When will cruises resume from the US?
Officials unsure when operations can start back up
It’s been a long year for cruise fans.
Even as professional baseball, outdoor music venues, theme parks and resorts have been allowed to resume operations with safeguards in place, the cruise industry continues to cancel upcoming voyages every couple of months, pushing potential restart dates into who knows when.
Cruise fans are eager to get back on their favorite ships. In a survey of online users of CruiseCritic.com, a booking and information site, 59% say they’re looking
to sail within the next 12 months.
Yet travel agents interviewed for this story say consumers might want to avoid booking a trip scheduled before next fall or winter unless they understand it might be canceled and are comfortable with the cruise line’s cancellation policies.
U.S.-based cruise operations have been in lockdown since voyages last March, when reports of rapidly spreading COVID-19 cases aboard numerous ships at sea shocked the world. By June, 2,973 infections and 34 deaths were reported to have occurred aboard cruise ships.
Today, cruise line officials say they have no way of knowing when the U.S. government will clear them to resume operations to popular destinations like the Bahamas, Jamaica and coastal Mexico.
On Tuesday, Norwegian Cruise Lines announced it canceled scheduled cruises through the end of May — forcing anyone optimistic enough to have booked a Norwegian cruise scheduled that month to face the now-familiar decision whether to seek a refund or credit that can be used toward another voyage further in the future.
If cruise lines are able to restart operations in May as currently scheduled, Port Everglades will be ready with comprehensive health protection protocols developed in collaboration with federal health authorities, said chief executive and port director Jonathan Daniels. A ferry, called Balearia Caribbean, that shuttles guests from the port to Bimini and Grand Bahama was allowed to resume service earlier this month under the protocols, Daniels said.
Carnival, Disney, MSC Cruises, and Royal Caribbean and most other cruise lines are officially on hold through April, according to their most recent suspension announcements.
As they have since the global shutdown began last spring, cruise lines are allowing consumers to book trips a few months into the future.
You can book, but will it sail?
Dozens of voyages scheduled to depart in May and June are available to book through the online travel booking sites aboard ships operated by Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Viking, Oceania Cruises, MSC, Princess, Celebrity, Cunard, Azamara and Avalon, among others.
On CruiseCritic.com, seven voyages scheduled to depart Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale in May aboard Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Princess Cruises ships in May remain available for booking. Consumers can select from among 29 trips scheduled in May from Port Miami, 25 from Port Canaveral and four from Tampa.
Whether the dates are offered as a show of optimism or a need to generate cash flow to keep cruise lines operational while in limbo, consumers by now should know they’re likely to be canceled if infection rates remain at high levels.
Two major hurdles stand in the way of resuming some semblance of normalcy.
Earlier this month, Canada’s Ministry of Transport extended its ban on all cruise vessels carrying more than 100 passengers from entering that nation’s waters through February 2022. The order essentially bans all voyages from between U.S. ports and Alaska or New England because of U.S. marine laws forbidding foreignflagged ships from traveling between U.S. ports without stopping in a foreign port.
Cruise lines affected by the extended ban are talking with Alaska officials about the possibility of getting around Canada’s ban by dropping the required foreign port stop.
Cruise lines waiting for CDC guidance
Meanwhile, so-called “test cruises” that the CDC announced in October would be required as a condition for safe resumption of operations have yet to be scheduled, according to CruiseCritic. com.
Four months after the announcement, the CDC has not yet provided technical instructions or guidance on how the cruise lines must operate the simulated voyages — despite the cruise lines’ work through their trade organization, Cruise Lines International Association, to develop industry-wide safety protocols, the website reported.
In a statement in early February,
the CDC told CruiseCritic.com that “future orders” would address simulated voyages, conditional sailing and restricted voyages “to help cruise lines prepare for and return to passenger operations in a manner that mitigates COVID19 risk among passengers and crew members.”
Official statements by the cruise lines reveal the lack of certainty about their returns.
“Given the fluid and evolving nature of the circumstances, we are making decisions as quickly and thoughtfully as possible, continuing to keep our guests’ and travel partners’ best interests at heart,” read a statement by Norwegian Cruise Line.
Carnival Cruise Line has one ship — the Mardi Gras — still scheduled to embark upon its maiden voyage from Port Canaveral on May 29, spokesman Vance Gullksen said Tuesday. A number of other ships will be left in dry dock until the fall, he said. Meanwhile, travelers can still book any of dozens of scheduled May voyages, including from Port Canaveral and Port Miami, at Carnival’s website.
“As we have stated consistently, we will resume service when the time is right, taking a gradual phased-in approach with select ships,” he said, adding, “The rollout of vaccines is promising and we are evaluating a number of factors to see how those would
work into our return to service plan.”
Carnival Corp., the cruise line’s parent company, said it has been moving its ships back into U.S. waters to prepare for resumptions “later this year,” spokesman Roger Frizzell said. Other brands owned by Carnival Corp. include Princess Cruises, Holland America, Seabourne and Cunard.
In a recent interview for the travel webcast “Fireside Chat,” Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald wouldn’t predict a date the company would return to cruising. Instead he predicted that “most, if not all, of our fleet ... will be in action” by the end of the year.
Bahamas Paradise, the budget cruise line that featured daily runs from Port of Palm Beach to the Bahamas aboard former Carnival ships, has not yet announced a resumption date.
More cancellations coming?
Jennifer Walker, owner of Jennifer Walker Travel in Washington, Illinois, said she expects the other major cruise lines to follow Norwegian’s lead and extend their suspensions through May 31.
