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BIG CRUISE UPDATE : New USA Cancellations, US And Europe Test Cruises, Royal Caribbean Sails & More
Feb 2, 2025
In this latest cruise news update, I explore the 6 biggest cruise news updates including all lines cancel cruises for a year, Royal Caribbean's first cruise ship since the shutdown starts sailing, Test Cruises in USA and Europe latest, Australia cruising update, European River Cruise latest and when they will start sailing agin, why domestic cruises are key to cruising resuming and more.
Latest cruise cancellations and when they will resume sailing: http://www.tipsfortravellers.com/cruise-line-cancellations
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0:00
it's been another jam-packed period of
0:02
cruise news and developments including
0:05
royal caribbean's first post pandemic
0:07
cruise
0:08
test cruises in europe being announced
0:10
how volunteers for u.s
0:11
test cruises will be chosen an update on
0:13
australian cruising news on european
0:15
river cruising
0:16
more domestic only cruises announced and
0:18
so much more in this
0:20
update i'm gary bembridge and this is
0:23
another of my tips for travellers cruise
0:25
updates
0:26
where i unpick the biggest breaking
0:28
cruise news
0:29
and discuss importantly what it means
0:31
for all of us
0:32
as cruisers the big news of recent days
0:37
is that pretty much all lines have now
0:39
confirmed
0:40
a full year without any cruising
0:43
the challenges of working through the us
0:46
cdc's framework for conditional sailing
0:48
has led to waves of cruise line
0:50
cancellations
0:51
in recent times in recent days norwegian
0:55
royal caribbean and celebrity have now
0:57
cancelled all their january
0:59
and february cruises carnival of course
1:01
had already cancelled everything
1:03
except for miami port canaveral and
1:04
galveston until march
1:07
norwegian will only have a few ships
1:09
sailing in march though
1:10
they have cancelled cruises for 11 of
1:13
their ships until april
1:14
norwegian bliss breakaway epic gem
1:17
getaway
1:18
jade jewel pearl sky sun and pride of
1:21
america
1:22
now the other lines in the norwegian
1:23
group which is oceania
1:25
and region seven seas they say they will
1:28
only resume
1:28
in april now to keep you up
1:32
to date with the constant changes i've a
1:34
page now on my site
1:35
at tipsfortravelers.com that i keep up
1:37
to date with all ocean and river cruise
1:39
return to service states
1:41
the link is in this episode's notes as
1:44
you look at that as i predicted
1:46
april is increasingly looking to be the
1:48
month that lions are realistically
1:50
seeing as when they will actually return
1:52
to service but take a look at that list
1:54
the very first royal caribbean ship has
1:57
returned
1:58
to service the huge quantum of the seas
2:00
has begun
2:01
a four month season of three and four
2:04
night cruises
2:05
to nowhere out of singapore carrying
2:07
local residents
2:08
only the line first ran a two-night
2:11
non-revenue shakedown cruise which had
2:14
local royal caribbean staff
2:16
their friends and family along with a
2:18
number of invited local travel agents
2:20
and the idea was to test everything out
2:22
but the very first
2:23
cruise with paying passengers set sail
2:25
on the 1st of december
2:27
i've reviewed all the protocols and some
2:29
of the things that really stand out for
2:31
me
2:31
are first of all guests had to have a
2:34
pcr test
2:35
48 hours before the cruise now this is
2:37
included in the fair
2:38
and it has to be done at a special
2:40
facility approved by the line
2:41
so they have visibility of the results
2:44
guests are also
2:45
tested at the end of the cruise this is
2:47
something we're seeing more and more
2:48
the ship is selling at 50 capacity masks
2:51
to be worn
2:52
social distancing and venues and guests
2:54
must wear the new royal caribbean
2:56
tracelet
2:57
that assists with contact tracing i've
2:59
discussed this in other updates
3:01
now what i did find especially
3:02
interesting are the financial
3:04
arrangements as this could be a sign
3:06
of what is going to be the case when
3:08
cruising resumes in like north america
3:10
and europe so what are the arrangements
3:12
well first of all
3:13
you get a 100 refund if anyone in your
3:17
travel party
3:18
tests positive within three weeks prior
3:20
to the cruise
3:21
or at the boarding terminal they also
3:24
offer a 100
3:25
refund for you and your travel party if
3:28
any of you test
3:29
positive during the cruise so that's
3:32
pretty interesting
3:33
secondly if there is a covert issue
3:35
royal caribbean will cover
3:37
all your onboard medical treatment the
3:39
cost of any required land based
3:40
quarantine
3:41
and all your travel home so it's
3:43
interesting to see how that all stacks
3:45
out
3:45
in other royal caribbean news they also
3:47
announced that they will also be doing
3:49
test cruises in europe before cruising
3:52
resumes now we know
3:53
they have to run them in the united
3:55
