Following the COVID-19 outbreak, major cruise players, the Carnival’s Princess Cruises and P&O Cruises will extend their pause in their sailings due to the pandemic.
In fact, Princess cruises extents pause of global ship operations on selected sailing in Australia, Canada and Taiwan.
According to the company, there will be ceased the above cruise operations:
- All cruises sailing in and out of Australia through mid-September on Sea Princess, Majestic Princess, Sun Princess and Sapphire Princess.
- All cruises in and out of Vancouver and Seattle in September and October on Coral Princess, Emerald Princess, Grand Princess, Royal Princess, Ruby Princess and Star Princess.
- Pacific and California Coast 7-day roundtrip cruises from San Francisco departing in September and October 2020 on Star Princess.
- All roundtrip cruises from Keelung, Taiwan, departing August 2020 on Majestic Princess.
At the same time, P&O Cruises reported that will cease all of its sailings until 15th October 2020.
Unfortunately, as the world continues to adapt to this global crisis, we have made the decision, difficult as it is, to extend our pause in operations for all sailings up to and including October 15, 2020. We are so sorry for the disappointment this will cause to so many of our guests.
For the records, the cruise line was expected to start its operations on 1st of August, more than three months after the original resume date of 11 April was scheduled, but this has once again been extended until October.
As the company informed, the latest extension came in order to closely work with public health bodies in the UK and US so as to enhance health and safety protocols.
Paul Ludlow, the president of P&O Cruises, concluded:
As a business our operational focus is not ‘when can we resume sailing?’ but is instead ‘how can we develop a comprehensive restart protocol that will keep everyone on board, our crew and guests, safe and well and still give our guests an amazing holiday?’
