By LCN Business Desk
A cruise call is a day of berth, a day of wages ashore and a per-passenger payment to a government. Haiti has now lost three more years of them, and the ports that gain them are named.
Royal Caribbean International has extended its suspension of calls at Labadee to at least April 2028. HaitiLibre reported on 1 November that it is the third extension of a moratorium that began when the line and others stopped calling in mid-2025. Cruise calls are a dollar earner for a country whose central bank says an oil shock reaches it through the exchange rate. Update, 5 November 2026: the line has since published a summer 2028 Caribbean deployment that begins in April and does not name Labadee. Travel Market Report counts 44 itineraries revised across nine ships.
The replacement ports are Grand Turk, Grand Cayman, Nassau, Cozumel, Costa Maya, San Juan, Puerto Plata and Samaná, with some sailings taking extra days at sea instead. Puerto Plata and Samaná are in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
Which ships are affected?
Nine, and they are among the line's largest.
Reports name Adventure, Allure, Explorer, Freedom, Harmony, Independence, Serenade, Star and Symphony of the Seas. Guests holding bookings that included Labadee are being notified of itinerary changes, and pre-paid shore excursions booked through the line are automatically refunded, both at Labadee and at other ports changed to accommodate the new routings.
Reports date the notification to travel advisers to 30 October. One gives 2 November.
Where do the calls go?
They go to eight ports across six jurisdictions.
| Replacement port | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|
| Puerto Plata | Dominican Republic |
| Samaná | Dominican Republic |
| Grand Turk | Turks and Caicos Islands |
| Nassau | The Bahamas |
| Grand Cayman | Cayman Islands |
| San Juan | Puerto Rico |
| Cozumel | Mexico |
| Costa Maya | Mexico |
*Ports named across reports of the revised itineraries.*
Two of the eight sit on Hispaniola. A ship that would have spent a day at a Haitian beach can now spend it at a Dominican one, roughly 300 kilometres along the same coastline, without leaving the itinerary's shape.
What is Haiti losing?
Passengers and wages that are counted, and a revenue figure that is not.
Labadee took more than 721,000 cruise passengers in 2019, on a Haitian industry association bulletin reported by HaitiLibre. The per-passenger payment to the Haitian state has been reported at US$6 in older coverage and at US$12 more recently, and when it changed is not established.
A total would be built from those two numbers, and no source publishes it. Multiplying one by the other, across a year in which the rate itself is uncertain, would produce a figure nobody has stated.
The employment figures do not reconcile either. The Haitian Times reported in January 2026, citing the local CASEC board, that about 800 residents were employed directly by the cruise operation, with hundreds more earning from crafts, food and artwork, and that roughly 1,000 Labadie residents are cut off from cruise-related work. Royal Caribbean has separately been reported as describing about 300 jobs plus 200 permitted sellers. Newsweek reported 200 employed and 300 selling.
Why has the line not returned?
Security, on the only attributed assessment available.
Sam Vigersky, a public policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Reuters that *"the overall security situation [in Haiti] is not trending toward stabilization, but rather toward escalation."* One report says the company cited continuing security concerns; another says it gave no specific reason.
Is the company retreating from the Caribbean?
Its own filings say the opposite.
Three weeks before this extension, Royal Caribbean Group signed definitive agreements to buy a 50 per cent stake in Sandals and Beaches Resorts for about US$3 billion in cash, disclosed to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on 23 September 2026.
A company committing US$3 billion to Caribbean land while closing one Caribbean destination for three more years is making a judgement about a country, not about the region.
What does this mean for the ports that gain the calls?
More berth-days in a year when each one earns less.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings reported third-quarter revenue of US$2.9 billion on 29 October and raised its full-year outlook, and in the same results Net Yield fell 6.5 per cent against 2025, with a further fall guided. Volume is moving and the revenue per passenger behind it is not moving with it.
The distinction matters because most ports publish only the first half. Valparaíso scheduled 25 per cent more calls for this season and published no revenue figure at all, while Saint Vincent published US$19.28 million as what cruise tourism put into the country across the 2023/2024 cruise year.
Eight ports are about to receive 44 itineraries' worth of calls. On the published record, one of the eight could say what that is worth.
What is not established?
The dates behind the suspension, and the money on either side of it.
The notification date is reported as 30 October, and as 2 November in one account. The end-date this extension replaces is given as June 2027 in one report and July 2027 in another. When calls first stopped is reported as mid-2025, against older coverage implying earlier. No public notice from the line has been located; the instruction went to travel advisers.
And on the Haitian side, the passenger count is seven years old, the head tax is reported at two different rates, and the three employment figures disagree with each other.
The entities
- Labadee is Royal Caribbean's leased private destination on Haiti's northern coast, closed to the line's ships until at least April 2028.
- Royal Caribbean International is the cruise line that operates calls at Labadee and has extended their suspension.
- Royal Caribbean Group is its parent, which agreed in September 2026 to buy half of Sandals and Beaches Resorts.
- HaitiLibre is the Haitian news outlet that reported the extension on 1 November 2026.
- The Haitian Times is the outlet that reported the Labadie employment figures citing the local CASEC board.
- CASEC is the Haitian communal section administrative council, the local body cited for those figures.
- Council on Foreign Relations is the United States research institution whose public policy expert assessed Haiti's security trajectory to Reuters.
- Hispaniola is the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two of whose ports receive the reassigned calls.
What the title card says
- Headline: Royal Caribbean will not call at Haiti until April 2028, and 44 itineraries move to eight other ports, two of them on the same island.
- Date to which calls at Labadee are suspended: at least April 2028.
- Number of times the suspension has been extended: three.
- Itineraries revised: 44.
- Ships affected: nine.
- Replacement ports named: eight.
- Of those, ports in the Dominican Republic, on the same island as Labadee: two.
- Cruise passengers Labadee took in 2019: more than 721,000.
- Per-passenger payment to the Haitian state: reported at US$6 in older coverage and US$12 more recently.
- Published total for what the Haitian state earns from Labadee: none.
- Residents reported cut off from cruise-related work: about 1,000.
- What Royal Caribbean Group agreed to pay for half of Sandals and Beaches Resorts in September 2026: about US$3 billion.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long is Royal Caribbean's Haiti suspension?
Calls at Labadee are suspended to at least April 2028. HaitiLibre reported on 1 November 2026 that this is the third extension of a moratorium that began when the line and other operators stopped calling in mid-2025.
How many sailings are affected?
Travel Market Report counts 44 itineraries revised across nine ships, named across reports as Adventure, Allure, Explorer, Freedom, Harmony, Independence, Serenade, Star and Symphony of the Seas. Pre-paid shore excursions booked through the line are automatically refunded.
Which ports take the calls instead?
Grand Turk, Grand Cayman, Nassau, Cozumel, Costa Maya, San Juan, Puerto Plata and Samaná, with some sailings taking extra sea days. Puerto Plata and Samaná are in the Dominican Republic, which shares Hispaniola with Haiti.
What does Haiti lose in revenue?
No total is published. Labadee took more than 721,000 cruise passengers in 2019 on a Haitian industry association figure, and the per-passenger payment to the state has been reported at US$6 in older coverage and US$12 more recently, with no established date for the change. The two figures cannot be combined into a reliable annual total.
Is Royal Caribbean reducing its Caribbean exposure?
Not on its own filings. Royal Caribbean Group signed definitive agreements on 23 September 2026 to buy a 50 per cent stake in Sandals and Beaches Resorts for about US$3 billion in cash, disclosed to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.