Costa Ready to Restart Cruise Operations This Weekend

Costa Cruises is scheduled to restart sailing in Italy this Sunday, Sept. 6.

Carnival's Italian brand will be followed by Germany-based AIDA Cruises scheduled to resume on Nov. 1.

The brands will begin in a gradual, phased-in manner with six initial ships and limited itineraries, becoming the first two of Carnival's nine brands to resume operations.

"Our highest responsibilities and top priorities are always compliance, protecting the environment, and the health, safety and well-being of our guests, the communities we visit and our crew," said Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation. "We are engaged with a large number of medical experts and scientists around the world, and they are providing us with extremely valuable insight that we are using to develop new and enhanced protocols that are in the best interest of our guests, crew and overall public health. In areas of the world where community spread is largely mitigated and authorities are supportive of a gradual return to service over time, we look forward to again welcoming guests onboard.

The initial cruises will take place with adjusted passenger capacity and enhanced health protocols developed with government and health authorities to follow shoreside mitigation guidelines, the company said. 

Costa Cruises is restarting sailing with two initial ships departing from Italian ports beginning Sept. 6.

The Costa Deliziosa will offer weekly cruises from Trieste on Sept. 6, 13, 20 and 27, visiting five destinations in southern Italy, including Bari and Brindisi in Puglia, Corigliano-Rossano in Calabria, and Siracusa and Catania in Sicily.

The Costa Diadema will follow on Sept. 19 from Genoa, calling at Italian ports in the western Mediterranean, including Civitavecchia/Rome, Naples, Palermo, Cagliari and La Spezia.

The one-week itineraries are being reserved exclusively for Italian guests.

AIDA Cruises will resume its cruise operations with two of its ships, sailing from the Canary Islands in November 2020, followed by an additional two ships departing from the western Mediterranean and the United Arab Emirates beginning in December 2020.

The first of the brand's cruises are set to begin Nov. 1, with seven-day voyages to and departures from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, with AIDAmar, followed by sailings from Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife with AIDAperla on Nov. 7. In December, AIDA Cruises will resume sailing operations in the Western Mediterranean with AIDAstella departing on seven-day cruises from Palma, Mallorca, beginning Dec. 12. Additionally, AIDAprima will offer seven-day cruises from Dubai starting Dec. 11 and from Abu Dhabi beginning Dec. 15.

In working with global and national health authorities and medical experts, Costa Cruises and AIDA Cruises have developed a comprehensive set of health and hygiene protocols to help facilitate a safe, healthy return to cruise vacations, according to a press release.

Costa Cruises to restart sailings in September

Costa Cruises to restart sailings in September

by Samantha Mayling
Costa Cruises plans to restart its sailings from Italian ports on a gradual basis from September 6, 2020.

On Monday, the Italian government approved the resumption of cruises and new health protocols developed in response to the Covid-19 crisis.

The first ship to set sail will be Costa Deliziosa (pictured), on September 6, offering weekly cruises from Trieste to Greece.

Costa Diadema will set sail on September 19, operating seven-day cruises in the western Mediterranean from Genoa.

Costa Cruises said it is working with authorities and the destinations to ensure a “responsible, smooth and well-organised application of the new regulations and protocols”.

Further details on the Costa Deliziosa and Costa Diadema itineraries will be announced in the coming days.

However, the cruise line is extending the suspension of its cruise season for other departures until September 30.

Costa Cruises’ new safety protocol is consistent with the health protocols defined by the Italian government and European (EU Healthy Gateways) authorities.

The UK Foreign Office last month advised against cruise ship travel.

NCL Holdings forecasts ‘strong demand so long as it’s safe’

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings chief executive Frank del Rio reported “strong demand for future cruises” as the company recorded a half-year loss of $2.65 billion this week.

Del Rio dismissed a suggestion the Covid crisis could put many cruise-focused travel agencies out of business, but he described the Covid infection of passengers and crew on Hurtigruten’s MS Roald Amundsen as “disappointing”.

He suggested Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings could see a “limited” return of sailing in November and December.

The company’s sailings are currently suspended through to the end of October.

Del Rio insisted: “There continues to be strong demand for future cruises despite our reduced marketing. Consumer demand is evident across markets.”

He forecast: “The last two months of 2020 could see a return of sailing with limited capacity.  We’ve taken important initial steps.

“We’re developing safety protocols with the formation of the Healthy Sail Panel which demonstrates our commitment to combating the spread of Covid and bringing back cruising sooner rather than later.”

The Healthy Sail Panel of experts, set up in collaboration with Royal Caribbean International in July, is working to develop recommendations for a safe resumption of cruising.

Del Rio said: “The panel will submit its initial recommendations to the [US] government and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for evaluation.”

He acknowledged: “Things will be different, of course. We’ll be mindful of how measures impact on the cruise experience.”

NCL Holdings chief financial officer Mark Kempa said: “We expect to launch with a handful of ships at first with low occupancy.

“Our break-even [on operating ships] is at around 40% of normal revenue. Layer on corporate overheads and it would require 60% of normal revenue.”

Asked whether the crisis could transform cruise distribution, which remains overwhelmingly through travel agencies, del Rio said: “We have seen smaller travel agencies folding and larger ones furloughing employees. We’ve seen an uptick indirect business.”

But he argued: “It might be exaggerated because of the partial closures of agencies. We think travel agencies will survive. Travel agencies have shown their resilience over the long term.

“Not too long ago people were predicting the demise of travel agencies, but they came back stronger. Long term you won’t see much change.”

