I know for many of us, staying in southern Europe for a few extra days of sunshine sounds pretty good, but at the same time, when the vacation is over, I'm ready to be back home, aren't you? The stranded vacationers are making their way to Bilbao, Spain, where the brand new Celebrity Eclipse will evacuate them on Friday. These travelers will be among the first to enjoy the ship, and since the Celebrity Eclipse will be based in Southampton this summer, I'm sure some of the travelers (and their travel agents) will remember this kind act and return for paying vacations on the ship at a later date.
Celebrity Eclipse will arrive in Southampton as scheduled at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, and will depart that same evening for Bilbao, where she is scheduled to arrive in the early hours of Thursday, April 22. Stranded travelers will join the ship throughout Thursday morning. The ship will return to Southampton, arriving late Friday evening. This sailing will replace the activities planned during the two-night, round-trip launch celebration cruise from Southampton.
As of tonight, the naming celebrations for Celebrity Eclipse are planned to go ahead unchanged, and she will be named by Hampshire yachtswoman and breast cancer survivor Emma Pontin late afternoon on Saturday, April 24.
Celebrity Cruises is working to accommodate guests who were originally scheduled to join the two-night launch celebration sailing on April 22 so they may now attend the two-night naming celebration cruise on April 24 April. Celebrity Cruises will contact all affected guests directly.
In the springtime, many cruise ships that have wintered in the Caribbean will return to Europe for the summer and fall. That annual eastbound migration has recently begun, and repositioning cruises from the USA and the Caribbean to Europe are booking up quickly. Only the Queen Mary 2 is routinely sailing westbound, as she recently began her regular 6-day crossings between Southampton and the USA. Those sailings are also selling fast. Desperate travelers are certainly getting creative as they try to return home!
Since the high season for European cruises has not yet begun, only a few cruises have been impacted thus far by the volcano. However, hundreds of thousands of other travelers, including Lois Friedland, the About.com Guide to Adventure Travel, are "stuck" in hotels and airports across Europe and elsewhere in the world. Lois has been blogging about her unplanned adventure travel in Glascow.
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How can we book the return to England? Any ideas?
The Celebrity press release indicated the company was working directly with UK tour operators who were funneling their stranded travelers to Bilbao. I’m not sure the ship is taking on any passengers who are traveling independently. You would need to contact Celebrity Cruises or their parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises.
I have read a lot about this story at http://www.cruises.co.uk/ and think its great that Celebrity have offered their new ship to go and help them stranded. Lets just hope that everyone is able to get back across.