Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas has cut short its current South Pacific sailing and limped back into Sydney with propulsion issues.
The cruise was cut in half five days after departure, according to one passenger post on the Facebook page Royal Caribbean Australian Cruisers. The ship is expected to head to Newcastle to see if the repairs can be made on what is believed to be a faulty Azipod propulsion system.
Brilliance, which debuted in Australia last year, departed from Sydney on March 19. It had an 11-night South Pacific itinerary of five ports of call throughout New Caledonia and Vanuatu.
The ship arrived at a scheduled stop in Lifou Isle, New Caledonia on March 22, but was 90 minutes late due to the technical issue, with the ship sailing at a much slower speeds than normal.
The passenger said their stop at Lifou was for just a few hours. Crew members tried to fix the propulsion issue while docked in Fiji, but they did not succeed.
Ports of call cancelled
Passengers were then informed port calls to Noumea, New Caledonia and Vanuatu, which included Mystery Island, Port Vila and Luganville, would be cancelled.
Brilliance of the Seas was scheduled to arrive back in Sydney, Australia on March 30. But the 11-night sailing was cut short to seven nights with only one port stop. The ship arrived in Sydney at 8pm on March 26.
“We’re currently on Brilliance, limping back to Sydney at 12 knots…” posted one passenger. “And enjoying the bar service. No point complaining about things you have no control over.”
Said another after it arrived at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney: “Disappointing, yes, but most of us managed to enjoy ourselves despite it all. The staff onboard were incredible, and looked after us all very well.”
Royal Caribbean International released a statement saying Brilliance of the Seas had developed a technical issue resulting in the ship being required to sail at a slower speed.
“As a result, Brilliance will not make its scheduled itinerary calls to New Caledonia and Vanuatu and will arrive back in Sydney on Tuesday 26th March. The following cruise set to depart on Saturday 30th March has been cancelled. Guests will be contacted directly with compensation information due to this change. The safety of Royal Caribbean’s guests and crew remains paramount.”
Royal Caribbean offer 50% refund
In a letter to Brilliance passengers, Royal Caribbean explained the maintenance issue and said compensation would be provided.
“As the captain previously shared, Brilliance of the Seas is experiencing a technical issue resulting in the ship being required to sail at a much slower speed. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to make our scheduled calls for the remainder of our sailing. Please note, our ship remains seaworthy and safe as we have redundancies in place to keep us sailing,” the letter stated.
Passengers have been promised a 50% refund, but some are not happy.
“50% refund is not acceptable,” said one. “We have not received 50% of what we paid for. Had I wanted a cruise with basically sea days it would not have been this one with many thousands of dollars spent.
“We will be requesting a full refund. When we booked this cruise it was specifically for isle of pine and Mare. The itinerary changed 5 days after booking. Dropped 2 ports and gained 1. Now we got 2 hours in Lifou and 7 sea days.”
Passengers have been advised to email Royalguestrelations@rccl.com
“We want a full refund,” the passenger continued. “If everyone emails and requests the same we might have some fighting power.”
Tasmania itinerary cancelled
Royal Caribbean has also cancelled Brilliance of the Seas’ 5-night itinerary to Tasmania on March 30. Guests were notified of the cancelled cruise today, March 23, in an email sent from Royal Caribbean. Despite the early return, passengers were asked to debark in Sydney. Unplanned maintenance is now required with the ship expected to head to Newcastle.
A five-day cruise to Tasmania on March 30 has been cancelled as the ship will undergo repairs, the publication reported. Guests booked on that cruise will receive a full refund. They also get a 50% future cruise credit toward any future sailing, departing within one year. Guests will be reimbursed for nonrefundable, prepurchased travel fees, including flights, hotel, train tickets or car rentals up to $250 per guest for domestic changes and up to $400 per guest for international changes.
Where to from here?
Brilliance is at the tail end of its Australia season. It will reposition to Honolulu on April 12 before making its way to Vancouver in May to sail Alaska itineraries.
According to the Royal Caribbean Blog, Brilliance of the Seas is not the first Radiance class ship to have propulsion issues. Sister-ship Radiance of the Seas had ongoing propulsion issues in September last year. Radiance had two Alaskan itineraries cancelled because of technical issues with the ship’s propulsion.
Guests had already boarded the ship for their scheduled itinerary on September 1, 2023 when they were told the sailing would be cancelled because repairs were needed.
Both ships were built in the early 2000s.
Last updated 9am, Thursday.
