It’s been another fast-moving period of cruise news and developments, including Royal
Caribbean's first post pandemic cruise, Test cruises in Europe, how volunteers for US test
cruises will be chosen an update on Australian cruising, news on European River cruising
, more domestic only cruises announced and much more.
I am Gary Bembridge, and this is another of my Tips For Travellers cruise updates, where
I unpick the biggest breaking cruising news, and discuss what it means for all of us as
cruisers.
The big news of recent days, is that pretty much all lines have now confirmed a full year
without any cruising.
The challenges of working through the US CDC's Framework for Conditional Sailing, has led
to waves of cruise line cancellations
In recent days, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity have now cancelled all of their
January and February cruises. Carnival had already cancelled everything except for Miami,
Port Canaveral and Galverston until March.
Norwegian will only have a few ships sailing in March. They have cancelled cruises for
11 of their ships until April (Norwegian Bliss, Breakaway, Epic, Gem, Getaway, Jade, Jewel,
Pearl, Sky, Sun and Pride of America).
The other lines in the Norwegian group, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas, now hope to resume
in April
To help you keep up with the constant changes, I have a page on my site TipsForTravellers.com
that is kept up to date with all ocean and river cruise return to service dates. The
link is in this episode's notes.
As I predicted in past updates, as you look at it, April is increasingly looking to be
the month lines are realistically seeing as when they will return to service.
The first Royal Caribbean ship has returned to service. The huge Quantum of the Seas has
begun a four month season of 3- and 4- night cruises to nowhere out of Singapore carrying
local residents only.
The line first ran a two night non-revenue shakedown cruise with local Royal Caribbean
staff, their friends and family along with local travel agents to test everything out.
The first cruise set sail on 1 December.
I have reviewed the protocols and some of the things that stand out are, firstly guests
have a PCR test 48 hours before the cruise, which is included in the fare, and has to
be done at an approved facility so the line has visibility of the results. Guests are
also tested at the end of the cruise.
The ship is sailing at 50% capacity, masks are to be worn, social distancing in venues,
and guests must wear the new Royal Caribbean "Tracelet" to assist with contact tracing.
What I found interesting are the financial arrangements, as this may be a sign of what
will be the case when cruising resumes in North America and Europe
Firstly, 100% refund if anyone in your travel party tests positive within three weeks prior
to the cruise, or at the boarding terminal.
And then they also offer a 100% refund for you and your travel party if any of you tests
positive during the cruise.
Secondly, if there is a Covid issue, Royal Caribbean will cover onboard medical treatment,
cost of any required land-based quarantine, and travel home
In other Royal Caribbean news, they announced that they will also be running test cruises
in Europe before cruising resumes. We know they had to run them in the United States
as the CDC requires them, but no European authorities have expressly required them so
far.
Ben Bouldin, U.K. Managing Director and Vice President of Europe, said in an interview
with Cruise Critic (and I quote) "there will definitely be trial cruises on the ships
sailing out of Europe".
In the US, Royal Caribbean have a site for volunteers to sign up for test cruises. As
I mentioned, in Singapore it was invited trade and employees on that test cruise. In Europe
Ben went on to say (and again I quote) "We haven't yet figured out how to do it in Europe
yet. Whether or not we open those up to the public is still to be defined. I suspect we
may well need the help of our very loyal Crown and Anchor guests to come and help put some
of the ships and the crew through their paces".
This reflects news that Volunteers in the US will be chosen by loyalty level. Royal's
CEO and President Michael Bayley said in an address to a Madrid cruise conference (and
I quote): "We haven't figured out our protocols yet for the volunteers but certainly loyalty
status will be a key selector”
Quite a few people have asked me to give more regular updates on the outlook for Australian
and New Zealand cruising. So, let's look at the situation right now. There are four key
things to note
First of all, at the time of recording, the Australian government has a blanket ban on
any international cruise ship returning to Australian waters until the 17 December.
Although it is likely the date gets extended, The Australian Department of Health said in
the past week that although they are not ready to set a date for the resumption of either
larger domestic or international cruises, a spokesperson said: (and I quote) “Options
being considered include a staged approach to cruise resumption” and "“Above all,
the Government will need to be assured that cruise ships can operate in a COVID-safe way
and that the risk of transmission is acceptably low before cruise operations will be permitted".
