As the Covid-19 surge caused over the past several months by the Omicron variant continues to decline and many cruise ships are reporting zero Covid cases in the past few weeks, several cruise lines decided to relax some of the safety measures. This week Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line announced rolling back of its onboard mask policy for guests, allowing fully vaccinated passengers to go without masks in most of the public areas. The cruise lines will ask passengers to mask up in some indoor areas, such as casino, theater,s and Bars, or in ports where local laws require.

Following the recent announcements, some cruise lines are also relaxing restrictions for the crew members. Face mask policy for crew members is still unchanged however, they are once again allowed to disembark in most of the ports in the Caribbean with an organized shore excursion, shore leave in the private islands, or restricted movement at the port terminals, depending on the cruise ships current status and local authorities. Some cruise lines have also significantly shortened the length of the onboard quarantine for the new sign-on crew.

Here are the latest updates received from our fellow crew members regarding shore leave and quarantine policy for new sign on crew:

Royal Caribbean Group

According to the latest Royal Caribbean announcement addressed to crew, the quarantine for signing on crew will reduce to 3 days from 7 days, starting February 12. