Carnival Cruise Line announced an extension to its sailing suspension, canceling cruises scheduled through March 31 in U.S. waters and pushing the line’s cruising resumption back to more than a year after the industry came to a standstill in the middle of March last year.
Carnival also canceled select domestic itineraries into fall and one international cruise internationally in June, according to a statement provided by spokesperson Vance Gulliksen.
While many of the schedule changes are in relation to pandemic-induced regulations, including voyage-length restrictions, some are also related to rescheduled dry-dock work.
The cancellations include:
- All sailings from U.S. ports through March 31.
- Carnival Freedom’s April 10 sailing from Galveston.
- Carnival Miracle’s sailings from San Diego and San Francisco through Sept. 16.
- Carnival Liberty’s sailings from Port Canaveral from Sept. 17 through Oct. 18.
- Carnival Sunshine’s sailings from Charleston from Oct. 11 through Nov. 13.
- Carnival Spirit’s 15-day voyage from Singapore to Brisbane set to depart June 12.
“We are sorry to disappoint our guests, as we can see from our booking activity that there is clearly a pent-up demand for cruising on Carnival,” Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said in the statement.
Duffy added that the cruise line plans to resume operations in 2021 with a “phased-in approach,” a strategy the cruise line’s parent company, Carnival Corp., has referenced frequently since the onset of the pandemic.
The cancellations come as the U.S. is seeing a continued upward trend in COVID-19 cases, reaching 21 million cases on Tuesday night, just over four days since reporting 20 million cases, Johns Hopkins data shows. And Georgia became the fifth state to report a case of the more contagious virus strain first identified in the United Kingdom, joining Colorado, California, Florida and New York.
‘I am ecstatic’: COVID-19 vaccine inspires confidence among cruise passengers, industry
Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez and Jessica Flores
Source: Read Full Article