New Celebrity Ship to Repatriate Ash-Stranded Travelers

As Celebrity Cruises prepares for the launch this weekend of its brand-new Celebrity Eclipse, the line is also stepping in to help stranded travelers make their way back home.

The cruise line has announced that the first leg of Eclipse’s launch celebrations — a two-night cruise scheduled to depart April 22 — has been canceled so the ship can instead repatriate British and Irish vacationers affected by airport closures and subsequent flight cancellations after Iceland’s Eyjafjallajoekull volcano erupted a cloud of ash into the atmosphere.

Celebrity is working in tandem with major U.K. tour operators to collect holidaymakers in Bilbao, Spain, and bring them to Southampton; a spokeswoman for the line couldn’t release the names of the tour operators because the details are still being worked out — but we do know that more than 2,000 travelers who were on package holidays with these operators, some of which have been stranded for several days, are currently expected to join Celebrity Eclipse in Bilbao.

Celebrity Eclipse will arrive in Southampton as scheduled at 9 a.m. tomorrow, and will depart in the evening for Bilbao, where the ship is scheduled to arrive in the early hours of Thursday, April 22. Stranded travelers will board throughout the morning on Thursday, after which the ship will set sail for Southampton, returning late Friday evening.