Celebrity Moves Equinox To Caribbean As More Cruise Lines Skip Turkey

Celebrity’s Equinox is moving to the Caribbean. Photo: Marc Ryckaert

The Celebrity Equinox will sail full-time in the Caribbean starting in the spring of 2017, Celebrity Cruises announced on its website.  

Celebrity had planned to have the Equinox in Europe during 2017—along with the Reflection, Constellation, Eclipse and Silhouette—but made the decision to move the ship to Miami, where it will sail a variety of eastern and western itineraries.  

The moves comes after Celebrity recently made the decision to skip one of Europe’s more popular ports of call, Istanbul, because of safety concerns.  

This week, more cruise lines announced that they would be forgoing calls in Turkey after the failed coup attempt by the Turkish military last week.  

Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd., which had kept Royal Caribbean International’s Navigator of the Seas and Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Constellation at sea instead of calling in Nice last weekend, said that Royal’s Vision of the Seas and Brilliance of the Seas will stop in Greece instead of Turkey after last week’s attack.  

Holland America, which hadn’t made changes in wake of the attack, announced it will change the schedule for the Eurodam’s July 17 sailing to avoid Istanbul. The ship will now spend more time in Iraklion and Piraeus (Athens). ? 

Carnival also cancelled an upcoming call to Turkey on the Vista and will now spend another day at sea on this week’s sailing.    

The moves aren’t good for a European travel market that was already struggling after a string of attacks in Paris, Brussels and Istanbul over the last six months and travel executives are seeing some decrease in bookings.  

Last month, before the trouble in Nice, Nicole Mazza told TMR she saw “some softness in the market” in Europe. Rudi Schreiner told TMR at Seatrade that though bookings to Europe on AmaWaterways’ river cruises were down, he was expecting them to pick back up.