Confirmed: Cruises Still Won’t Leave U.S. Ports For Months

by SharonKurheg

While many sectors of travel are reopening or showing more business, the cruise industry in the U.S. has remained at a standstill since March 2020.

Cruising has resumed in other major markets around the world but in the U.S., cruise companies have continued to push back their sail dates while waiting for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to lift their no sail order, which is currently in effect through November 1st, 2021.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) recently requested the CDC to lift the order several months early.

“Over the past eight months, a highly controlled resumption of cruising has continued in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific — with nearly 400,000 passengers sailing to date in more than 10 major cruise markets,” said Kelly Craighead, CLIA’s president and CEO. “These voyages were successfully completed with industry-leading protocols that have effectively mitigated the spread of COVID-19.”

In response, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that its no-sail order would remain in place until Nov. 1.

The CDC had set a “framework for conditional sailing order” back in September. The 65-page report includes 74 detailed best practices to protect the health and safety of guests and crew, along with that of the communities who depend on cruise ship arrivals.

Cruise lines have been working to comply with these requirements (and some put their own spin on it that goes above and beyond) and expected the CDC to update requirements or offer additional guidance or health modifications, as they said they would. To date, that has not happened.

“The lack of any action by the CDC has effectively banned all sailings in the largest cruise market in the world,” the CLIA said. “Cruise lines should be treated the same as other travel, tourism, hospitality and entertainment sectors.”

“Returning to passenger cruising is a phased approach to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19,” said Caitlin Shockey, spokesperson for the CDC. “Details for the next phase of the CSO are currently under interagency review.”

Yeah – that interagency review has been going on for 6 months now.

So for now, at least, cruises out of the U.S. are officially not happening until at least November 1st.

Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.

#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask #getyourCOVIDvaccine

Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 19,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!

This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

2 comments

Steve March 25, 2021 - 4:17 pm

While i personally dont care much for cruises this just shows the snail pace at which the CDC is gonna approach regular international travel. Gonna be 2028 before we can take a actual international trip the way they are working

Reply
DaninMCI March 25, 2021 - 5:33 pm

I doubt that the current political climate around Washington or at the CDC likes the travel climate and state guidelines around the gulf states so in a way this isn’t surprising. Maybe when we have our small group gatherings on July 4th we can debate if we can allow travel with only 1 mask beyond 10 miles of our basements. The sad part is the millions of workers without jobs in this sector.

Reply

Leave a Comment