Over 100,000 to visit Royal Caribbean’s new beach club as local destinations miss out

• Royal Caribbean’s dramatic change of deployment and the launch of Lelepa is not without consequences.
• An analysis of the new 2027/28 season shows how heavily focused Royal Caribbean sailings will be around the new private beach club at Lelepa.
• Our analysis shows well over 100,000 visitors could arrive for the first season.

The published itineraries for Royal Caribbean’s first season on Lelepa, Royal’s first private beach resort in the Pacific, show close to 150,000 cruise passengers could visit the small island, which is home to just 500 residents.

Royal Caribbean’s published schedules show 32 cruise-ship calls at Lelepa during its first season. Those ships could carry approximately 150,000 passengers at full occupancy.

Assuming around 95% take advantage of the fare-inclusive beach club, Lelepa could receive between 130,000 and 135,000 passenger visits between October 2027 and March 2028, with the total potentially exceeding 140,000 if ships operate near maximum family-holiday capacity.

The deployment marks a new era of Royal Caribbean in Australia. As the line opens their beach club in Lelepa in 2027 the line is sailing three ships for the 2027/28 season.

However, we’ll also see some serious itinerary changes to what Royal Caribbean cruisers might be used to. Now, nearly all Royal Caribbean itineraries will sail straight out to the South Pacific to visit Lelepa.

The line will also offer short cruises to nowhere, as well as very occasional sailings to New Zealand or Queensland, but now the majority of sailings will be focused around Lelepa. 

The new itineraries are bringing a mixed reaction from cruisers, who are excited to see the newly renovated Ovation of the Seas coming back to Australia and are encouraged by seeing three Royal Caribbean ships coming to the region. However, others are unsure about how itineraries are being cut to acommodate the island and would prefer to see sailings to different places in Australia. 

When Anthem, Voyager and Ovation of the Seas arrive for the 2027/28 season in Australia, it will mark a significant experiment for Australian cruising, to see whether the Caribbean model of building sailings around private islands and beach clubs can work in Australia. 

Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean will build its presence across Asia as well, with Navigator of the Seas set to sail year-round across Asia and Voyager of the Seas to split its time between Asia and Australia.

The summary of Australian sailings 

• Anthem of the Seas will sail out of Sydney from October to April, sailing mostly to the South Pacific with visits to Lelepa , with four New Zealand sailings and a series of three to four day getaways as well. 
• Ovation of the Seas will sail out of Brisbane from December to April, sailing again mostly to the South Pacific to visit Lelepa, with three Queensland itineraries and short cruises to nowhere also on offer.
• Voyager of the Seas will sail a shorter Aussie season, with 10 sailings total. This includes five sailings to Lelepa, some cruises to nowhere, a Queensland itinerary and a trip out to New Zealand. The cruise to New Zealand is the only option from Brisbane to New Zealand with Royal Caribbean. 
• See the full list of sailings below.

Australia’s moment?

If Australia can build on Royal Caribbean’s renewed interest in the region, it could be a moment for Australia to re-establish itself as a cruising powerhouse. In recent years, ships have been leaving Australia, Europe and more to head for the Caribbean, but it looks like the Caribbean could be close to reaching a point of saturation.

Caribbean cruise capacity is increasing faster than the market’s pricing power, creating more discounting and some deterioration in yields.

Many analysts have predicted that cruise fares will need to drop in the Caribbean with capacity spiralling more and more each year. This will leave cruise lines looking to move their tonnage around to different regions where reduced fares aren’t required to get people onboard.

At the same time, Australia has lost many ships to the West Coast of the USA, where California has been having a cruise revival, with Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco all seeing new ships over recent years. 

The California coast is a great region for cruise, where it can be enjoyed near round, however, it also presents an opportunity for Australia. Cruises from California go into Mexico, where taxes on cruise passengers have just been doubled and are set to continue to rise.

If Australia could work to remove red tape and regulatory costs, they could easily attract cruise ships and lines that are unhappy about the new cruise taxes in California. 

This is all happening as cruising in Europe is facing new taxes and restrictions across nearly the entire continent. We’ve seen regions such as Alaska reaping the benefits of this by attracting ships during the European season and Australia could do it too.

The NSW port authority has already revealed that its looking to attract more ships year round through port pricing incentives during the winter, which is when Europe’s season runs. 

Cruise lines are currently on the hunt for regions that are friendly, stable and open to working with the cruise industry. Australia could add billions to its cruise industry if it reduces regulations and opens its arms to cruise, at a time where the industry is looking for friends. 

We’ve already seen that New Zealand is pleading to Australia for more cooperation to help boost cruise in the region, with New Zealand being stuck in the position of largely relying on Australia-based ships for cruise calls. 

If Australia and New Zealand can collaborate and present a united front, this also opens the door to more cooperation with Asia, where countries like Singapore, Japan and China are seeing their own cruise booms. Cruises between Asia and Australia are always popular and better facilitating these can help attract more and newer ships to the region in general.

Princess in 2027/28 will have its largest ever Asian deployment, and will bring three ships to Australia as well, with Sapphire Princess coming to Perth for the first time in years. 

If Australia can get its act together, the opportunities are endless to grow cruise locally and across the entire Asia-Pacific region. 

American cruises cancelled

While Aussies were happy with the news about more ships coming over, thousands of American cruise passengers were left upset due to cancellations on Ovation of the Seas. A series of West Coast cruises were cancelled on Ovation, which was initially going to stay in Los Angeles until April 2028.

Cruisers have been offered to re-book or receive a refund and hundreds of cruisers have taken to the internet to complain about the cancellations.

This clearly shows that Royal Caribbean sees a lot of potential in Australia due to the opening at Lelepa, and has been willing to take some risks in order to ensure they have enough ships here to service demand.