Royal family
Before being diagnosed with cancer, Buckingham Palace announced King Charles III would visit four countries as part of a fall 2024 royal tour of Oceania—New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, and Samoa. Now, changes are being made.
Published on July 1, 2024
Big changes are reportedly being made to King Charles III’s forthcoming Oceania royal tour. He and Queen Camilla, 76, are scheduled to travel internationally this fall in what will be the monarch’s first post-cancer diagnosis royal tour. However, they won’t follow the original plan. Instead, schedules will be lighter, and the tour will be shorter.
New Zealand and Fiji may get cut from the king’s Oceania royal tour in October
According to The Mirror, the king won’t visit Australia, Samoa, New Zealand, and Fiji as part of his Oceania royal tour. The Fiji and New Zealand portions of the tour are being cut as King Charles continues to recover after beginning cancer treatment in February 2024.
Described as “a bitter disappointment on both sides,” Buckingham Palace hasn’t confirmed their plan to nix Fiji and New Zealand from the tour. The king’s said to be in “denial” about all the planning, per The Daily Beast.
Meanwhile, Christopher Luxon, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, “came close to conceding the truth of the worst kept secret in diplomacy” when he remarked the king had “an ‘open invitation’ to visit the country,” the publication’s Tom Sykes wrote.
The news won’t, a lawmaker told Sykes, be a major disappointment to the people of New Zealand. “If the royal visit is canceled,” they said, “New Zealanders will be typically reasonable about it.”
King Charles ‘desperately wants to keep going’ with Oceania tour planning
Queen Camilla and King Charles III | Victoria Jones-WPA Pool/Getty Images
For now, at least, “the Palace is sticking to the line that planning for the trip continues,” Sykes wrote. Their “unwillingness to rush out an announcement is entirely understandable, given that they still hope Charles will be able to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) conference in Samoa, despite his ongoing cancer fight.”
King Charles returned to public duties in late April 2024 after approximately 11 weeks out of the spotlight. His treatment is ongoing as he continues the royal family’s busy schedule of summer events, such as the Royal Ascot and Trooping the Colour.
Palace courtiers are “in denial by continuing to say that planning for the overseas trip is full steam ahead—but the orders come from the top,” a source told the outlet. “Charles is optimistic and desperately wants to keep going with everything.”
“Missing New Zealand is a great loss, and it will be a source of great regret for him, because, to be honest, he probably won’t be doing it again,” they added. “But it’s frankly incredible that he is still doing Australia, and that should be celebrated.”
The king’s time in Australia may be shorter than planned
King Charles III, 2012 | Chris Jackson/Getty Images
The king may not spend as much time Down Under as originally planned. According to The Mirror, the Australia leg of King Charles’ Oceania royal tour is being reduced to six days, including two days off.
Unlike Fiji and New Zealand, however, the possibility of removing Australia from the Oceania tour has never been considered.
“Australia is such an important part of the Commonwealth that Charles feels it is absolutely non-negotiable,” an insider said. “There is considerable popular antipathy to the entire concept of the British monarch being head of state there. And, of course, he doesn’t want to go down as the man who lost Australia.”
“To go there when he is being treated for cancer wasn’t what he planned,” the source added. “But you could hardly think of a better way of letting Australians know how important they are to the Crown.”
Source link : https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/king-charles-reportedly-denial-oceania-royal-tour-fall.html/
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Publish date : 2024-07-01 17:54:00
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