Celebrity Millennium Cancels Port Calls Due to Indonesian Dispute

celebrity millenniumCelebrity Cruises and local Indonesian authorities are having an undisclosed dispute. As a result, the upper premium line has cancelled Celebrity Millennium's port calls in Bali and at Komodo Island this week. Celebrity Millennium is currently operating a 14-night cruise roundtrip from Singapore to Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. The ship departed on this voyage on November 23.

The two-night port visit in Bali set for today and Thanksgiving day, November 26 and 27, has been cancelled. Also cancelled is a port call at Komodo Island set for Sunday, November 30. 

Instead, Celebrity will call at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, today and on Thanksgiving, and at the port for Bangkok on November 29 and 30. Celebrity would not elaborate futher when asked about the exact nature of the dispute. 

Here is the Celebrity statement to the media: 

"Celebrity Cruises prides itself in conducting its business in compliance with the law and in accordance with the highest standards of business ethics. Doing so protects our company, our crew, and our guests. A dispute has arisen with local Indonesian authorities of a nature that we believe puts those legal and ethical standards at serious risk.

"Because of this dispute, we have been advised that local officials may either prevent guests sailing on Celebrity Millennium from disembarking the ship in Bali, or prevent the ship from departing. We refuse to put our guests and crew at such risk.

"While we have escalated this matter to the national level with the Indonesian government, unfortunately, we were unable to reach a resolution before Celebrity Millennium’s current sailing began on Sunday, November 23. This forced us to cancel the scheduled port calls to Bali and Komodo, Indonesia.

"Instead, we added into the itinerary overnight calls to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Bangkok, Thailand. Celebrity Millennium will also spend some additional time in the beautiful island of Phuket, Thailand.

"In recognition of the impact this issue has had on our guests’ vacation, Celebrity Cruises will provide each guest with an onboard credit, as well as a future cruise certificate for 30 percent of the cruise fare paid."

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