Cruise Lines Anxious To Resume US Cruising Are Being Told No - As the CDC Extends The No Cruise Ban Until October 31.

In a not so surprising move, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has extended the No Cruise Edict for another month, now tentatively set to expire on October 31, 2020. The cruise lines were hoping for a limited return to service on October 1st from Miami and Port Canaveral Florida but that is not meant to be.

Early in September, the cruise line executives, Florida politicians and companies directly impacted by the cease in cruise operations expressed their frustration with the CDC and the United States Government for not allowing cruising to resume. The executives pointed out the restart of "controlled" cruising in Europe and the extensive precautions that the cruise lines will introduce once cruising is allowed to return.

The cruise lines have been viewed as foreign corporations, so the United States Government has not provided any funding to help them through the extended pause in operation. The cruise lines are under extreme financial pressures and have become creative in generating revenue to stay alive. Some cruise lines have heavily mortgaged their ships, others have decided to sell their ships (either to new operators or scrappers), sell partial company ownership to foreign governments, float bonds and take advantage of the temporary suspension of loan payments.

It is unclear if cruising will resume on November 1st but it appears highly unlikely. I suspect January will be more likely date and even then it will be extremely controlled - but that is just my opinion. We shall see how this unfolds over the upcoming months.

UPDATE

Since the article above was written (48 hours Ago), we have some updates.....

Norwegian Cruise Line has announced they are voluntarily extending their pause in operations to November 30th across its 3 brands - Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceana Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises. In addition, NCL has announced that the Norwegian Dawn, Norwegian Spirit and Norwegian Star will not resume service until post March 2021.

Carnival Cruises has announced that if cruising resumes in 2020, there will be a controlled introduction from 2 ports in Florida - Miami and Port Canaveral. Carnival is limiting its start up to only 6 ships including (from Miami) the Carnival Conquest, Carnival Sunrise, Carnival Horizon and (from Port Canaveral) Carnival Liberty, Carnival Elation, Carnival Breeze.

   

 

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