Why Royal Caribbean Cancelled Haiti Cruises Through 2027

I got a text from my sister-in-law in March that just said “did you see this?” with a screenshot attached. It was an email from Royal Caribbean letting her know that the Labadee stop on her cruise the one her kids had been talking about for months because of the zipline  was gone. Replaced with a “day at sea.

She was annoyed. Understandably. She’d shown her kids pictures of Labadee’s beach for weeks. Now she was scrambling to figure out what a “day at sea” even means for an eight-year-old who was promised a zipline over the ocean.

I ended up going down a rabbit hole trying to explain to her what was actually going on, because the honest truth is most people booking these cruises have no idea Labadee is even in Haiti. I didn’t either, the first time I sailed there years ago. It just shows up on the itinerary as “Labadee, Royal Caribbean private destination,” and you picture something more like Royal Caribbean CocoCay in the Bahamas.

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So here’s everything I found out, plus what I’d actually tell a friend who has a cruise booked between now and mid-2027.

Wait, Labadee Is In Haiti?

Yes. Labadee is a private, gated peninsula on the northern coast of Haiti that Royal Caribbean has leased and operated since 1988. It’s got the beach, the zipline (the Dragon’s Breath Flight Line, which is genuinely one of the longest over-water ziplines in the world), water park areas, and a bunch of shopping stalls run by local vendors.

It’s fenced off, guarded, and physically separated from the rest of the country. For decades that setup worked fine. Cruise passengers got their beach day, and it brought income into a part of Haiti that badly needed it.

The problem isn’t Labadee itself. The problem is everything happening around it.

The Actual Reason: Haiti’s Been Under a “Do Not Travel” Advisory For Years

This isn’t a sudden decision. It’s been building since 2024.

The U.S. State Department has kept Haiti under a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory, which is the same category as places like active war zones. Gang violence, kidnapping for ransom, and armed unrest have been ongoing problems, especially around the capital, Port-au-Prince. Gangs are estimated to control most of that city, and the instability has spread beyond it at different points.

Royal Caribbean first paused Labadee visits back in 2024 as things got worse. Then in early 2025 they actually resumed calls for a few months, which gave a lot of us hope things were stabilizing. My cousin sailed on one of those early 2025 cruises and said Labadee felt totally normal kids on the zipline, vendors selling bracelets, nothing that hinted at trouble a couple hours down the road.

That didn’t last. Shortly after, the cruise line pulled out again and kept extending the pause: first through the end of 2025, then May 2026, then December 2026, and now the suspension has been pushed all the way through June 2027.

Here’s the actual statement Royal Caribbean has been giving reporters, word for word from what they told multiple outlets:

“As we continue to evaluate conditions in Haiti and our ability to deliver the best vacations responsibly, we have decided to extend the suspension of ship calls to Labadee through June 2027. This decision was made with the safety and well-being of our guests and crew members in mind.”

That’s it. No specific incident named, no dramatic reveal. Just an ongoing “we’re not comfortable yet” that’s kept getting renewed roughly every few months.

But Isn’t Labadee Fenced Off and Safe?

This is the part that confused me most, so I dug into it a bit more.

Labadee sits around 134 miles from Port-au-Prince, where most of the violence is concentrated. Between the distance, bad road conditions that make the drive over six hours, a private security perimeter, and the fact that it’s a fenced 260-acre resort, Labadee is genuinely probably one of the safer spots in the country right now.

But “probably safer than the surrounding country” isn’t the bar a cruise line wants to clear. If something did go wrong  even something unrelated to the resort itself, Royal Caribbeanlike unrest spreading toward the coast, or an evacuation situation  the cruise line would be the one dealing with the fallout, the news coverage, and the lawsuits. From a pure risk-management standpoint, “we paused it” is a much easier sentence to say than “we thought it’d be fine.”

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I think that’s really what’s driving this more than any single incident. It’s not that Labadee is on fire. It’s that nobody wants to be the company explaining why they sent 6,000 passengers a day near an active crisis zone.

Which Ships and Cruises Are Actually Affected

This part matters if you have something booked. Based on what’s been reported and what people have been sharing after getting their own notification emails, at least these ships have had Labadee stops swapped out on cruises scheduled well into 2027:

• Independence of the Seas
• Adventure of the Seas
• Allure of the Seas
• Freedom of the Seas
• Legend of the Seas
• Star of the Seas

One Reddit user with a March 2027 Independence of the Seas cruise out of Miami said Labadee was pulled from their itinerary and replaced with Nassau, Royal Caribbean Bahamas. Someone else on a Legend of the Seas cruise in late March 2027 got swapped to Ponce, Puerto Rico, and Samaná in the Dominican Republic instead. A Star of the Seas sailing in Royal Caribbean May 2027 had its Labadee stop replaced with Perfect Day at CocoCay in the Bahamas.

As of right now, the earliest Labadee stop still sitting on the books (assuming nothing changes again) is a six-night Eastern Royal Caribbean cruise on Allure of the Seas leaving Fort Lauderdale on July 4, 2027. I wouldn’t bank on that holding either, honestly, given the pattern of these getting pushed back every few months.

