NYCruiseInfo Blog

  Empress of the Seas is One of the Royal Caribbean Ships At Risk Of Being Sold In a recent earnings call Royal Caribbean Group announced that they are indeed looking at possibly shedding older ships in addition to the Sovereign and Monarch (ex Monarch of the Seas and Sovereign of the Seas) which were recently beached in Alaiga, Turkey. Royal Caribbean has announced that the 3rd ship in the Pullmantur fleet - the Zenith - which sailed for many years from New York to Bermuda for Celebrity Cruises - will most likely be scrapped. The Zenith is laid up in Lavrio Greece.  Just as a side note the Zenith was supposed to be chartered/purchased by Peaceboat,org for world wide peace missions. She was supposed to sail along side the Ocean Dream (originally built as Carnival Cruises' Tropicale). Based on the announcement above it is unclear which ship(s) Peaceboat will operate in 2021. The Zenith's identical sister ship - the Horizon is also at risk. The Horizon was also a popular ship fo...

Earlier this month, Spanish cruise and tour operator -  Pullmantur declared bankruptcy and less than 3 weeks later, 2 of their 3 ships were sold for scrap. The two ships - the Monarch and Sovereign have been sold for scrap and are sitting on the beach at Aliaga Turkey. It appears that Royal Caribbean, who was a partner in the Pullmantur operations and who retained ownership of the Pullmantur ships, was working in advance of the announcement to have the ships scrapped. Within days of declaring bankruptcy, the ships went to Naples Italy where they were stripped of their artworks and any other furnishing not part of the deal. Within 3 weeks of the bankruptcy  announcement the ships were beached. Pullmantur also operated a third ship, which had strong ties to the port of  New York and New Jersey. The ship is the former  Celebrity Cruises' Zenith. The Zenith (along with the Horizon and Meridian)  were the birth of today's modern Celebrity Cruises wh...