The CEO and Chairman of Royal Caribbean, Richard Fain, sounded quite offended when veteran cruise journalist John Honeywell suggested to him this weekend that it was about time Celebrity Cruises retired the 16-year-old Celebrity Century.

Dan Hanrahan, President of Celebrity Cruises, immediately reacted by saying that he was busy setting up itineraries for the cruise line for the 2012/13 season and that these definitely included the 1,750 cruise liner. He seemed adamant that the company would stay loyal to the veteran of the seven seas.

Whether all this is to be taken seriously is an open question. There have recently been rumours that Richard Fain has rapid growth plans for their German subsidiary, TUI Cruises.

In an interview with Seatrade Insider he said “TUI Cruises has been remarkably successful as a start-up. That's a worthy business to continue to build on a fairly rapid basis.”

At the moment TUI only has two ships: Mein Schliff 2, which used to be the former Celebrity Mercury and Mein Schiff, which is nothing else but the former Celebrity Galaxy. It is easy, therefore, to understand why Honeywell remains convinced that Celebrity Century could soon be Mein Schiff 3 or something equally German-sounding.

Fain added that the German cruise market was growing rapidly at present. He paid tribute to the German branch of competitor Carnival Corporation (AIDA), which succeeded in a market where Celebrity initially had little success.

He continued “AIDA opened everyone's eyes. They truly opened the market and made cruising popular as a vacation for all Germans.”