The Light

There is a light at the end of this tunnel all our lives were thrust into this past year. The vaccinations are coming for most of us. I received my first shot of the Pfizer vaccine on March 12 and will get my second on April 1. By April 15 I will be considered fully vaccinated and ready to travel again. Of course, I won’t be able to travel because we still need millions more to be vaccinated, but it’s coming.

As the United States focused Center for Disease Control (CDC) continues to drag its feet on the cruise industry, cruise lines are doing what’s best for their business. The UK is receiving a glut of business with P&O, Princess, Viking, Cunard and MSC announcing cruises out of their ports beginning in May. Celebrity, Crystal, and Royal Caribbean are opening Caribbean cruises in June out of St. Maarten and Nassau.

I understand the CDC having higher priorities than a relatively niche and non-essential industry. However, we can’t ignore how some of their decisions and policies are indirectly discriminatory against the cruise lines. Full flights are flying across the nation and internationally into and out of the United States. Hotels can welcome guests with their own safety guidelines. Theme parks like Six Flags and Disney are open and operating at reduced capacities and with other precautions.

Two of those businesses are considered “essential” and I understand the necessity in certain cases, but most of their former and current use is still not in the “essential” realm. Yet cruise ships can not conduct their business simply because they are federally regulated? Despite the evidence of success in examples like Quantum of the Seas operating in Singapore, MSC Grandiosa and MSC Seaside in Italy, which have been functioning incident free for over six months each.

Venice (Italy): cruise ship crossing the Grand Canal . (Photo by: Andia/UIG via Getty Images)

I know travel restrictions in the United States and around the world will lift as the months move on. I hope seeing cruise lines find alternatives will spur the federal government to action quicker than they are currently as they see business lost to foreign nations.

My biggest regret currently is that I can not afford round-trip flights to the Bahamas and St. Maarten. To be among the first back on a ship in the Caribbean at this time would be magical. I still have a slim chance at an Alaskan cruise in September. That one is pending the success of legislation allowing exemptions to the PVSA that was proposed by Senator Murkowski and others. There is very little hope that will pass. Until a final decision is met my Norwegian Cruise Line account is showing that cruise as “Default Itinerary,” so in a constant state of Limbo, neither canceled nor continuing. Also, there is the rescheduled Southeast Asia cruise in February 2022. If things progress as they seem to be, our group is still planning to move forward with that trip, even if a cruise is not available to non-Singaporeans at the time.

I will keep you readers up to date with thoughts and progress in our travel plans.

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