With the release of the vaccine for COVID for essential workers such as medical professionals and positive thus far response from people who have taken both doses of the vaccine, the cruise industry is starting to review options related to how they can implement policies related to vaccination in order to be able to return the crew to work and the guests to enjoy cruises. However, the views of each cruise line appear to be different, at least for now.

Carnival Cruise Line announced plans for additional ship deployments as the company continues to refine its phased in approach to a return to guest cruise operations this year, resulting in some ship-specific cruise cancellations and movements.  

Carnival latest plans include:

The leading fintech company providing payment services for seafarers on the world's major cruise lines announced a new 3D face recognition feature called “FaceCheck”. Adding extra security to the crew members accounts Brightwell says the new feature will bring an additional layer of assurance and fraud prevention to the accounts.

With the latest announcement from Carnival Cruise Line issued in a press release today notifying guests of additional cruise cancellations, other cruise lines are expected to follow the suit.

After pushing back their pause in operations many times, Carnival hopes to set sail from the US ports after March 31, 2021.

MANILA (Jan 4, 2021) - In a press release the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) capped its repatriation efforts in 2020 by bringing home 327,511 overseas Filipinos workers, coming from at least 90 countries around the world. The DFA said that 29.3 percent of the overseas Filipinos workers, or 95,974 in total, are seafarers from more than 150 cruise ships, oil tankers, and other bulk vessels.

More than a dozen Carnival cruise ships arrived at Nassau Harbour on Saturday, November 28, to undertake embarkation of fresh crew on to a number of vessels, the Bahamas Ministry of Transport said in a statement.

In the past few days, Carnival Cruise Line has laid off more than a hundred shipboard deck and engine personnel.

The British cruise line P&O Cruises, part of Carnival Corporation & plc has announced today that the company is cancelling all sailings until early 2021. All Caribbean cruises on board the P&O ships are cancelled until the end of January 2021, and all cruises from and to Southampton are cancelled through February as well as Arcadia and Aurora, which have already been cancelled through to the end of their spring world cruises.

Carnival Corporation's German Based cruise line AIDA Cruises, announced it will expand its range of cruises this autumn with new voyages to Italy, starting on Oct. 17, 2020. 

While we are all aware of the challenges and fears that the COVID-19 pandemic has bestowed upon all of us in the same sense it also shows us what truly is important.