Royal Caribbean Unveils Cross-Brand Points Choice Loyalty and Xcel’s Four Mediterranean Festivals

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Royal Caribbean will launch Points Choice on January 30, 2026, enabling guests to earn and transfer loyalty points across Crown & Anchor, Captain’s Club, and Venetian Society programs. Celebrity Xcel will debut four Mediterranean-themed festivals in Summer 2026, enhancing onboard destination immersion and potentially increasing onboard spend per guest.

1. Points Choice Program Launch

Royal Caribbean Group will roll out its new Points Choice loyalty program on sailings departing January 30, 2026, allowing guests to earn and allocate reward points across Royal Caribbean’s Crown & Anchor Society, Celebrity Cruises’ Captain’s Club and Silversea’s Venetian Society. Members can elect to transfer points up to 14 days after each voyage, granting unprecedented flexibility in building tier status. The initiative follows the May 2024 Status Match rollout, which synchronized elite benefits across the three brands, and is expected to drive higher repeat bookings by deepening cross-brand engagement across the Group’s nearly 70-ship fleet and more than 1,000 destinations.

2. Yield Momentum and Pricing Discipline

Royal Caribbean’s yield management has remained robust through record close-in bookings and elevated onboard spend, with average revenue per available lower berth day (RevPAR) up by mid‐single digits year-over-year in Q4 2025. The company reported a 12% increase in onboard revenue per guest carried, driven by specialty dining and shore-excursion sales. Strong demand for premium itineraries in Alaska, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean has underpinned firm pricing for 2026, while capacity growth remains capped at 7% year-over-year, supporting continued per-unit yield expansion even as industry capacity ramps up.

3. Mediterranean Festivals on Celebrity Xcel

Celebrity Cruises, a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group, will introduce four European-inspired festivals aboard Celebrity Xcel beginning May 2026: Opa (Greece), La Dolce Vita (Italy), Salud (Spain) and Silk & Spice (Morocco/Turkey). Each three-day Mediterranean sailing from Barcelona or Athens, with new overnight calls in Madeira, will feature immersive food-and-beverage activations, artisan markets and region-specific entertainment. Management projects these onboard experiences will increase per-guest spending by 8% on sea days and bolster forward bookings for Celebrity’s premium product offering in its inaugural European season.

4. Fleet and Destination Expansion

By the end of 2026, Royal Caribbean Group will have expanded its Perfect Day private-island portfolio to five locations and will launch Celebrity River Cruises in mid-2027, marking the Group’s entry into river cruising. The addition of new private islands and the pending debut of Celebrity Xcel’s transformative venue, The Bazaar, underscore management’s strategy to diversify its footprint across ocean, river and land-based experiences. With an orderbook of 12 new ocean ships through 2035 and a planned increase to eight private-destination properties by 2028, Royal Caribbean Group is positioned to sustain growth in capacity-adjusted revenue and free cash flow generation over the next decade.

Sources

ZPP