship and forced it to remain in San Juan since Sunday.

Royal Caribbean did indicate Adventure of the Seas is planning on sailing as soon as possible, with stops in Antigua, St. Lucia and St. Croix as soon as possible.

Adventure of the Seas first reported a problem last week, when oil started leaking from one of its fixipods which required a signifigant decrease in propulsion.  The ship limped back to San Juan, where it has been ever since.

Passengers on last week's sailing and this week's sailing have been upset with Royal Caribbean over inconsistent communication.

Update: Due to delays on the 3/23 Adventure of the Seas sailing, guests onboard will receive a full refund & a 50% future cruise certificate

— Royal Caribbean (@RoyalCaribbean) March 26, 2014

The ship will continue on from San Juan to Antigua, St. Lucia and St. Croix as soon as possible.

— Royal Caribbean (@RoyalCaribbean) March 26, 2014

Over the weekend, Royal Caribbean had two of its ships impacted by two very different issues and we want to know what your opinion of how Royal Caribbean handled these incidents.

Photo by Houston Chronicle

First was Adventure of the Seas, who had a propulsion problem where in the middle of her Southern Caribbean itinerary the ship encountered oil loss from one of her fixipod units that forced its shutdown.  The result was she had to skip a couple of ports and travel at a slower speed.  Adventure of the Seas made it back to port yesterday in San Juan, albeit delayed.

The other incident was Navigator of the Seas was delayed a number of hours from docking in Galveston due to an oil spill in the harbor.  The incident affected other cruise ships as well and Navigator of the Seas was not able to dock in Galveston and let off its passengers and take on the new passengers until late Sunday.

In both cases, Royal Caribbean is being accused by some of poor communications by the cruise line to its passengers in terms of keeping them updated.  Some say Royal Caribbean did not effectively keep passengers onboard and on shore updated with what was happening and what the future may hold.  On the other hand, others point out many of the variables were out of the company's hands and when they did know something, they conveyed it.

We want to know what your opinion is of how Royal Caribbean handled both situations.  Comment in this post if you think they handled it well or not and why!

Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas has been forced to skip two ports of call after oil loss from its fixipod propulsion unit forced the crew to shutdown the pod.

Cruise Critic reports Adventure of the Seas will undergo repairs during her scheduled drydock on March 30 but Royal Caribbean says sailings between now and then will be unaffected.

Royal Caribbean confirmed the issue and issued this statement,"Yesterday, as Adventure of the Seas was arriving to St. Kitts, the ship became aware of oil loss from the ship's fixipod," Cynthia Martinez, director of global corporate communications for Royal Caribbean, told Cruise Critic. "Oil booms were immediately placed around the ship to contain the oil. Engineers required additional time in port in order to continue working on the issue." 

Repair work on the propulsion caused the Royal Caribbean ship to not leave St. Kitts until 3am and unfortunately engineers cannot fully repair the unit, so it will remain offline until Adventure of the Seas goes into dry dock March 30. This will cause the ship to sail at a reduced rate of speed.

As a result of the reduced speeds, Adventure of the Seas has cancelled its scheduled port calls to Aruba (March 20) and Curacao (March 21). Instead, Adventure of the Seas will visit Antigua today, St. Maarten on Thursday (staying overnight) and St. Croix on Saturday.

The United States Coast Guard has ended its search for the 26 year old Canadian that jumped off Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas on Saturday.

The Coast Guard released a statement that its 3-day search for Tien Phuoc Nguyen has concluded despite efforts by Royal Caribbean and the Coast Guard to rescue him.

After being reported he was overboard, Adventure of the Seas' Captain immediately stopped the ship and began searching.  This was followed by the Coast Guard's effort as well.

Meanwhile, the FBI is trying to determine what caused Nyugen to go overboard.

"We are looking into whether he jumped, or whether it was an accident, or whether he committed suicide, or whether someone pushed him," Moises Quinones, public information officer for the FBI's San Juan Office, told ABC News.

Adventure of the Seas security cameras have video of Nguyen going overboard.

A cruise passenger on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas who apparently jumped overboard, is the subject of a US Coast Guard search operation.

CTV News reports Royal Caribbean Cynthia Martinez said Sunday that the captain of the Adventure of the Seas stopped the ship, turned around and alerted authorities after a passenger reported seeing the person going overboard late Saturday. In a Sunday email, Martinez said footage of the incident was also captured by the ship's cameras.

A cruise passenger aboard Adventure of the Seas, known only to us as Laura, tweeted us a first-hand report.  The man is presumed dead. Adventure of the Seas spent 6 hours with the coast guard doing rescue boat missions and helicopters fly above. 

The Royal Caribbean ship was finishing a seven-night trip and returning to San Juan.

Adventure of the Seas rescued 19 people early this morning, who were trying to get to Spain from Morocco.

The small boat was sighted in the waters bordering Almeria and Murcia, Spain at about ten o'clock at night when many passengers were eating dinner.  The rescue took about 45 minutes around the area of Costa del Sol.

Of the 19 immigrants, mostly from Morocco, eight are children. All are in good health, except for the only woman traveling with them, 31 weeks pregnant, was taken to a hospital for further examination. Upon arrival at the port of Malaga, all immigrants were assisted by Red Cross and then turned over to the state security forces.

Royal Caribbean will cease home porting its ships in Malaga, Spain in 2013.  Currently Adventure of the Seas is there and will complete its 28 cruises but by 2013, she will move to be ported out of Southampton, England.

The move by Royal Caribbean to leave Malaga isn't permanent.  Royal Caribbean describes the change as "transitional" and anticipates reassessing the possibility of returning to Malaga in 2014, "given the interest of the company for the city".

Royal Caribbean has spent three years operating out of Malaga, near Valencia, as a base port for the western Mediterranean. The Adventure of the Seas, with capacity for 3,840 passengers, currently covers the route Málaga, Valencia, Civitavecchia (Rome), Livorno (Pisa and Florence) and Ajaccio (Corsica). 

The change was characterized by a Royal Caribbean spokeswoman as "reprogramming of the ships to meet new demand" and she also indicated that Malaga has received very high results in passenger satisfaction surveys.

Sebastian Camps, the Malaga port manager, insists Royal Caribbean's departure is "temporary" and blames the economic situation in the Mediterranena area.

Royal Caribbean announced it is planning on doubling its presence in the UK next year.

Coming to the UK in the summer of 2013 will be Adventure of the Seas, which will join Independence of the Seas.  Independence is returning for its fifth season in the UK.

Adventure of the Seas will offer seven-night cruises to France and Spain, and include stops in ports such as Vigo, Gijon and Le Havre (Paris).  In addition, Adventure of the Seas will offer 12-night Baltic cruises to ports like Oslo, Copenhagen, Talinn and Helsinki.  Royal Caribbean is also planning to send Adventure of the Seas on 14-night Mediterranean cruises.

Royal Caribbean's Vice President and Group Managing Director in Europe, Dominic Paul, commented on the addition, "The UK cruise market has long been a success story for Royal Caribbean International and doubling the number of ships sailing from Southampton is another great milestone."