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One of the biggest players in the Cruise Industry announced they’d be reopening business in late Summer and it caused a flurry of bookings. And it wasn’t just a spike in reservations from the day or two before, it was also a massive spike in reservations compared to the same time period last year.
I’ve yet to see a global apology for its role in the coronavirus outbreak, but early on as the sars-cov-2 virus began to spread outside of China the cruise industry was a huge indicator that there was already a global health crisis on our hands. Ships were seeing outbreaks all over. One ship’s infected passengers led to a huge spike in South Korea. Some ships were forced to sail all throughout the Caribbean begging countries to let them dock and offload sick (and dying or dead) passengers.
But that doesn’t appear to have had any negative effect on people’s willingness to get back on cruise ships and spend time locked up in confined spaces with complete strangers for days on end while breathing the same air, touching the same handrails, and closely passing by each other in narrow corridors.
Carnival Cruise announced they’d be sailing again on August 1st according to the report from TMZ:
A rep with Cruise Planners, an American Express travel franchise, tells TMZ … after Carnival announced this week it would resume some cruises in August, its clients immediately began reaching out to book their reservations first and nab the most premium deals.
We’re told in the 3 days after Carnival’s announcement … Cruise Planners’ Carnival bookings shot up 600 percent compared to the previous 3 days before the news. That makes sense, but more interestingly, it’s a 200 percent increase over the same time period in 2019 — when folks traveled without fear of the novel coronavirus.
The travel company tells us those booking Carnival cruises were “not a bit concerned about traveling at this time” because many stated they are young and healthy, and just looking to have some fun after being cooped up for so long.
Though Carnival’s plan is to resume some of its cruises on August 1, it’s made it clear there’s no guarantee, saying … “We continue to work with various government agencies, including the CDC, as we introduce new onboard protocols, but there is no assurance of a return on August 1.” (via TMZ)
An article published by the Miami Herald on April 23rd found that ’54 ocean-going cruise ships’ worldwide were linked to coronavirus cases. Or about 1/5th of all cruise ships in the entire world. Passengers and crew members across the globe have died after contracting the coronavirus on cruise ships where everyone is forced to inhabit extremely confined spaces. On a Ruby Princess cruise ship that docked in Sydney, Australia 647 people tested positive including 202 crew members. Of those, at least 22 have died from COVID-19.
It seems unclear where these ships will be sailing cruise ships since most countries on the planet haven’t announced any plans to let in tourists yet but I guess they’re banking on those details sorting themselves out and the passengers are totally cool with just playing it by ear, right? What’s there to lose? We’re only at 4.132 MILLION confirmed cases worldwide.