Del Rio insisted: “We enjoy a very loyal customer base in the cruise industry. Between 15 million and 20 million people have not been allowed to cruise this year – there will be a lot of pent-up demand.

“People are booking. We’ve not seen any major shifts in consumer behaviour. We’ve not changed our itineraries. If people favour cruising closer to home or not going to Asia, we’re not seeing it.

“My instinct is we will be [operating] somewhere in the range of 75% of capacity for the full year 2021. It might start at 50%-60%, with the limitation being concern about the spread of Covid more than about consumer demand.

“So long as we can ascertain cruising is safe we’ll have customers coming back in droves.”

Del Rio added: “We’re hopeful we’ll be able to put together a comprehensive set of health and safety protocols that get us back quickly.”

Asked about the Covid outbreak on the Hurtigruten ship which infected more than 50 passengers and crew, Del Rio said: “It’s disappointing – the re-emergence of Covid aboard vessels.

“But it’s an opportunity to learn something. The cruise companies and ports which suffered these setbacks have handled it well. We’ve not had a repeat of what happened at the start of the crisis.”

Kempa reported the group paid out $725 million in cash refunds to customers in the three months to June, more than the company’s cash burn of $575 million during the quarter.

He said future cruise credits make up 30% of advance bookings and monthly cash burn had fallen to about $160 million.

The company ended June with $2.26 billion in liquidity after raising $2.3 billion during the second quarter.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings operates 28 ships like Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

Costa Readying Two Ships to Start Mediterranean Cruising

Costa Crociere may be readying two ships to start cruising in the Mediterranean as soon as August, according to crew aboard the line's ships who attended a recent town hall-style meeting.

The ships that would be put into operation will reportedly be the newest vessels in the Italian brand's fleet, the 2014-built Diadema, and the 2019-built Smeralda. 

In a letter sent to the crew, Costa said it has been working with various institutions to restart operations with a limited number of vessels, as soon as August. However, any restart would be linked to a certain number of conditions, according to the company.

The new challenge is for Costa to crew its ships, with Costa noting that many countries are restricting the movement of the crew, presenting challenges in getting crew to the ships.

Thus, Costa is asking that crew near the end of their contracts consider extending their contracts aboard.

"We official inform all crew members under a valid contract that they will be requested to fulfil their contract commitment, continuing the regular schedule of operation," a company letter read.

August cruise resumption played down by Carnival Corporation chief

August cruise resumption played down by Carnival Corporation chief

Hopes of an August 1 restart of Carnival Cruise Line sailings have been played down by the boss of the company’s parent company.

Carnival Corporation president and chief executive Arnold Donald described the fallout from Covid-19 as “devastating”.

Ships would only sail when “it will be no greater risk, or even lower risk, than other forms of social gathering”.

Carnival Cruise Line announced a month ago plans to resume services from three US ports from the beginning of August at a time when other operations were being cancelled.

But Donald told The Telegraph that the August 1 date should not be taken as concrete as the situation is “constantly evolving and changing”.

He said: “Those we didn’t cancel [was] in hope that we would be able to cruise at that time and the ships would be positioned properly to honour the cruise, so on and so forth.

“We’re not trying to predict when we’ll open up but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to. But it’s obviously dependent on what’s in the best interest of public health, not about the cruise but about broad social gathering… if people are in restaurants, hotels, airport terminals and subway stations, if a social gathering is happening, then it’s a condition for the cruise.

“But if we’re still in a state of highly constrained social gathering then it’s not the right situation. So we’ll see where society is at that point.

“We’re aware that people are anxious to get their economies going again, people are definitely anxious to cruise.

“We continue to get bookings and so on. So we’re anxious to go, too. But we only want to do it when the time is right so I think that there is a broader societal metric that we have to look at – we can’t just look wholly at cruise.”

His comments follow UK brand P&O Cruises further cancelling sailings until mid-October.

Donald added: “Our highest responsibility and our top priorities are, and they remain, compliance, environmental protection and the health and safety and wellbeing of our guests, our crew and the people and the places we go,” he said.

“So I want people to know that we will do everything to make certain that they are not taking a far greater risk by being on a cruise than other forms of social gathering – we don’t want that, we’re not going to let that happen. It will be no greater risk or even lower risk than other forms of social gathering.”

Looking forward, he said: “I don’t think there will be any issue filling the ships initially because the reality is that there’s not going to be that many ships and that many itineraries, [and] there will be plenty of people wanting to cruise.

“Over time, we’re going to eventually need to get back to where we were which was attracting people who haven’t cruised before.

“That job has been made, short-term, more difficult because people who haven’t cruised are hearing lots of stories and read stuff in the news, and now in their mind, they have another reason not to cruise.

“We’re going to have to, over time, chip away at whatever myth they happen to hold about a cruise, and help them see that that’s not the case.”

SeaDream says demand is high for restart

SeaDream Yacht Club said that its first sailings following its operations pause have sold out. 

The small-ship line will begin sailing seven- and 12-day cruises out of Norway on June 20. 

SeaDream opened reservations last week and according to executive vice president Andreas Brynestad, the first voyage sold out in “a matter of days.” 

“The response has been nothing but overwhelming in a good way and better than we could have ever imagined,” he said. “People are incredibly hungry for travel and our small yachts/ships are exactly what people are looking for now.”

SeaDream said that during the pause in operations its ships repositioned to Lisbon, where they were maintained and given upgrades such as replacing the teak deck. 

SeaDream normally operates in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. The Norwegian line’s itineraries will take the ships past the Arctic Circle so that guests can experience the midnight sun, the Lofoten Fjords, and Tromsoe.