Celebrity Cruises cancels controversial cruise port stop
The cruise line has decided not to sail to one contentious but well-liked cruise port at least on some upcoming sailings.
Cruise itinerary changes can happen for a variety of reasons.
Most often, it’s inclement weather that leads to a cruise ship reroute, but sometimes other factors come into play.
Related: U.S. government updates travel warning for Caribbean cruise port
Occasionally, there are cruise port schedule conflicts or other issues that make a cruise ship berth unavailable at a port of call. For the last several months, ongoing construction work at a cruise ship pier in San Juan, Puerto Rico has caused repeated itinerary changes for certain Royal Caribbean cruise ships, for example.
Cruise lines don’t always offer clear reasons as to why a cruise port of call is swapped out for another on a cruise itinerary though.
This is the case now with Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity Cruises, which just dropped one cruise port from every one of its Caribbean cruise itineraries that featured the destination.
To be fair, the cruise port in question is a controversial one that’s been removed from itineraries before due to civil unrest in the Caribbean country. However, Royal Caribbean cruise ships returned to the destination in the fall and have been sailing there without incident since.
This time, it seems that security concerns may not exactly be the reason why the destination is being dropped.
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Celebrity Cruises replaces Labadee on multiple cruise itineraries
Celebrity Cruises has made the decision to remove Labadee, Haiti, from a number of cruise itineraries to provide “a better guest experience.”
Perhaps this is because some of its passengers have been hesitant to book cruises featuring a port located in a country that remains under a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory from the U.S. State Department.
It’s important to understand, though, that Labadee is a secure, private Royal Caribbean-owned destination far from where violence has been taking place in Haiti.
Related: Royal Caribbean passengers compare private cruise destinations
Sailings impacted by the change include some 2025 and 2026 cruises on board Celebrity Apex and two upcoming voyages on Celebrity Beyond.
On most of the affected cruise itineraries, the cruise line replaced Labadee with visits to Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos. A few of the 2026 sailings will instead call on George Town, Grand Cayman, and also add a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.
Under the Labadee Cruise Port Guide on its website, Celebrity Cruises now states, “Please Note: While we don't currently sail to Labadee, Haiti, you can discover the beauty of the Caribbean on one of our luxury Caribbean cruises.”
Royal Caribbean is still sailing to Labadee
Although Celebrity Cruises has made the decision to shift its luxury cruises away from Labadee, Royal Caribbean continues to visit the destination multiple times per week on a variety of cruise itineraries.
To many Royal Caribbean passengers who visit the cruise port, Labadee offers a fun and relaxing Caribbean beach resort experience with no safety concerns.
In the cruise community on Reddit, one cruiser booked on one of the Celebrity Beyond sailings now visiting Grand Turk instead of Labadee questioned whether Grand Turk would really provide a better experience than Labadee.
“I know people say Labadee is horrible but the cruise port itself looked like a wonderful beach and a really fun zipline. Is Grand Turk really better?” majesticideas2 asked.
Related: Royal Caribbean ignores serious travel warning and you should too
Some cruisers replied with reasons why they loved Grand Turk, but quite a few jumped in to defend Labadee.
“Who said it’s horrible? It’s like paradise,” PilotoPlayero wrote.
Others agreed.
“Labadee is very beautiful, don’t underestimate it,” Ary_Nel urged.
“I can’t attest to Grand Turk but we just got back from Labadee, Haiti and it was beautiful, the zip line was a lot of fun too!” iratello wrote.
Still, Grand Turk is a fair trade, as stickittoemm pointed out.
“Labadee is awesome, I loved it. But Grand Turk is stunning as well. You win either way!”
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