Royal Caribbean newest Quantum Ultra Class ship, Odyssey of the Seas has arrived in the port of Limassol, Cyprus to collect crew ahead of the final preparations for the inaugural summer season in the Eastern Mediterranean
Around 700 crew members, are expected to board Odyssey of the Seas, in the following three days from the port of Limassol. After boarding is completed the ship will be in full crew capacity together with the 650 crew members and construction workers who boarded when the vessel was handed over to Royal Caribbean on March 31. Contractors who were working on the finishing touches in the past month will disembark the ship as the new crew arrives onboard. Travel arrangements for the crew needed to be planned in advance since they arrive from different parts of the world, especially in these circumstances this is quite an extraordinary challenge. Therefore the schedulers did an amazing job of bringing hundreds of crew back on onboard.
According to the Cyprus news outlets, the 700 crew members waiting to board Odyssey of the Seas were accommodated in the 5-star Atlantica Hotels & Resorts in Limassol. Here is the press release from the Atlantica Hotels & Resorts:
“Atlantica Hotels & Resorts in collaboration with Hull Blyth Araouzos Ltd is pleased to announce that it has hosted the Royal Caribbean International crew for the Odyssey of the Seas.
Atlantica Miramare, Atlantica Bay and Atlantica Oasis hotels accommodated the cruise ship crew for pre-departure preparation. The Atlantica Group covered all the needs of the crew in terms of accommodation and meals by faithfully following all the standards required by the government against the pandemic.
Atlantica Hotels and Resorts meets all government criteria and has already developed comprehensive COVID-19 virus prevention, preparedness and response plan, as well as standard operating procedures, with the primary focus on the safety and health of its customers, employees, and suppliers. Atlantica Hotels & Resorts is the only Cypriot hotel company, a member of the largest tourism organization in the world of the TUI Group, where it operates in Cyprus, Greece and Egypt with a total of 49 hotel units.”
Before boarding these crew members will take PCR test for Covid-19 and will go to 14-day quarantine onboard Odyssey of the Seas.
Odyssey of the Seas will start its inaugural summer season sailing from Haifa, Israel for the first time in May, offering cruises to Israeli citizens a combination of 3- to 7-night cruises to the Greek Isles and Cyprus. The itineraries, roundtrip from Haifa, Israel, will include visits to idyllic isles and destinations in the Mediterranean, including Rhodes, Santorini, Mykonos and Athens, Greece and Limassol, Cyprus.