states as the cdc requires them
3:57
but i haven't seen any european
3:58
authorities specifically requiring them
4:01
so far now ben bolden who's the uk
4:04
managing director and vice president
4:06
of europe for royal caribbean said in an
4:08
interview with cruz critic and i'm going
4:10
to quote here
4:11
there will definitely be trial cruisers
4:14
on the ships sailing out of europe now
4:17
in the u.s
4:17
royal caribbean have a website for
4:19
volunteers to sign up for test cruises
4:21
200 000 people have
4:22
signed up already as i mentioned in
4:25
singapore it was invited trade and
4:26
employees on that test cruise
4:28
now in europe ben went on to say and
4:30
again i'm going to quote here
4:31
we haven't yet figured out how to do it
4:34
in europe yet
4:35
whether or not we will open those up to
4:37
the public
4:38
is still to be defined i suspect we may
4:41
well
4:42
need the help of our very loyal crown
4:44
and anchor guests to come
4:46
and help put some of the ships and their
4:47
crew through their paces
4:50
now this reflects news that volunteers
4:52
in the u.s will be chosen
4:54
from loyalty members as well and royal
4:57
total ceo and president michael bailey
4:59
so he looks over the whole group said in
5:01
an address to a
5:02
virtual madrid cruise conference and
5:03
again i'm going to quote here we haven't
5:05
figured out our protocols yet for the
5:07
volunteers
5:08
but certainly loyalty status will be
5:12
a key selector so that's pretty good to
5:14
know how they're going to choose
5:15
volunteers now quite a few people have
5:17
asked me to give
5:18
much more regular updates on the outlook
5:20
for australian
5:22
and new zealand cruising so let's look
5:24
at the situation right now there are
5:25
probably
5:26
four key things i think that we need to
5:28
note about that situation first of all
5:31
at the time of recording the australian
5:32
government has a blanket ban
5:35
on any international cruise ship
5:36
returning to australian waters until the
5:38
17th
5:39
of december although it is very likely
5:42
that the date gets extended
5:44
the australian department of health said
5:46
in the past week
5:47
that although they were not ready to set
5:49
a date for the resumption of either
5:51
larger domestic or international
5:53
cruisers
5:54
they said and i quote options
5:57
being considered include a staged
5:59
approach to cruise resumption
6:02
and above all the government will need
6:04
to be assured that cruise ships
6:06
can operate in a curved safe way and
6:09
that the risk of transmission
6:11
is acceptably low before cruise
6:14
operations
6:14
will be permitted so that also gives a
6:16
sense of what has to be done
6:18
now clearly the main cruise lines
6:20
homeporting for all or some of the year
6:23
in australia are not expecting
6:24
to be able to sail until at least
6:26
february certainly as
6:28
of now one of the big players pinot
6:30
cruises australia cancelled
6:32
all their cruises to the end of february
6:34
so far
6:35
they are though thinking pretty
6:37
positively about australia because
6:38
two ships are being added to the piano
6:41
australia fleet that specific adventure
6:44
in april and pacific explorer in may
6:47
royal caribbean another big player
6:48
they've cancelled all their cruises at
6:50
the moment
6:51
until the end of february out of
6:52
australia carnival cruises is due to
6:54
start selling out of australia
6:56
on carnival splendor from mid-march and
6:58
carnival spirit
6:59
from june however in late november
7:03
they announced they were dramatically
7:05
scrapping
7:06
a third of their planned international
7:08
itineraries out of australia
7:10
and they're replacing them with domestic
7:12
only cruisers and this is a trend
7:14
that i will come back to shortly this
7:16
domestic cruise issue
7:18
princess cruises celebrity cruises and
7:20
norwegian cruise line they have
7:22
cancelled
7:22
their 2020 2021 australian and new
7:26
zealand summer season so lots of
7:27
cancellations there of course as all
7:30
2021 world cruises have been cancelled
7:33
all the many ships that usually call
7:35
into australia new zealand
7:37
will not be visiting in this season the
7:39
summer season either
7:41
a few small lines with pretty intimate
7:43
ships they've
7:44
recently been offering domestic
7:45
expedition style cruises
7:47
for australians though even those have
7:49
had limits on who could join based on
7:51
which territory
7:52
people live in and the changing
7:54
situation but australians
7:56
desperate to cruise they could look at
7:57
something like coral expeditions
7:59
which carry 60 guests the australian
8:02
cruise line association has
8:04
actually presented a detailed plan to
8:06
the australian government
8:07
on the limited resumption of cruises in
8:10
early 2021
8:12
which suggests what they are proposing
8:14
what we could perhaps expect happening
8:16
in australia
8:17
now clears managing director a guy
8:19
called joel katz
8:20
he confirmed they're requesting
8:22
initially only local cruisers
8:24
for domestic residents only they'll sail
