Another day, another announcement about cruises being paused. ThePointsGuy.com is reporting, “Cruise giant Carnival Cruise Line is throwing in the towel on a July restart for most of its ships. The world’s second-biggest cruise line on Tuesday canceled July sailings for all but four of its 24 vessels, citing uncertainty about whether it would get approval to restart operations from government regulators. Until Tuesday, the line only had canceled sailings on most of its vessels through the end of June.”
“In making the announcement, Carnival on Tuesday said it still hoped to restart Caribbean cruises in July in a small way with up to three vessels sailing out of Florida and Texas ports.
As a result, the line has not canceled July sailings out of Miami scheduled to be operated by its 3,960-passenger Carnival Horizon and sailings out of Galveston, Texas, scheduled to be operated by its 3,934-passenger Carnival Vista and 3,690-passenger Carnival Breeze.
In addition, the line said it had yet to cancel a handful of July sailings to Alaska out of Seattle on the hopes those could take place, too.
The sailings out of Alaska had been scheduled to take place on the line’s 2,980-passenger Carnival Freedom. But Carnival on Tuesday said that the trips, should they happen, would take place on its smaller, 2,124-passenger Carnival Miracle.
Given the uncertainty that the trips will happen, Carnival is allowing passengers who wish to make alternate summer vacation plans to cancel them without penalty through May 31 for a full refund.
Like many lines, Carnival hasn’t operated a single departure since March 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic.
The line specializes in affordable cruises out of U.S. ports such as PortMiami and Port Canaveral, which currently are completely shut down as cruise hubs. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been blocking cruise ships from sailing out of U.S. ports for more than a year in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Last week, the CDC issued new guidelines for a cruising restart in U.S. waters that left many cruise executives flummoxed.”
It is beyond me why the CDC and the cruise lines can’t agree on reasonable safety protocols. When word came out that the CDC was mandating that cruisers had to wear masks when sunbathing at the Lido deck pool, that was the last straw for many people.
As I’ve mentioned before, over the last 12 months I’ve visited the Palladium Hotel Group resorts in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. None of these resorts are mandating wearing masks poolside!
It’s a shame that cruise lines continues to cancel cruises and it’s time for us to sail again!
Please click on the link below for the full story from ThePointsGuy.com:
https://thepointsguy.com/news/carnival-extends-cancellations-most-cruise-ships/
