Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection said its four-day maiden
cruise will leave Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 1, 2020, two nights before Super Bowl
LIV is played at Dolphin Stadium near Miami.
The new luxury line will still take delivery of its first
ship in the fourth quarter of 2019, marketing director Sara Duncan confirmed.
It will use the interim period before the initial cruise to train staff
onboard, soft launch cruises, reposition from the shipyard in Vigo, Spain, and
prepare for a Miami christening.
The debut cruise, which will visit Bimini and Key West, kicks off
a Caribbean program that will extend through March 28, when Ritz-Carlton has scheduled
a 12-day transatlantic crossing from Barbados to Lisbon.
Ritz-Carlton's first Mediterranean cruise will be an eight-day trip from
Lisbon that will visit Gibraltar, Malaga, Valencia, Ibiza and Palma de
Mallorca. The as-yet-unnamed 298-passenger ship will then spend
time in the Med through the end of June. On July 5 it is scheduled for a nine-day
voyage departing Bordeaux and visiting the French ports of Belle Ile, St. Malo,
and Honfleur; St. Peter Port in the Channel Islands; and finishing in London.
From there, the ship will cruise northern Europe before
transiting from Iceland to Halifax, Nova Scotia, starting Sept. 12.
It will sail a handful of Canada/New England itineraries,
starting with a seven-day trip from Halifax that will visit Lunenburg, Nova Scotia;
St. Andrews, New Brunswick; Bar Harbor, Rockland and Portland in Maine; and
Salem, Massachusetts, before arriving in Boston.
On Oct. 27, the ship will reposition to the Caribbean again
with a nine-day cruise from Boston to Nassau.
Ritz-Carlton's brochure describing the itineraries is now
available. Bookings open in June.
___
CORRECTION: A previous version of this report incorrectly characterized the February 2020 maiden cruise as a delayed voyage.