How And When Will Cruises Start Again?
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Finally, cruises start again! There have been rumors of cruise lines starting to get their staff back on ships lately. Especially for the Mein Schiff fleet, operated by tuicruises.com, a major independent German cruise operator, there have been some very detailed rumors – still and only – been around, promulgated by schiffe-und-kreuzfahrten.de.
TuiCruises.com / Mein Schiff
As it has now become clear, they were true. Tuicruises.com will start again having its ships on the sea on the 24th of July. They take up the business again with the so-called “Blaue Reisen“, meaning „Blue Trips“ with the vessel „Mein Schiff 2“. These are only short cruises of 3 or 4 days starting from Hamburg, Germany. They recently announced that they will also start from Kiel with „Mein Schiff 1“ from 31 July 2020 on. In addition, they will offer cruises along the Norwegian coast (7 days). All these trips will not stop anywhere, so there is no shore leaves foreseen. They are rather trips for a relaxing time onboard enjoying all the amenities of the ship – and that is also how they are advertised.
Naturally, and due to the still ongoing Corona-/Covid-19-pandemic crisis they have a lot of restrictions, but for me look like a daring but courageous first step. TuiCruises is the first major player in the European market whose cruises start again. I have to congratulate them for this and wish them success and healthy passengers and crew.
- The main „specialties„ of these first cruises I list here:
- Duration is only 3 or 4 days
- Limited to one harbor where the ship starts and ends the cruise, i.e. only sea days
- Ship capacity will only be used by 60 %, meaning there are not more than 60 % of the passengers on board that in normal times
- Fully adapted processes to the pandemic situation
- The minimal social distance of 1.5 meters
- No buffet
- Facemasks are mandatory in restaurants until you are seated
Aida Cruises (aida.de)
I also got some news from Aida Cruises: They also plan to start cruising again from Hamburg, as well as Kiel and Warnemuende following the same pattern as TuiCruises, meaning offering only short cruises of 3 to 4 days without any stops.
Costa Cruises (costacruises.com)
While I have not found anything official from them at the time of writing this article the rumours go that they will start with cruises around Italy. For me that sounds pretty plausible. I mean, they have the „bonus“ of having a strong home market and this home market (Italy) is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. So they could offer reasonably long cruises, even with stops, without leaving Italy. Think of all the great ports they have, like starting with Savona (homeport to the Costa fleet), Genova, Civitavecchia (port to Rome), Naples, Catania, Palermo, Bari, Venice, and others.
According to the latest, unconfirmed information I got from inside sources, Costa plans to restart cruises with a 5 phase plan:
1. Costa Deliziosa starts from Venice on 15 August 2020 for the first time and as first ship of the Costa fleet. She will only stop at Italian ports (maybe Malta, too). Costa Diadema starts from 28 August 2020 and maybe Costa Luminosa as well, with cruises in Dubai. Phase 1 will start with Italian passengers only.
2. In phase 2 also non-Italian guests could cruise and cruises should also entail Spain and France. (See here my tips for Stress-free Marseilles with Children.)
3. From November 2020 on, also other European guests should be able to travel.
4. In December 2020 Costa Fascinosa and Costa Firenze will join the operating fleet.
5. January 2021: Costa Pacifica as ship number 6 should join its sister ships.
The ships will run with a reduced guest capacity of approximately 60 %. A lot of restrictions or changes in the processes will apply due to Covid-19. See the next paragraph for the latest recommendations of the European Union.
Cruise Guidelines by the European Union
As well, in the meantime, the European Union (EU) has released its guidelines (attention: not requirements) on how they think cruises should start again.
Some recommendations like masks and social distancing have been expected others are a bit of a surprise. For example, they recommend the elimination of indoor swimming pools.
Some interesting recommendations I list here:
- Between deck chairs shall be a distance of 1.5 meters
- Embarkation should be touchless and digital
- Capacity restrictions, so that social distance of 1.5 meters can be guaranteed all time (In a way I like that, remember the overcrowded ships sometimes?)
- Separate accommodations for 5 % of crew and passengers on board reserved for possible quarantine measures
- Shorter voyages with limited port calls
- Disembarkation in „cohorts“
- Removing nonessential items from cabins
- No more twice-daily cabin services (but more „on request“)
- No more buffets
- Hot tubs only in a very limited manner
- Routine temperature tests (crew and passengers)
- And many more (like guidelines for ventilation, fitness rooms, etc.)
If you are interested in the full document from the European Union, please find it here: “Interim advice for restarting cruise ship operations after lifting restrictive measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic“.
So, cruises are definitely going to change. Above we see how the business changes and starts again in Europe. What happens in the Americas is still to be awaited. With this insight here on Cruisetools.org on “How and when will cruises start again?” I wish you Happy Cruising!
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