The last cruise ships to leave a U.S. port for a cruise to the Caribbean/Bahamas was on March 13, 2020. Are cruise lines finally close to restarting cruises?
Several cruise lines have resumed cruises on just a handful of cruise ships in Europe and Asia. This includes one of the largest cruise ships in the world from MSC Cruises that has been sailing for over a month now.
Here are four signs that cruises may be close to resuming from the U.S. in late 2020.
Cruise lines submit health proposals to the CDC – Earlier this week, CLIA and the cruise lines submitted new health protocols that they plan on implementing once they restart cruises.
The new health protocols include the testing of all passengers and crew members, masks when social distancing is not possible, new protocols for shore excursions, and air management and ventilation strategies on cruise ships.
On CNBC this week, Royal Caribbean’s CEO Richard Fain joined Norwegian Cruise Line’s CEO Frank Del Rio talking about their joint partnership in keeping passengers safe when cruising resumes. While they did not give an exact number, they said that not all cruise ships will resume at once and the ones that do will operate at less than full capacity.
Closest we’ve got to sailings without them being canceled – Cruise lines have cruises scheduled to leave in five weeks. This is the closest that we have gotten to scheduled cruises in months without them being canceled.
Norwegian Cruise Line said at the end of July that they would start giving monthly updates about the cancellation of cruises. August came and went without any cancellations. Now that we are nearing the end of September and still no word about cancellations from NCL, we see this as a good sign.
Cruise lines are contacting non-essential crew members about coming back – Cruise lines have sent out emails to crew members asking them to join cruise ships soon. Several crew members have reached out to Cruise Fever about the emails that they have received. Right now, only essential workers that are critical to the operating of the vessels are onboard.
Crew members that have been contacted about possibly returning soon include food, bar and entertainment staff. Cruise lines are getting their ducks in a row so everything will be in place once they are allowed to sail again.
CDC No-Sail Order expiring – The CDC’s No-Sail Order is set to expire on September 30, 2020. Cruise lines have already canceled cruises from North America through the end of October.
The biggest hurdle cruise lines have to resuming cruises is for the CDC to accept their new health proposals so cruises can resume. Right now it’s a waiting game but cruise lines are putting the necessary steps in place in anticipation that they will get the green light on restarting sailings.
It’s impossible to say right now whether cruises will resume from North America in November, but things are looking much brighter than they were several months ago.