8:27
with reduced capacity 100 testing
8:29
and all those other protocols that we're
8:30
used to seeing in the other regions
8:32
they're even open to cruisers being
8:34
limited to state borders so
8:36
new south wales people would only cruise
8:37
from sydney queenslanders would cruise
8:40
from brisbane
8:41
victorians from melbourne so pretty
8:43
dramatic
8:44
now how this will play out is of course
8:46
uncertain the key thing
8:47
to look out for over the coming days is
8:50
the date that australia extends the
8:52
cruiser band next to
8:53
and then of course what piano royal
8:55
caribbean and carnival start
8:56
announcing next i suspect domestic
8:59
cruises for australians only
9:01
now following on from this domestic
9:03
cruising for local residents
9:05
does look to be the most likely outcome
9:07
pretty much
9:08
everywhere around the world as we head
9:10
into the early months of 2021 at least
9:13
if not even longer into 2021 in the past
9:15
week
9:16
we've seen msc cruisers having to return
9:18
ships that
9:19
sent to latin america for their 20 20 20
9:23
21 summer season because
9:24
borders will close there's lots of
9:25
restrictions on international travelers
9:27
it just made it absolutely impossible to
9:29
do
9:29
so msc musica and msc
9:32
symphony they've left brazil and they're
9:35
on their way back to europe
9:36
however they've left msc sea view down
9:40
there and they're hoping to get approval
9:41
to start cruises for brazilian residents
9:43
only
9:44
in the middle of january from santos and
9:46
rio de janeiro
9:48
the problem of moving people in and out
9:51
of latin america has now seen ponant
9:53
become i think pretty much the very last
9:55
of the expedition lines to cancel their
9:58
entire antarctica season and antarctica
10:00
season normally ends in february 2021.
10:03
china is another country allowing
10:05
cruises for residents within china
10:07
starting this month as well there will
10:09
be cruises to nowhere
10:10
to and from the southern chinese resort
10:12
island of
10:13
hainan and that's how you pronounce it
10:16
now this isn't good news
10:17
for international lines like royal
10:18
caribbean and norwegian for example
10:20
because only chinese companies can sail
10:23
domestic
10:24
only ports zinan liu who's the chairman
10:27
of royal caribbean
10:28
in asia he said in the past week that he
10:30
expects
10:31
mainland chinese ports to be among the
10:33
very last in asia
10:35
to reopen for foreign flagged cruise
10:37
ships which of course
10:38
as we know have been allowed to sell in
10:40
places like singapore and
10:42
taiwan and that's because china's big
10:44
concern he said
10:45
is they are obsessed and worried about
10:47
the risk of importing the virus
10:48
through travel now to grow in china and
10:51
get around this
10:52
what's interesting is viking cruises
10:53
they've recently formed a joint venture
10:55
with a company called china merchants
10:58
shaco and
11:00
they've moved and registered the viking
11:02
sun now in china so they can run
11:03
high in domestic cruises because again
11:05
you have to be registered in china
11:07
now many people have also asked me to
11:09
include updates on european
11:11
river cruising cruise lines that cater
11:14
for mostly
11:15
european travelers they started some
11:17
limited cruising during
11:19
this past summer mostly on the rhine in
11:20
germany and in the duara
11:22
in portugal they had varying results
11:25
because the travel advice and
11:26
restrictions just kept chopping and
11:27
changing
11:28
as the virus developed in fact they all
11:31
eventually canceled the end of the
11:32
season and they
11:33
cancelled all the christmas uh market
11:35
cruises largely also because christmas
11:37
markets just aren't operating this year
11:39
lines that cater for north american
11:42
australian and british travelers they
11:43
didn't even resume
11:44
any service in 2020 due to travel
11:46
restrictions
11:47
it's important to remember that the
11:49
european river cruise season runs
11:50
from march april time until october
11:53
november mostly so this means
11:54
that all river cruise lines are not
11:56
planning to start sailing in 2021 until
12:00
at least march and many into april and i
12:02
guess they're hoping by then the
12:03
progress of the virus testing vaccines
12:06
should make things likely to be able to
12:08
open in a
12:09
less constricted way than they were in
12:11
2020 so if you want to river cruise in
12:13
europe in 2021
12:14
and you think travel will be open the
12:16
earliest you can do that is from march
12:18
lines like avalon for example i've
12:19
started putting march
12:21
cruises on sale these are the biggest
12:23
news stories
12:24
breaking that i felt you absolutely need
12:26
to know about and what i think they mean
12:27
for us as cruise lovers
12:29
i have loads more tips for travellers
12:31
episodes full of cruising advice and
12:33
tips
12:33
so why not enjoy another one right now
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