Royal Caribbean’s ship Radiance of the Seas has cancelled two cruises due to a major failure of one of the ship’s Azipods, affecting its top speed.
The incident occurred on a 25th August Alaska cruise, when guests reported hearing a loud bang. The ship’s Azipod – one of the propulsion engines – failed and the ship had to return to complete the cruise at a low speed.
It’s not clear what caused the issue, but speculation includes submerged ice potentially striking the Azipod and bending a propeller. Incidents like this are exceptionally rare but can happen.
Unfortunately the incident happened late in that cruise, and so the 1st September departure was only cancelled on the day it was due to set sail, by which point many guests had already travelled to Alaska to meet the ship and board.
The second sailing, due to depart on 8th September, also had to be cancelled. This is due to the long wait to get a specialist team to the ship to carry out the repairs. However, Royal Caribbean is currently confident that the next cruise on 15th September – the last one-way trip of the ship’s Alaska season – will go ahead.
As our guests know, we cancelled our September 1st sailing due to a technical issue with propulsion. One of the ship’s Azipods had a problem requiring highly specialised technicians from Northern Europe to travel to Alaska to fix and repair that problem. To our September 15th guests, we are confident repairs will be completed in the next few days in time for your sailing, and we will keep you informed should that change.
Michael Bayley, Royal Caribbean President & CEO
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