Just as an update …. I’m looking at the Brilliance of the Seas from our apartment on newcastle Harbour. The ship had been docked at Dyke Point opposite us for a bit over a week undergoing repairs.she sailed out of the heads Thursday afternoon only to return on Friday morning 5/4/24.
All is not well. Sorry to all you travellers that have had your plans mucked up.
Afraid not: https://stg-cruisepassengercomau-cpstaging.kinsta.cloud/news/delayed-brilliance-of-the-seas-heads-to-hobart-not-pacific/
we were on the previous 2 cruises Royal Caribbean leave a lot to be desired. They cheated us 5 ports of call, to this point no compensation has been offered survey response has been ignored next year MR Royal stay away from our shores go rip some one else OFF Intend to contact ACCC OUR CONSUMER WATCH DOG over this serious neglect of peoples money and trust
Traveled 15.5 hours for this cruise. 5 years in the planning, with 2 cancellations in between. So disappointing to not get to go to our bucketlist ports. 250.00 per cabin did not come close to hotel and food. And to only pay for 3 nights is outrageous. We could not change flight, no seats available. Plus, airline required a 1,200.00 per person change fee. Paid 7,000 for 2 round trip tickets. So disappointed. I will also be stating my feelings to Royal and expect more than what they offered for this terrible trip and outcome.
Okay, so a lot of negative comments here and I can understand why but machinery can and does breakdown. I did notice some vibration when the stern rose in the swell but I put that down to prop cavitation. I was on the March 1st cruise from Fremantle to Sydney via New Zealand and I have nothing but praise for the ALL the cruise staff from the dining rooms, housekeeping to cruise directors. Alice, Anastasia, Chris and Jake and the “Princess” dishing hand sanitizer at the entrance to the Windjammer Café, thank you for making our cruise so much fun.
Any news on whethyit will depart on the 4th April 8 night cruise?
I was on brilliance of the seas on this trip from Sydney to lifou island on the 19 march and I totally agree that a full refund of compensation is needed I had spent a full day with guest services and nothing was done. Just to be told we are giving you only 50% back on your fare. Also they had to travel a lot slower to get back to port in Sydney which added another day on the trip and they class that as a sea day no way I’m not expecting there 50% compensation I will taken this up with Royal Caribbean this is not customer service and I paid for a 11 night cruise and only got 1 port with technical issues that not good enough a full refund needs to be compensated.
We were on Brilliance for the previous two cruises (Sydney to Perth & Perth to Sydney via NZ).
For the NZ leg we were in an aft cabin and for the last 4 to 5 days during heavy’ish seas we were occassionally woken in the night by loud noises from the propellors, which we attributed to just cavitation from the pitching ship. Sounds like it was the start of something more….
Apart from this the ship seemed to perform OK and we were on time mostly.
The only delays we experienced were for two severe medical issues for passengers that required them to be taken off – Perth/Fremantle on 1 March and overnight on 15 March while enroute from Dunedin to the Sounds (evacuated by helicopter in the middle of the night) and two slight re-fueling delays out of Sydney and Melbourne.
To add salt to the wound. The cruise director announced before we stopped at Lifou that the ship had experienced “squalls and headwinds” hence the late arrival, but we later were advised it was “technical issues”. There were passengers who did not leave the shop at Lifou as there was little time to go and enjoy the island before the shop left the port which was scheduled approximately for 4pm. We didn’t leave till after 7pm. So many more inconsistencies with communication and cover ups.
Also pointing out that at NO time were passengers actually advised that any port was to be missed other than Noumea. The ship immediately pointed to Sydney and it was left to passengers who felt something was amiss, to look up on Marinetracker and find the ship had been scheduled to go to Sydney. It was 20hrs later when Royal Caribbean announced the truth. It was this deceit right after the earlier one claiming our late arrival in Lifou was “due to strong headwinds and squalls”, when the truth was quite different as the “technical” issues with engine had occurred the night before by all accounts.
Bottom line Royal lied to the passengers and never gave them the respect to then provide reasonable transparency. This has compounded the disappointing emotions to genuine anger.
This story is not going away anytime soon. The RCI corporation have show a complete disregard for their customer base.
I am currently on the Brilliance awaiting departure this evening. Our stop in Lifou was 7 hours not 2 but still, the cancellation of the rest of the cruise is disappointing. I am from the US and had to change flights and hotels and am sure will lose $ and mileage points. But I am better off than most.