Celestyal Cruises, the award-winning, number one choice for travelers to the Greek Islands and the Eastern Mediterranean, has announced the further suspension of its sailings until the already announced 2021 season commencing March 6, 2021.
Celestyal was one of the first cruise lines worldwide to take an immediate decision to temporarily suspend cruise operations out of the abundance of caution for our guests, crew and local communities in mid-March. This decisive action resulted in no COVID-19 cases on our ships and were able to repatriate our guests and crew safely home before international air travel and borders globally shut down.
Leslie Peden, chief commercial officer for Celestyal Cruises, said, “As the core of our season runs from Spring through the Autumn, we were optimistic that we would be able to resume our cruise operations later this summer. However, given the prevailing uncertainty regarding travel restrictions through the balance of our operating season from our largest international source markets coupled with the continuing discussions at the European Union level regarding the enhanced health protocols that will apply to EU cruise operations, we made the difficult but prudent decision to postpone resuming cruise operations until the scheduled start of our normal spring season next year. We felt that as a company, we have already put our travel partners and guests through enough date changes on when cruising could return safely. By voluntarily pausing operations until our scheduled departures of next year, Celestyal will be better positioned to offer more clarity and certainty to our valued partners and guests, as well as peace of mind. We will now shift our full attention to developing both 2021 and 2022 business where we are seeing encouraging signs of pent-up demand and be well prepared to implement all enhanced health protocols that will ultimately be established by the EU and the countries where we operate. Whilst we appreciate and share in the disappointment this decision has on our guests, their wellbeing, as well as that of our loyal crew and the local communities we visit is always top of mind.”
For all named and paid individual guests impacted by this suspension, Celestyal Cruises is offering a Future Cruise Credit (FCC) valued at 120 percent of original booking value. Guests will have until the end of December 2021 to redeem their Future Cruise Credit against any of Celestyal Cruises’ itineraries through end of December 2022. To provide additional peace of mind, should guests choose not to redeem their FCC by end of December 2021, they will automatically receive a full refund equal to the original amount paid to Celestyal upon the voucher’s expiration. Celestyal is providing unique confidence to both guests and travel advisors through the welcomed assurance of their FCC’s supported by enhanced consumer rights and underlying guarantees, as the case may be.
Celestyal Cruises will automatically send the Future Cruise Credit voucher directly to guests or their travel advisors, so there will be no need to call the Contact Center other than to rebook.
Celestyal Cruises recently launched their 2021 and 2022 digital brochure supported by the generous early booking promotional campaign ”Escape To The Future”, and a comforting “Peace of Mind” policy that allows newly booked guests to change any cruise that sets sail through December 31, 2021. This applies to new bookings made until August 31, 2020. As long as the booking is changed at least 30 days before the sail date, a future cruise credit for 100 percent of the value received by Celestyal will be issued. The credit can be used toward any cruise that sets sail through December 31, 2022.
