- Voyager of the Seas may not return for the 2026/27 cruise season in Australia.
- Forward booking schedules show the ship is set to sail in Los Angeles instead.
- We investigate which ship could come to Australia in its place.
Voyager of the Seas will make her debut in Australia, calling at Brisbane at the end of 2025 in Brisbane. But according to port schedules in America, she may only be spending one season Down Under.
Voyager is officially scheduled to sail out of Brisbane from December 2025 until April 2026 and according to the Port of Brisbane port schedule, the ship is supposed to return in October 2026.
However, the Los Angeles cruise port schedule has been updated to show that Voyager is due to start sailing out of Los Angeles in October 2026.
With Voyager now seemingly scheduled to be in two places at once, it suggests a shuffle-up is set to happen during Royal Caribbean’s deployment. As far as Sydney goes, the picture looks a bit clearer, with Anthem of the Seas set to debut in Sydney for 2025/2026 and according to the NSW Port Authority website, is scheduled to return in October 2026.
While nothing will be confirmed until Royal Caribbean officially announces its Australian deployments for 2026/2027, expected to happen at the end of March, the change to cruise schedule does present some questions.
If Voyager is out, who might come in?
While only speculation can be made, analysis of the cruise schedules shows two main candidates for which ship could be deployed to Australia if Voyager is rerouted to Los Angeles.
The first is Navigator of the Seas, as this is the ship that is seemingly being replaced by Voyager, according to the LA port schedule. This would be more or less a lateral move for the Australian cruise market, Navigator is also a Voyager-class ship, with a similar capacity and size to that of Voyager.
Another possibility is Quantum of the Seas, an Aussie favourite ship, currently in its final season in Australia before leaving for a new deployment out of Los Angeles. However, Quantum currently disappears from the LA cruise schedule after September 2026, which would tee it up nicely for a repositioning cruise to Australia before our 2026/27 cruise season kicks off.
If Quantum were to return this would mean Australia would be back to having two Quantum class ships in its waters at once, unlike the 2025/26 season which will have one Quantum-class ship with Anthem, and another Voyager-class ship, with Voyager of the Seas. Voyager-class ships are smaller and older than their Quantum counterparts.
The cruise season out of Los Angeles runs more or less in tandem with the Australian season. For many years Royal Caribbean didn’t run cruises out of Los Angeles but has recently begun bolstering its presence there. This explains why Australia is about to see a sharp decline in the presence of Royal Caribbean on its shores.
Australia’s ships have also historically rotated between the Alaskan and Australian cruise seasons, and ships that operate out of Los Angeles can make this rotation with a much shorter journey.
Aussie Royal Caribbean fans have also been long holding out hope for larger and more modern ships to come to Australia, such as Radiance Class ships, and for a year-round Royal Caribbean ship out of Australia. However, it appears that these two wishes will continue to be put on hold.
Royal Caribbean has been contacted for a statement.
Voyager of the Seas is not making her Australian debut. I cruised on her from Sydney in February 2013.
When Icon can come to Australia!
Poor reporting. It’s not her debut in Australia. Voyager operated many seasons out of Sydney a decade ago.
Why on earth would anyone be wanting larger ships – small ship cruising is so much better!
…as first reported by Royal Caribbean Blog.