AOS Southern Route News

[mandm33]

Just got off the AOS (Aruba route) this past Sunday. (Detailed review in the works....in short, awesome trip!). In any case, talking to a staff member on board the ship, he provided the following information.....

 

The second Freedom ship will be doing the Southern route out of San Juan. The Adventure may be shifted to California.

 

The reason this came about was when talking about his career with RCI. He has been with RCI for 13 years, and indicated he was only going to be on the Adventure for the next year and a half. We thought he was leaving RCI, but he mentioned that the second Freedom class was doing the Southern Route, and due to his seniority and consistently excellent reviews, he had the choice of joining the new ship. He mentioned that he heard rumors that the AOS was going to California, and if that was indeed the case, then he wasn't so sure he was going to join the new Freedom-class ship, because he was very intrigued by doing a California route.

 

We started talking about the Freedom ships, and if they would be able to be docked rather than tendered. He mentioned the Queen Mary 2 would have to tender to all of the ports on the southern Aruba route, but the Freedom ships would not, since they had wider hulls, and thus not as large a draft as the QM2.

 

In any case, this is not necessarily "solid" information, but the source appeared to be a very good one.

[Phamer55]

Thanks for the info - I hope the AOS does come out my way. However, I can't wait that long - I'll be aboard her next January!

[elleluv]

Hmmmm.... pretty good stuff.... There sure have been a lot of rumors... It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out... We were looking forward to doing the NOS repo to California when it looked like they were bringing her there. I think we'd be just as happy to do the same repo on Adventurer. :)

[sherry7]

Very interesting! If it is good info, it'll give me a good reason to book a Freedom class ship, since I really have no desire to do a repeat of a Western Carib in the near future.

 

On a related topic, I was on the Serenade from Jan. 14-21, and at one of the on board functions, Capt. Stig Nilsen mentioned that the Brilliance and the Serenade would be swapping places for one season only. He mentioned the year this would happen, but I can't remember if it was 2007 or 2008.