Avid cruisers are disappointed with the length of the suspensions, said Chris Caulfield, owner of CruiseOne in Croton on Hudson,
New York. “Seeing other forms of vacations like all-inclusive [resorts] continue with little changes does not help,” he said.
Laurel Brunvoll, owner and president of Unforgettable Trips in Gaithersburg, Maryland, said travelers are frequently contacting her “asking for any good news.”
“While everyone understands the importance and necessity of taking time to implement health and safety protocols, the length of time to restart cruising from U.S. waters has far exceeded most travelers’ expectations or desires,” she said.
Europe, Asia cruises succeed, so far
Many cruisers are seeing reports of cruises safely operating in Europe and Asia with safety measures similar to those required here at hotels, airports and restaurants — reduced capacity, social distancing, mask wearing, temperature checks and frequent sanitization — “and it is being done safely,” Caulfield said.
Cruise lines operating without major problems in Europe this year include Costa Cruises, MSC Cruises and Aida Cruises.
Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas has been sailing “successfully” from Singapore over the past two months, company spokesman Jonathon Fishman said.
TUI Cruises, a Germany-based line that recently resumed sailings to the Canary Islands, said four people out of about 1,800 passengers and crew members tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of a recent cruise. The fact that no one else was infected proved success of the cruise line’s “extensive health and hygiene concept,” TUI said.
According to a CLIA spokeswoman, cruise lines are working on steps for a “gradual return to operations” that will “incorporate lessons learned and insights from scientists and medical experts to guide a multi-layered approach that will encompass the entirety of the cruise experience.”
Brunvoll and Walker said they are advising their clients eager to get back on cruise ships not to book one until late in the third or fourth quarter of the year. Bargains can be found by booking far into the future, and consumers should avoid purchasing any “non-refundable” airfare or other trip components, they said.
When a record-breaking “heat storm” in August forced California’s electrical grid operator to cut power to millions of people over the course of two miserable days, lawmakers in Texas had a field day mocking their Democrat-dominated rival for failing to keep the lights on when it got a little hot.
See, they chortled, this is what the liberal tree-hugging rush to renewable energy gets you. Of course, the cause of the rolling blackouts was much more complicated than an overreliance on renewables, though that was certainly a factor. You can’t undergo a major shift in power generation without some stumbles.
Now Texans are in a similar, albeit much more serious, situation with more than 4 million homes and businesses left without power for days during the coldest weather in a century. And Californians may be inclined to feel a bit smug. How are those fossil fuels working out for you now? After all, fewer people were in the dark in California last summer, and those blackouts lasted a few hours at most, not four days and counting.
But the reality is that neither state can claim bragging rights about the reliability of its electrical grid. As much as Californians and Texans like to tout their vast political differences, when it comes to providing power to their people they are both failing — and for many of the same reasons.
The two states have very different energy goals and approaches. California is on the path toward getting 100% of its power from the sun, wind or other renewable energy sources by 2045. Texas unapologetically embraces fossil fuels, even though it is a leader in wind-produced energy.
But the fundamentals of their power grids are similar. Both states deregulated their grids two decades ago, though to different degrees, and put them under control of independent agencies that enjoy little public oversight. Both states participate in competitive energy markets that move power around in ways that are not always in the public’s best interest. Both have failed to require their utilities to properly prepare for the stresses of extreme weather. Both lack facilities to store surplus power — solar in California and natural gas in Texas.
And both ignored warnings that blackouts were imminent without action.
Texas even had a preview of how last week’s breakdown might unfold. In 2011, another arctic front descended on Texas and neighboring states. Low temperatures caused power equipment to freeze, forcing plants to shut down and Texans to endure rolling blackouts. After this, federal regulators made a series of recommendations to avoid a repeat, such as weatherizing plants and insulating pipelines. If those recommendations had been followed, the grid’s problems last week may have been less severe.
California’s electrical grid operator also had fair warning of how the August heat wave could overwhelm its systems. In fact, it had warned lawmakers about that exact scenario a year earlier.
Initially, some Texas lawmakers tried to pin last week’s outage on frozen wind turbines, once again demonizing
green energy. Some turbines did freeze, though only because they lacked the heating devices that more prepared states employ for just these conditions. But it was the state’s natural-gas plants and pipelines, frozen or offline for other reasons, that were the biggest contributor to the state’s power failure.
The irony here is that the heart of the system that failed Texas — burning fossil fuels for energy — is a major contributor to the climate changes that helped send the state into an unusually deep freeze.
There are some disagreements among climate scientists, but a prime theory is that warmer temperatures in the Arctic are reducing the size of the ice cap, which fluctuates from winter to summer. Less ice means more solar energy absorbed by the Arctic Ocean and warmer water and air temperatures, a cycle that has affected the path of the jet stream, making it more erratic and, in the
winter, steering frigid Arctic air southward — the “polar vortex.”
And there’s one final similarity. Each state’s ratepayers will foot the bill for these structural failures, paying in both misery and money. During the heat wave last year, energy prices in California skyrocketed to $1,000 per megawatt-hour. At one point on Feb. 15, prices in Texas spiked to $9,000 per megawatt-hour.
If there is a silver lining to the Texas and California power failures, it is that they alerted the public to the inherent problems of their respective electrical grids. They should hold their elected officials’ feet to the fire to fix those problems before the next “once-in-a-lifetime” extreme weather event throws them, powerless, into the dark.