By Karen Quinn-Panzer
Travel Matters
Karen Quinn-Panzer
Since the Centers for Disease Control has offered little to no progress in allowing cruising within the United States to begin, cruise lines are beginning to start from countries that will allow it – as early as June 2021 from Nassau, Bermuda and St. Maarten. To safely resume sailing, these cruises will all require both crew and passengers to be fully vaccinated.
At least for now.
Crystal Cruises made the first announcement: Crystal Serenity will depart from Nassau and Bimini in the Bahamas starting July 3. The company is offering weeklong Bahama itineraries to small islands like Harbour Island, Long Island and San Salvador – usually visited only by personal yachts. The Crystal Serenity has a 900-passenger capacity but will sail at 50 percent capacity to start.
Two more cruises were announced at the end of March. Celebrity Cruises will send the Celebrity Millennium on sailings out of St. Maarten beginning in June, while Royal Caribbean will start Adventure of the Seas out of Nassau, also starting in June, and Vision of the Seas in Bermuda as of late June.
Already cruises have started in Singapore and will begin in May in Israel for local residents. Both are countries where virus rates are low and vaccine rates are high. The UK recently announced that cruises for domestic passengers could resume in May. Viking Cruises announced “round Britain” cruises exclusively for UK residents, and their first scheduled sailings sold out in three days.
Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises have both announced summer restarts for two of their ships in Europe: Jewel of the Seas in Cyprus from July and Celebrity Apex in Athens from June, offering itineraries around the Greek islands and Israel.
The news that Crystal, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean would be restarting in the Caribbean this summer was enthusiastically welcomed by cruise passengers. Many people like the idea that all passengers and crew members must be fully vaccinated and show proof of a negative PCR test. Since Americans are required to have a negative COVID test within 72 hours of returning to the US, all the ships will be providing covid tests onboard free of charge.
As long as cruising remains on hold within the US, cruise ports and American workers will be hurt. Fort Lauderdale and Miami are the largest cruise ports in the world. In fact, travel and cruise trade associations have just petitioned the Biden administration to reconsider the CDC’s inactivity to allow sailing out of the US. The cruise lines are subject to extensive regulations from the CDC that do not apply to other businesses or forms of travel, including hotel, resort or airline industries.
Many of the protocols put in place by the cruise lines are not required for other forms of travel. In the meantime, people who love cruising and international travel – and don’t mind getting vaccinated – have the ability to return to their favorite type of vacation very soon.
Karen Quinn-Panzer is the owner and vacation specialist at Dream Vacations Quinn Panzer Travel.