Clearly, the main cruise lines home porting for all, or some of the year, in Australia
are not expecting to be able to sail until at least February, as of now.
One of the big players, P&O Cruises Australia, cancelled all cruises to February so far.
They are, though, thinking positively as 2 ships are due to be added to the fleet (Pacific
Adventure at end of April and Pacific Explorer in early May).
Royal Caribbean have also cancelled cruises until February.
Carnival Cruises is due to start sailing out of Australia on Carnival Splendor from mid-March
and Carnival Sprit from June. However, in late November they announced they were dramatically
scrapping 30% of their planned international itineraries out of Australia, replacing them
with domestic only cruises. A trend that I will come back to shortly.
Princess Cruises, Celebrity Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line have all cancelled their
2020 - 2021 Australian and New Zealand summer season.
Then, of course, as all 2021 world cruises have been cancelled, all the many ships that
were due to call into Australia and New Zealand will not be visiting.
A few small lines with intimate ships have recently been offering domestic expedition-style
cruises for Australians. Though even those have had limits on who could join based on
which territory people live in. But Australians desperate to cruise can look at Coral Expeditions
which carry 60 guests.
The Australian Cruise Line Association has presented a plan to the Australian government
on the limited resumption of cruises early in 2021, which suggests what to expect here.
CLIA’s Managing Director, Joel Katz, confirmed they are requesting initially local cruises
for domestic residents only. These would sail with reduced capacity, 100% testing of passengers
and crew and other protocols other regions have agreed. They are even open to cruises
being limited to state borders - so New South Wales people only would cruise from Sydney,
Queenslanders would cruise from Brisbane and Victorians from Melbourne.
How this will play out is uncertain. The key thing to look out for is the date that Australia
extends the cruise ship ban next too, and then what P&O, Royal Caribbean and Carnival
announce next.
Following on from this, domestic cruising for local residents does look to be the most
likely outcome pretty much everywhere as we head into the first months of 2021 at least,
if not longer.
In the past week we have seen MSC Cruises having to return ships they had sent to Latin
America for the 2020 / 2021 Summer season there, as border closures and restrictions
on international travellers made it impossible. MSC Musica and MSC Sinfonia have left Brazil
and are on their way back to Europe.
They have left MSC Seaview down there, hoping to get approval to start cruises for Brazilian
residents only in the middle of January from Santos and Rio de Janeiro.
The problem of moving people in and out of Latin America saw Ponant became pretty much
the last expedition line to cancel the entire Antarctica season that ends in February 2021.
China is another country allowing cruises for residents within China, starting this
month. These will be cruises to nowhere to and from the southern Chinese resort island
of Hainan.
This is not good news for the international lines like Royal Caribbean and Norwegian as
only Chinese companies can sail domestic only ports.
Zinan Liu, chairman of Royal Caribbean Asia, said in the past week that he expects mainland
Chinese ports to be among the last in Asia to reopen to foreign-flagged cruise ships,
which have already been allowed to sail in Singapore and Taiwan. Among China's main concerns,
Mr. Liu said, is the risk of importing the virus through travel.
To grow in China and get around this, Viking Cruises has recently formed a Joint Venture
there with China Merchants Shekou, moving and registering Viking Sun in China to run
high-end domestic cruises.
Many people have also asked me to include updates on river cruising.
Cruise lines that cater for mostly European travellers started some limited cruising during
the summer, mostly on the Rhine in Germany on the Douro in Portugal, with varying results
as the travel advice and restrictions keep changing as the virus developed.
They all eventually cancelled the end of the season and all the Christmas Market cruises.
Lines that mostly cater for North American, Australian and British travellers did not
resume any service in 2020 due to travel restrictions.
It is important to remember that the European river cruise season runs between March / April
and October/ November mostly. So this means that all river cruise lines are not planning
to start sailing in 2021 until March / April, and by then the progress of the virus, testing
and vaccines should make things likely be able to open in a less constricted way.
So, if you want to river cruise in 2021 the earliest lines are offering is March.
Those are the biggest news stories breaking that I felt you need to know about, and what
I think they mean for us as cruise lovers.
I have loads more Tips For Travellers episodes full of cruising advice and tips, so what
not enjoy another one right now?