Heads up, San Diego. For the first time ever, Royal Caribbean will be basing a cruise ship in the port, starting in October 2026.
28.01.2025 - 20:33 / thepointsguy.com / Jason Liberty
One of the world's most popular ocean cruise lines is about to break into river cruising.
Celebrity Cruises will begin taking bookings this year for Celebrity River Cruises, a new premium river cruise offshoot that will begin sailing in 2027.
Royal Caribbean Group – which operates Royal Caribbean International, Silversea Cruises and Celebrity Cruises – announced the new venture just prior to its 2024 Q4 earnings call Tuesday. The group has ordered 10 river ships, which it says will initially debut on the rivers of Europe and draw from the modern but sophisticated look, feel and experience of Celebrity's Edge Class ocean vessels.
"We're thrilled to announce our entry into the river cruise market through our Celebrity Cruises premium travel brand," Royal Caribbean Group president and CEO Jason Liberty said in a statement. "With about half of our guests having experienced or intending to vacation on a river cruise, we know they will enjoy Celebrity's elevated offering on the river."
In an exclusive interview, Celebrity president Laura Hodges Bethge told TPG it's not just that Celebrity noticed a need for river cruises to offer its customers; its customers were specifically asking for them.
"We hear from them, loud and clear, that they'd love for us to have that offering," Hodges Bethge said. "... we have this unique opportunity to make sure that we're providing [river cruising to] our most loyal guests ... in the unique way that Celebrity does.... I correspond with a lot of our guests directly, and my inbox is flooded ... with guests that are like 'I've always wanted to take a river cruise, but I refuse to sail with anybody but Celebrity.'"
During the earnings call, Liberty said that the 10 Celebrity ships are just the beginning.
"This is not a hobby for us," he said, stressing that the line will likely order more river ships before the first ones even begin sailing. Of the initial 10, Liberty said the first two are expected to debut in 2027, with four more coming each year in 2028 and 2029.
"We see river cruising as an exciting growth opportunity that aligns with our strategy of turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations, expanding our ecosystem of vacation offerings and broadening our reach into adjacent lines of business," Liberty said during the call.
Celebrity hasn't yet released details about which specific Europe rivers the ships will ply, nor which other regions the vessels might visit, but Hodges Bethge divulged that, because these new ships won't have tons of space, the new platform for the line is really the destination and how the line delivers it with special Celebrity twists.
As for the ships themselves, Liberty said passengers can expect an Edge Class experience but
Heads up, San Diego. For the first time ever, Royal Caribbean will be basing a cruise ship in the port, starting in October 2026.
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