Environmental Group Urges Royal Caribbean to Slow Ships After Fatal Whale Strike in Alaska
If you're sailing on Ovation of the Seas or through Seward, Alaska — including on itineraries tied to the new $137 million cruise terminal there — nothing changes for your booking right now, since no mandatory speed limit is in place. Keep an eye on whether Royal Caribbean responds to the Center for Biological Diversity's June 24 request for a voluntary 10-knot limit in whale habitat. If a mandatory rule is eventually adopted, it could affect sailing times and itineraries on Alaska routes.
What jumps out to me is the timing: this fatal strike happened just days after Seward's new $137 million cruise terminal — now the largest in Alaska — opened on June 10, with Ovation of the Seas as its first homeported ship. Royal Caribbean has committed to routing at least 140,000 passengers through Seward each season, so more ship traffic through whale habitat is coming, not less. The Center for Biological Diversity's own AIS analysis puts the ship at 15-20 knots, and their cited 2007 study suggests that speed range pushes fatal-strike odds toward 79%, versus roughly 21% at 8.6 knots. Royal Caribbean addressed the strike itself but has stayed silent on the speed-limit ask. California's voluntary 10-knot slowdowns reportedly cut strikes roughly in half in 2021 — if I were Royal Caribbean, I'd take that data seriously before regulators do it for them.