Here's What May Push Cruise Lines To Mandate Passenger Vaccinations

Feb 16, 2021,06:21pm EST Written By Suzanne Rowan Kelleher Here’s What May Push Cruise Lines To Mandate Passenger Vaccinations Ports of call may push large cruise lines into vaccine mandates for passengers. Most major cruise lines are planning to resume sailing at the end of April or soon thereafter. One of the most pressing questions is whether passengers will be required to be vaccinated. The industry’s reboot is possible under the CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing Order, which charters a pathway for cruise lines to resume sailing through adhering to a set of strict Covid-19 protocols, including a rigorous testing regimen. The order was announced last fall, months before the vaccine rollout began. To date, only three small-ship cruise lines have announced that they will require passengers to be vaccinated for Covid-19 before setting sail. The first, UK-based Saga Cruises, announced last month that it will require all cruise passengers to receive the Covid-19 vaccine at least two weeks prior to boarding. In North America, Indiana-based river cruise line American Queen Steamboat Company and its sister line, Victory Cruise Lines, announced a similar directive that will take effect July 1. The rule will be in place for American Queen’s four riverboats and the three vessels operated by Victory Cruise Lines. “I think it’s the new norm,” American Queen Steamboat Company CEO John Waggoner told Cruise Critic, the cruise review site. “If you had the ability to cruise on a boat knowing that everyone was fully vaccinated or that only 90% of the people were vaccinated, which would you chose?” Many cruise enthusiasts appear to be on the same page as Waggoner. In a recent survey of nearly 3,000 Cruise Critic readers, a hefty majority believed vaccines will be important to the restart of cruising. More than eight in 10 (81%) respondents said they would cruise if a vaccine were mandated prior to setting sail. Only 5% said that a vaccine requirement would deter them from cruising, while the remaining 14% were unsure. So far, no major large-ship cruise line has said that it will mandate passengers to provide proof of vaccination, but that could change in the coming months. Colleen McDaniel, editor-in-chief of Cruise Critic, says cruise lines have done an admirable amount of heavy lifting during the almost year-long pause in cruising since last March. “They have spent much of that time really learning and putting in place new protocols designed for health and safety,” she says. “But what seemed like the best approach back last April is not necessarily the best approach now. It’s truly an evolving process.” Two major cruise lines have committed to requiring their crews to be vaccinated. Royal Caribbean Group, which owns Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises, has said that it will require crew members to receive the Covid-19 vaccine before returning to work on their ships. And on a Zoom call in December with a major cruise seller, Frank Del Rio, CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line, the parent to Norwegian Cruise Line, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Oceania Cruises, said that the line would have a crew vaccine mandate. While no major cruise line has announced a similar requirement for passengers, an increasingly realistic scenario might nudge them to impose such a directive. “What we might see is that the ports that the cruise ships visit might ultimately dictate whether or not passengers need to be vaccinated,” said McDaniel. “If some of these ports are coming out and saying, ‘You can't come into our country if you have not been vaccinated,’ well, that's going to make the decision for the cruise lines and for the passengers.” A handful of popular cruise destinations have already announced that they are dropping quarantine requirements for travelers who have been fully vaccinated. Consider that Celebrity Cruises, Regent Seven Seas and Norwegian Cruise Line all have fall itineraries slated for a stop in Limassol, the largest port on the island of Cyprus and a popular stop for Mediterranean cruises. Next month, Cyprus will begin allowing travelers who've been fully vaccinated to enter without having to go into a two-week quarantine or provide a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of arrival. In Iceland, both Reykavik and Akureyri are ports of call on scheduled 2021 summer itineraries with Celebrity Cruises, Oceania Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line. Beginning in May, Iceland will let fully vaccinated travelers from European Union countries (plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) skip the otherwise-required quarantine and sidestep the negative PCR test requirement. Visitors to Estonia can skip the 10-day mandatory quarantine in place for arrivals, with exceptions for a handful of European countries deemed low risk, as well as evidence of a negative PCR test taken within three days of arriving. Several cruise lines — including Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Celebrity Cruises — have summer sailings scheduled with a stop in Tallinn, whose spectacular old town is just steps from the port. Right now, Poland allows travelers from EU countries to skip the 10-day mandatory quarantine if they can provide proof of vaccination against Covid-19. The alternative is to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test taken no more than 48 hours before arrival, which could be very tricky for en-route cruise passengers to pull off. Gdansk, formerly Warsaw, is a port of call included on several summer sailings with Princess Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Viking Ocean Cruises and other cruise lines. Since January 18, Romania has allowed travelers from permitted destinations who have been fully vaccinated from Covid to be exempt from quarantining upon arrival. Visitors must show evidence of receiving two doses of the vaccine, the second of which must be administered at least 10 days prior to entering the country. Bucharest is a popular port of call for Uniworld, Viking and other river cruise lines. Further afield, the idyllic, sunk-kissed Seychelles has also joined the growing list of destinations to drop quarantine requirements for travelers vaccinated against Covid-19. But even inoculated cruisers will have to wait until next year to visit. Last spring, Seychelles announced a ban on cruise ships in Port Victoria until 2022. For the U.S. cruise market, the question of whether passengers must be vaccinated may hinge on whether popular Caribbean ports of call begin rolling out vaccine mandates of their own. On the bright side, the Biden administration is on track to surpass its goal of 100 million U.S. vaccinations by the end of April, according to the vaccine tracker from the Brown School of Public Health.