Carnival Cruise Line is pausing operations immediately across its fleet of ships based in North America and will resume them on Friday, April 10.
All ships currently at sea will continue their voyages and return to their homeports as scheduled. The pause in cruise operations is being made out of an abundance of caution to support the global effort to contain the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Carnival Cruise Line said, “Throughout this COVID-19 situation that has now turned into a global pandemic, we have implemented higher and higher levels of screening, monitoring and sanitation protocols to protect the health and safety of our guests, crew and the communities we serve. While Carnival has not had a diagnosed case linked to our operation we realize this situation is bigger than the cruise industry and we will continue to do our part to support public officials to manage and contain this unprecedented public health challenge.
We are contacting booked guests directly regarding their cruise and their options.
Our guests have been tremendously patient and understanding as we have reacted to a rapidly changing situation and a desire to be responsive to authorities in the U.S. and the destinations we visit. We are very sorry that this decision will disrupt the vacation plans for our guests and look forward to resuming operations and providing our guests safe, fun and memorable vacations. And it goes without saying, we can only do that with the support of our outstanding onboard team members who have been nothing short of amazing during this prolonged period of challenge.”
“Through serving our many guests who still wanted to travel, we’ve stood with all the people in the port communities here in the U.S., and in the other places we sail, who are dependent on us for their livelihood,” said Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation. “And today we stand with the nation as we together seek to mitigate the spread.”
Individually, each brand is communicating with guests to provide direction regarding the disruption to their cruise vacations.
Date of resumed cruise operations also will be communicated by each respective brand and available on their websites.
The company and its brands are also notifying crew members, travel professionals, suppliers and other stakeholders.
