Royal Caribbean Group
Consumer Discretionary
76
out of 100. Number 22 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Royal Caribbean Group does well
- Material modifications to the Digital Terms of Use require the user's acceptance before taking effect; only immaterial changes apply on publication.
- Personal injury, illness, and death claims are carved out of arbitration and can still go to court.
- If the cruise itself is canceled or cut short due to mechanical failure, guests get a full or partial fare refund plus repatriation transport and lodging (Section 6(e)).
- Taxes, fees, and fuel supplements are refunded even when the fare itself is forfeited.
- The privacy policy offers real opt-outs (Do Not Sell/Share link, cookie controls), access/correction/deletion rights for CA and other states, and commits not to discriminate against users who exercise them.
- The CLIA Passenger Bill of Rights overrides the ticket contract wherever they directly conflict.
Almost every non-injury dispute (billing, consumer rights, privacy, discrimination) must go to private individual arbitration in Miami - no judge, no jury, no class actions, no opt-out, and the class waiver is deliberately glued to the arbitration clause so invalidating one can't save the other.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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Almost every non-injury dispute (billing, consumer rights, privacy, discrimination) must go to private individual arbitration in Miami - no judge, no jury, no class actions, no opt-out, and the class waiver is deliberately glued to the arbitration clause so invalidating one can't save the other.
ANY AND ALL OTHER DISPUTES, CLAIMS, OR CONTROVERSIES WHATSOEVER, EXCEPT FOR PERSONAL INJURY, ILLNESS OR DEATH OF A PASSENGER... SHALL BE REFERRED TO AND RESOLVED EXCLUSIVELY BY BINDING ARBITRATION... SOLELY IN MIAMI, FLORIDA, U.S.A. TO THE EXCLUSION OF ANY OTHER FORUM. Neither party will have the right to a jury trial... PASSENGER HEREBY AGREES THAT... PASSENGER MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST CARRIER ONLY IN PASSENGER'S INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY... PASSENGER EXPRESSLY AGREES TO WAIVE ANY LAW ENTITLING PASSENGER TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION... YOU AGREE THAT THIS SECTION SHALL NOT BE SEVERABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FROM THE ARBITRATION CLAUSE SET FORTH IN SECTION 10.b BELOW
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Cancel within 30 days of sailing and you lose the entire fare - nothing back. Nonrefundable deposits are gone the moment you pay. As of October 11, 2026, new bookings also lose the old 25% penalty tier, so canceling just after final payment now costs 50% of the fare instead of 25%.
30 days or less | 100% of total price (No refund). Select fare programs require the payment at the time of booking of a nonrefundable deposit. That deposit amount shall not be refunded at any time after it has been paid.
Royal Caribbean Cruise/CruiseTour Ticket Contract, Section 7
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Royal Caribbean can cancel your sailing, swap your ship, or skip your dream port at any time for any reason with zero notice - and owes no refund or compensation for doing so. Separately, surcharges can change and are simply billed to you on demand.
Carrier may for any reason at any time and without prior notice, cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing, port of call, destination, lodging or any activity on or off the Vessel, or substitute another vessel or port of call, destination, lodging or activity... Carrier shall not be liable for any claim whatsoever by Passenger, including but not limited to loss, compensation or refund, by reason of such cancellation, advancement, postponement, substitution or deviation. ... fuel surcharges, security surcharges or similar assessments ... which are subject to change and are due and payable by Passenger upon request.
Royal Caribbean Cruise/CruiseTour Ticket Contract, Sections 2(d) and 6(a)
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Your face is captured by shipboard CCTV and run through facial-recognition software, and your ID photo can be shared with business partners - all as standard practice. Advertising cookies separately build interest profiles by tracking your activity across Royal Caribbean's sites and others for targeted ads.
We also use enhanced software to analyse the CCTV footage which may use facial recognition techniques or other tools to identify characteristics, such as the colour of a person's clothing. ... If We have your consent to do so, We use the photo you provide to identify you during the embarkation process... and We may allow Business Partners to access this data to verify your identity.
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There is no fixed deletion schedule - Royal Caribbean keeps your data as long as its own internal retention policies say so, with no maximum period disclosed.
We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary: (i) for the purposes set out in this privacy notice; (ii) to provide Our products and services to you; (iii) to comply with Our legal obligations... or (iv) to comply with Our usual business data retention policies.
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Boarding the ship signs over your image and voice to Royal Caribbean forever - usable in advertising worldwide without payment or further permission. And for any non-injury dispute you have just 30 days after the cruise to file written notice and 6 months to start arbitration - missing either deadline kills your claim.
Guest hereby grants to Carrier (and its assignees and licensees) the exclusive right throughout the universe and in perpetuity to include photographic, video, audio and other visual or audio portrayals of Passenger taken during or in connection with the Cruise or CruiseTour... for the purpose of trade, advertising, sales, publicity, promotional, training or otherwise, without compensation to the Guest. ... no proceeding described in section 10(b) may be brought against carrier... unless written notice of the claim, with full particulars, shall be delivered to carrier at its principal office within thirty (30) days after termination of the cruise... In no event shall any such proceeding... be maintainable unless such proceeding shall be commenced (filed) within six (6) months after the termination of the cruise.
Royal Caribbean Cruise/CruiseTour Ticket Contract, Sections 13 and 10(b)(3)
How these were found
Ticket contract clauses 1-10a read from cheaptickets.com mirror of the current Royal Caribbean Cruise/CruiseTour Ticket Contract (https://www.cheaptickets.com/lp/b/rules-royal-caribbean-international, crawled 6 days before research). Clauses 10b-13 (arbitration detail, claim deadlines, liability caps, photo license) read from victimaid.com sample-contract mirror (https://www.victimaid.com/practice-areas/personal-injury/cruise-ship-injuries/cruises-we-sue/royal-caribbean-sample-contract/), which labels itself a sample only and excludes Brilliance of the Sea. Royal Caribbean's own ticket contract page on royalcaribbean.com blocked automated fetching, so no official-domain copy was obtained. Privacy Policy read from official https://www.royalcaribbean.com/sgp/en/resources/privacy-policy, Effective Date: September 30, 2024. Digital Terms of Use read from official https://www.royalcaribbean.com/resources/digital-terms-of-use-and-end-user-license-agreement. Cancellation penalty tables cross-checked against the ticket-contract mirror and 2026 change reporting (TravelHost Sep 2026; TravelerToday Oct 1, 2026): Royal Caribbean eliminated the 25% penalty tier and split the 5-14 night category, effective for new North American bookings starting October 11, 2026 (existing bookings keep the old terms). No arbitration opt-out appears in the ticket contract or Digital Terms of Use (verified via page search).
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.