Written by Carolyn Spencer Brown
The cruise industry is in an unprecedented period. As the last ships still out on world cruises finally returned to ports in mid-to-late April, the entire business is in a complete halt. There are no more paying customers as a result of No Sail Order announced by the Centers for Disease Control over a month ago.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, every week, hotels, airlines and cruise lines are facing dramatic challenges that we've never seen before. In cruise's case, ports started to refuse access to cruise ships (and this was happening all over the world, even for those without passengers affected by the pandemic) in late February. Cruise lines have since gone dark; aside from ships with just crew aboard still trying to port, no one's actually operating voyages right now (in some cases, companies are telling us they won't resume any voyages until July or later).
The industry has had to shuffle more than just operating its existing ships. New ship debuts, typically meriting a huge celebration, are on hold too. Last month, Celebrity Cruises took delivery of its new Apex from a European shipyard as executives watched the procession via video sharing. And the usually ebullient Virgin Voyages, a brand new cruise line aimed at Millennials, accepted delivery of its first ship and put in mothballs for the time being. The pandemic has also interrupted European shipyards, many of which have closed down completely, for weeks, and which are only just re-starting operations.
Cruise travel has been through tough times during national and global tragedies and I've covered them all in various forms. There was 9-11, the Great Recession of 2008 and the advent of Norovirus. Ship-related accidents and malfunctions have attracted notorious press. COVID-19 is a different beast, and it's having a massive impact. I agree with the industry executives who tell me that's its more damaging than several past events combined.
And yet, cruise will survive. It will thrive, again, someday, and it will do so because travelers are passionate about this way of exploration. And because the cruise lines will do what they do best in times of extreme challenge: They will innovate and create ever-better systems, protocols and processes that will raise standards to even higher levels.
The irony here is that cruise lines voluntarily subject themselves to a rigorous and thorough health and sanitation inspections, something that hotels, airlines and resorts don't do.
A cornerstone of that effort is a 30-plus year partnership with the Centers for Disease Control's Vessel Sanitation Program. All ships that call at American ports undergo rigorous surprise inspections. These focus on key areas of hygiene, sanitation and safety, such as heating, ventilation and air-conditioning; kids' clubs; restaurants and galleys; pest management; housekeeping; swimming pools and whirlpools, potable water systems, medical centers. Cruise lines, which undergo two inspections a year (at least those who call at least twice at U.S. ports) pick up the tab for them. Cost? Inspections run from about $3,000 to almost $30,000, depending on ship tonnage. And that's per ship, per inspection.
Also singular to the cruise industry: Cruise lines report illness statistics when more than 3 percent of passengers onboard a sailing report feeling ill. You don't see those numbers from hotels, airlines and resorts because they haven't agreed to volunteer the information.
As with COVID-19, which has shaken almost every area of our lives since it began its tragic spread, nothing is normal. But we do feel there will be, when the time is right, a new normal for cruise travel, and some things will change.
Here's what we're prepared for.
Travelers will absorb more self-responsibility for their own health and well-being -- and that of the people around you. Personal hygiene practices will continue to be an obsession, and travelers will show more concern about how their own health affects people around them. Physical distancing has caught on, and I don't see a pullback there. And travelers who embark on trips who do show signs of illness will likely be subjected to further screening and may be denied boarding.
From the cruise line perspective, it will be necessary to establish new and ever more rigid protocols for promoting health and well-being. For cruise embarkations, we may be required to undergo a quick, thermal screening to test for fever. Look for tweaks in how companies sanitize and disinfect public rooms and staterooms. One executive tells us there could be new technology installed around ships that, like a sprinkler, could shower disinfectant, and that filtration and ventilation systems will be under greater scrutiny than ever. And if travelers are embracing physical distancing, so too will cruise lines. Look for new rules, especially on larger ships, to offer limits on capacity overall, and also for new limitations related to activities, entertainment and dining.
On cruise lines certified by the Cruise Lines Industry Association (CLIA), health and medical practices are already developed in conjunction with the American College of Emergency Physicians. Would you feel more comfortable traveling by ship if you knew that its existing medical facility was also in partnership with a major health organization, like Johns Hopkins Hospital or Cedars-Sinai to provide telemedicine via video? That's not even a new idea; one cruise line in the early aughts had just such a partnership. And these days, the advent of radically faster WIFI, like Carnival Corporation's OceanMedallion technology, could be a boon for partnerships created between cruise lines and on-shore hospitals so that travelers who fall ill and their onboard doctors could have real-time consults.
Onboard medical facilities could be expanded with isolation-oriented facilities in case of a contagious outbreak.
In so many of the conversations we have had with fellow travelers over the past few weeks, one of the biggest worries that dedicated cruise passengers have has less to do with falling ill. It's about the unprecedented reaction by ports to deny ships on scheduled calls. In the new normal, there needs to be a partnership between the industry and ports of call and their government entities, to establish a clear and safe protocol to prevent this from ever happening again. "This is the biggest thing," a cruise line CEO tells me. "It's a human rights mission. I think ports can do better.
And here is an idea for a re-start, at least as it applies to big ship cruising: Another cruise line executive tells us that he's imagining a scenario in which a cruise itinerary from Miami can bounce from one cruise line private island to another without ever visiting a commercial port on a seven day Bahamian/Caribbean itinerary. It could happen, should MSC, Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line and Holland America Line agree to team up and rent out their own private islands to one another, for stops that could avoid, at least in the short-term, the need to call on mainstream ports and provide controlled on-land environments.
Crazy? Maybe. At this point, though, all ideas on the table are welcome.
Carolyn Spencer Brown has, for the past 20-plus years, been one of the cruise industry’s most knowledgeable journalists, first as a staff writer at The Washington Post and later as a longtime editor-in-chief of Cruise Critic. Over the past two decades she’s traveled on more than 300 cruises on ships big, small and downright tiny. An award-winning editor as well, her cruise stories have appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, Town & Country, and London’s Sunday Times. She is the chief content officer of Cruise Media, LLC.
