My husband and I took the Royal Caribbean Legend of the Seas 14 day cruise from Singapore to Freemantle, Perth Western Australia on Sept 13, 2015. When we arrived to Singapore we were assaulted by a heavy blanket of smoky haze. Apparently each year, Sumatra Indonesia illegally burns thousands of acres of their land to make way to plant Palm Trees for palm oil. This illegal slash and burn method causes huge amounts of smoke that cover Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. This illegal act has been going on for years and usually occurs sometime between August and September, but can have lasting affects through October depending on the winds.

The people living in that part of the world are well aware of this situation, including personal on Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas ocean liner. Yet, Royal Caribbean does NOT share this info with people when they are booking a cruise. This is according to the travel agency I used and Royal Caribbean, themselves. I brought this matter up to Royal Caribbean when I returned home and I was informed by their Corporate Guest Services rep that it was either my responsibility to ask about this issue or for my travel agent to inform me. In addition, she claimed ignorance of this annual event in Indonesia.

As for me inquiring about this matter when booking my cruise, I asked exactly how was I to know to inquire about such a matter? I don't normally inquire if a country is burning its countryside on an annual basis. I did contact my travel agent BEFORE contacting Royal Caribbean upon my return home, and my agent stated that they were never informed by Royal Caribbean about the annual Indonesian fires. I advised of this and was then told "well, it's an illegal act, so we cannot advise people of illegal acts." So, in other words you would not tell someone about this practice even though it has been going on routinely for YEARS. REALLY? So, if a war was going on or a coupe, then you would just let people go ashore because none of us specifically asked if there were any wars or squirmishes going on at the port of call(s) we were scheduled to visit? I advised that all I wanted from Royal Caribbean was a refund for the first 7 days of my journey. The smoke covering Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand was awful. My husband and I were both coughing up black soot for days, and we did not escape the horrible smoke till the 8th day of a 14 day cruise. Had Royal Caribbean made it known that these annual illegal fires were a possibility, to either my travel agent or me, then we could have made an informed decision. If the fires would have been set illegally while we were cruising or even before, then it would have been on us for traveling during this time. In my opinion, for Royal Caribbean NOT to share this information freely with people shows that Royal Caribbean purposely hid this information making them grossly negligent in their fiduciary responsibilities to the general public. The response was basically "we have no control over these fires, so will not be getting a refund from Royal Caribbean. This should have been shared with you by your travel agent. This answer is unacceptable to me. My travel agent is NOT the cruise line traveling that route on a regular basis. It is the responsibility of the cruise line to disclose this info. I did call back my travel agent and was informed that since it's an "agricultural matter" they have no responsibility to advise of the situation unless I specifically ask about this issue OR Royal Caribbean shared this information directly with the travel agent company. My travel agent did give me a voucher for $200 that I can use toward the purchase of ANY future cruise over the next 12 months on any cruise line. While this takes out the sting a little, it still does NOT absolve Royal Caribbean for NOT informing people ahead of time of this burning practice by Indonesia. Now that I am aware of this, I researched this issue and info can be found going back to 2009 on Google. It's a well known "practice" that chokes the entire continent for up to 3 months each year depending on weather conditions each year. Read more