What Happens To Your Itinerary When This Gets Cancelled

If you’re currently booked on something that includes Labadee, here’s the realistic sequence of events based on what I’ve seen happen to friends and family:

Step 1: You get an email, usually months in advance. Royal Caribbean has been decent about giving notice, sometimes six to twelve months out, sometimes closer to the sailing date if it’s a fresh extension.

Step 2: The stop gets swapped, not just cancelled outright. In almost every case I’ve seen, they don’t just remove the day and leave you floating. They substitute another port. Common replacements have been Nassau, CocoCay, Grand Turk, Ponce, and Samaná.

Step 3: Sometimes it’s just a sea day instead. This is what happened to my sister-in-law. No substitute port, just an extra day at sea. This seems to happen more often on itineraries where swapping in another port doesn’t logistically work with the ship’s route.

Step 4: Prepaid excursions get refunded. If you’d booked a Labadee-specific shore excursion (jet ski rentals, the zipline package, cabana rentals), that gets refunded, usually as onboard credit to your SeaPass account rather than cash back to your card. Royal Caribbean Worth double-checking this actually posts before you disembark.

Common Mistakes People Make When This Happens To Them

I’ve watched a few people handle this badly, so let me save you the trouble.

Mistake 1: Panicking and cancelling the whole cruise. Unless Labadee was genuinely the entire reason you booked, this is an overreaction. The substitute ports are usually fine, and in some cases nicer for a first-timer. Nassau and CocoCay both have plenty to do.

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Mistake 2: Not checking your Cruise Planner app before final payment. If you already have shore excursions booked at Labadee and haven’t looked at your account in a while, log into the Royal Caribbean app or website and check your Cruise Planner. Don’t wait for the refund email; sometimes it’s faster to cancel and rebook the excursion at the new port yourself.

Mistake 3: Assuming it’ll get fixed before your sail date. Based on the pattern over the last two years, extensions keep happening. If your Royal Caribbean cruise is scheduled for, say, spring 2027, I wouldn’t plan around Labadee being back. Assume it’s off and be pleasantly surprised if it isn’t.

Mistake 4: Blaming your travel agent or the crew onboard. None of this is decided at the ship level. The captain and crew have zero say in it. If you’re frustrated, Royal Caribbean’s guest relations line is the right place to direct that, not the poor cabin steward.

Mistake 5: Not rebooking excursions at the new port early enough. Once a swap happens, everyone else on your sailing is scrambling to book excursions at the substitute port too. Spots at popular add-ons like CocoCay’s Thrill Waterpark cabanas go fast. Log in and rebook as soon as you get the notification email, don’t wait until you’re a week out.

What I’d Actually Tell You To Do Right Now

If you’ve got a cruise booked anytime between now and mid-2027 that includes Labadee, here’s my honest advice:

1. Check your itinerary today, not next month. Log into the Royal Caribbean app and look at your current day-by-day schedule. If it still shows Labadee, that’s the current status, but it can change.
2. Set a calendar reminder to recheck it monthly as your sail date gets closer. These changes tend to come in waves, especially around the six-month-out mark.
3. Don’t book Labadee-specific gear or apparel for your kids as a surprise (“we’re going ziplining!”) until you’re within a couple weeks of sailing and it’s still on the itinerary. I’ve seen parents build up excitement for a stop that quietly disappeared two months before the trip.
4. If it does get swapped, look up the new port before you board. A little Googling on CocoCay’s Thrill Waterpark, or the beaches around Ponce, Puerto Rico, goes a long way toward turning disappointment into excitement.
5. Keep an eye on the State Department’s travel advisory page for Haiti if you’re curious about the underlying situation. It’s genuinely a level 4 advisory, the same tier as active conflict zones, so this isn’t cruise-line overcaution for its own sake.

Is Labadee Ever Coming Back?

Probably, eventually. Royal Caribbean has too much invested in the property, and too many decades of history there, to walk away entirely. They’ve kept a security presence and maintenance going the whole time, and they even completed upgrades to areas like Adrenaline Beach during the pause, which tells me they’re planning for a return, not an exit.

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But “eventually” has moved four separate times now  from 2024’s pause, to May 2026, to December 2026, and now June 2027. Royal Caribbean I wouldn’t be shocked if it slides again depending on what’s happening in Haiti by early next year. The country’s situation hasn’t meaningfully stabilized despite a couple of quieter stretches, and cruise lines don’t like reversing a safety call and then having to walk it back a second time.

If you want my genuinely honest read: don’t build your cruise excitement around Labadee specifically if you’re sailing anytime in the next year. Royal Caribbean Build it around the ship, the other stops, and whatever gets substituted in. My sister-in-law’s kids ended up loving the sea day more than they expected, mostly because the ship’s water slides kept them occupied all day and nobody had to get up early for an excursion.

Sometimes the backup plan turns out fine. It’s just not the plan anyone signed up for.