Families who cruise regularly with Royal Caribbean may want to take a closer look at how the Crown & Anchor Society loyalty program handles children who turn 18. According to the program's Supplemental Terms, kids share the same tier status as their parent — up to Diamond Plus — only until their 18th birthday. After that, their status reverts to whatever tier their own personal point total actually reflects.
This has caught some cruisers off guard because, in practice, many young adults who aged out of a parent's tier kept the higher status anyway — even if their own point totals didn't support it. The written policy, it turns out, has been consistent since at least 2021, but it wasn't consistently applied. What's changed now is that Royal Caribbean appears to be actively enforcing it.
To put it in concrete terms: a teenager who reached Diamond status through a parent's account but personally earned only 20 cruise points would, upon turning 18, need to accumulate 155 additional points on their own to actually qualify for Diamond Plus. The higher tier doesn't carry over — only the points they personally earned do.
The Crown & Anchor terms are explicit: children are removed from a loyalty relationship with a parent or guardian on their 18th birthday, and any tier status accumulated outside that window will be adjusted back without notice. Royal Caribbean Blog notes a similar pattern happened with the cruise line's wine corkage fee — a rule that existed on paper for years before it was suddenly and consistently charged.
For Florida families planning multi-generational cruises, this is a good time to review where each family member stands in terms of their individual point totals before assuming status will simply carry forward. This story was originally reported by Matt Hochberg at Royal Caribbean Blog.
