Key Aspects:
- Queen Elizabeth has been delayed by more than 24 hours in Seattle while essential routine maintenance is completed.
- The Cunard ship is now scheduled to depart at 5:00 p.m. on September 18, a day later than originally planned.
- Cunard has warned that the delay could impact the ship’s final Alaska itinerary of the 2026 season.
Guests aboard Queen Elizabeth’s final Alaska voyage of 2026 are spending an unexpected extra day in Seattle. The 2,081-passenger Cunard ship was originally scheduled to depart from the Washington port at 4:30 p.m. on September 17, but essential maintenance delayed the departure by more than 24 hours.
A guest on Reddit shared that, shortly after boarding, they were greeted with a note saying the departure had been pushed to 9:00 p.m. for essential maintenance. The captain later announced that the maintenance had pushed departure even further to 5:00 p.m. the following day, September 18. A subsequent letter confirmed the delay.
“Following the Captain’s announcement this evening, we are writing to inform you of our delayed departure from Seattle,” the letter read. “To allow for on-going essential routine maintenance to be completed, we will need to remain in Port until 17:00 tomorrow, Friday, September 18.”
To accommodate the arrival of another ship at Pier 91, Queen Elizabeth moved to an alternate location at 9:00 p.m. The letter to guests indicated that the ship would leave the port at that time and return at 7:30 a.m. the following morning.
However, guests commenting on the Reddit post said that the ship instead slowly moved to another berth, rather than leaving the port. The letter did not specify the ship that necessitated the relocation, but the Port of Seattle’s 2026 schedule lists Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas at Pier 91 on September 18.
“QE was to move to another berth at 9 pm to make way for an arriving ship. We moved very slowly a few feet, but then stopped,” one guest said.
“We are in a different berth now. The captain said our original berth was needed for a larger vessel,” commented another guest. “A Royal Caribbean ship is in our original spot and we moved one berth to the west.”
Guests were confined to the ship overnight, but were allowed ashore during the extra day in Seattle. However, the letter advised all guests to return to the ship by 4:00 p.m. ahead of the 5:00 p.m. departure.
The cruise line also clarified that they would still be running a full program of events onboard while the ship remained docked in Seattle. Cunard did not identify what maintenance was being performed, nor why it caused such a delay.
Final Alaska Cruise of the Season
The timing is notable, as the delayed sailing is Queen Elizabeth’s final Alaska cruise of the 2026 season. Cruise Hive previously reported that Cunard scheduled 15 roundtrip Alaska cruises from Seattle aboard the ship during the 2026 season, ranging from 7 to 12 nights.
This final 7-night cruise is scheduled to visit Ketchikan, Juneau, and Victoria, with scenic cruising at Endicott Arm before returning to Seattle on September 24. Ketchikan is the first scheduled port call, with Queen Elizabeth due to arrive there on the morning of September 19.
The sailing can also be booked as the first segment of a longer 28-night voyage from Seattle to Miami. Those guests are scheduled to return to Seattle on September 24 before continuing south along the Pacific Coast and eventually passing through the Panama Canal.
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September 18 was originally scheduled as a sea day en route to Ketchikan. While no delay to the Ketchikan call has been announced, the removal of a full day of sailing makes a cancelled or shortened call likely.
Cunard has explicitly warned guests that they anticipate additional impact to the voyage and will try to limit changes to the ports of call. Guests will receive another update on September 18 once it has more information about any changes to the remainder of the voyage.
