Norwegian Cruise Line is ready to sail again
Company will require guests, crew members to get vaccine
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings on Monday became the first cruise company to announce plans to resume sailing from ports in the United States — but only if you’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19.
The company said it would resume voyages from U.S. ports starting July 4 at 60% capacity, with full vaccinations required for guests and crew members at least two weeks before their cruises.
The cruise line still would need approval from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also remained unclear Monday whether Norwegian’s vaccination
rule would run afoul of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ orders.
DeSantis last week prohibited Florida-based businesses from requiring vaccines. The order did not specifically address cruise lines, airlines or theme parks, and DeSantis’ office did not respond Monday when asked about Norwegian’s plans.
Neither industry leaders Carnival Corp. nor Royal Caribbean, or their affiliated cruise lines, followed Norwegian’s lead by announcing resumptions of U.S.-based cruises.
The Norwegian holding company is parent to three lines: Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.
No U.S.-based itinerary has been announced, and the company said it’s evaluating “the viability of sailing select itineraries” and would make decisions “as quickly and thoughtfully as possible.”
Norwegian’s announcement followed Friday’s release by the CDC of revised guidelines that cruise lines must meet before they can resume.
Those guidelines did not specify any date or time period to restart cruises, leaving companies to decide their own target dates.
A letter from Norwegian to the CDC asserts that planned safety protocols will satisfy the CDC’s requirements.
Norwegian’s announcement stressed that by requiring full vaccinations, the company “shares in the spirit and exceeds the intent” of CDC guidelines for resumption.
“We congratulate the CDC on the steps it has taken to further open travel for vaccinated Americans,” Norwegian president Frank Del Rio was quoted in the release as saying. “Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings shares the CDC’s view that vaccinations are the primary vehicle for Americans to get back to their everyday lives.”
The announcement was an about-face from the company’s reaction Friday to the CDC’s revised guidelines. That reaction, attributed only to a Norwegian spokesperson, said, “While disappointed in this overdue announcement, we remain optimistic that cruising will resume from U.S. ports before the end of the summer.”
W h i l e M o n d a y ’ s announcement signaled the company’s decision to aim for a sooner restart, it did not reveal whether the CDC has reviewed the company’s plan.
CDC approval for each company’s plan will be required, a CDC spokesman said Monday. Under the CDC guidance, each company will be required to conduct “test voyages” to demonstrate that its safety protocols are effective.
In an interview Monday, Harry Sommer, Norwegian Cruise Line brand president and CEO, affirmed that the cruise line’s plan to resume is “predicated on the CDC reviewing what we sent and getting approval to move forward.”
Sommer said that if the CDC approves Norwegian’s plan to operate with required vaccinations, “we would hope ... that’s something we could talk about with the governor.”
Norwegian does not sail out of Port Everglades or Port of Palm Beach. A spokeswoman for Port Miami, where Norwegian operated before the industry shutdown in March 2020, said she was unaware of Norwegian’s announcement.
Royal Caribbean last month announced a slate of summer Caribbean sailings out of Nassau and Bermuda with fully vaccinated crews and vaccination requirements for all guests 18 and older.
A Royal Caribbean spokesman said Monday that the company is reviewing and studying “all options to ensure the health and safety of our guests and crew.”
Virgin Voyages CEO Tom McAlpin was asked on CNBC’s Power Lunch on Monday whether his company planned to follow Norwegian’s lead and seek permission to relaunch. He said only that the company is supporting Norwegian on its request for the CDC to reconsider guidelines currently preventing cruising from the U.S.
Virgin Voyages, an adultsonly cruise line, was forced to indefinitely postpone its inaugural cruise scheduled in March 2020. Its earliest voyage is currently scheduled for July 4-9 out of Port Miami.
In contrast to Norwegian’s announcement praising the CDC guidance, the cruise lines’ global trade association, Cruise Lines International Association, which lists Norwegian among its members, released a statement blasting the CDC. The statement described the revised technical guidance released Friday as “burdensome, unworkable and seem to reflect a zero-sum objective rather than the mitigation approach to COVID that is the basis for every other U.S. sector of our society.”
A CLIA spokeswoman said its statements reflect the position of its members as approved by CLIA’s board chairman.
The statement follows CLIA’s plea In late March, reflecting frustrations within the industry over the absence of specific CDC guidance for a reopening in the U.S., calling for the CDC to let sailing resume by July. That was followed by more pleas from leaders of the companies during a roundtable discussion led by DeSantis, as well as a threat by the governor to sue the CDC if it didn’t heed the leaders’ requests.
Carnival Corp. echoed CLIA’s statement on Monday, saying that while it respects every company’s right to pursue what they believe is right for shareholders, “it is generally accepted industry-wide” that the CDC’s most recent guidance “is largely unworkable and stands in start contrast to the approach taken in other travel and tourism sectors as well as in the U.S. society at large.”
Carnival spokesman Roger Frizzell said his company has not taken a position on mandating vaccines and will continue to monitor the evolving situation with vaccines globally.
U.S.-based cruises have been shut down since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020, when outbreaks among passengers and crew members on numerous ships prompted the industry to suspend global operations. Since then, several cruise lines have offered limited-capacity voyages from countries that weren’t as hard hit by the pandemic as the U.S.
Colleen McDaniel, editor in chief of the consumer-oriented website Cruise Critic. com, said it wouldn’t be surprising if other cruise lines followed Norwegian’s lead and announced plans to resume sailing in July. “This could be the tipping point for others in the industry,” she said.
At the same time, she said, “It’s difficult to say whether [Norwegian] will succeed with this request given the current standstill with the industry’’s return to sailing in the U.S.”
Yet because the CDC’s latest announcement acknowledged the low risk of international travel for vaccinated people, “there does seem to be some additional meat” to Norwegian’s announcement, “compared with what we’ve seen over the past year,” McDaniel said.