Royal Caribbean will kick off its Southeast Asian season a month early this year, to fit in a series of additional sailings from Singapore.

The company’s Mariner of the Seas cruise liner is adding 10 more roundtrip sailings from Singapore in September 2017.

The 3,807-passenger vessel will be returning to Singapore on 10 September for the winter 2017-18 season, instead of October as originally scheduled. Sales for the new September cruises opened this week.

The new itineraries include a nine-night one-way repositioning cruise from Shanghai to Singapore, which departs on 1 September and calls at Xiamen, Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City. Once in Singapore, Mariner of the Seas will operate a series of three- to five-night Southeast Asian itineraries.

At the end of its Southeast Asian season in April 2018, the ship will sail to Miami for the summer season.
And Royal Caribbean will increase its Southeast Asian capacity even further in the 2018 winter season, when the 4,269-passenger Voyager of the Seas arrives in the region, swapping places with Mariner of the Seas.

This will mark a return to the region for Voyager of the Seas, which is currently based in Singapore until June 2017, operating 13 three- to five-night sailings to Phuket, Penang and Kuala Lumpur, plus an eight-night one-way cruise to Hong Kong, with stopovers at Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang.

Earlier this year, Royal Caribbean entered into a multi-million dollar agreement with the Singapore Tourism Board and Changi Airport Group aimed at bringing around 45,000 overseas fly-cruise travellers to Singapore this year to sail on Ovation of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas.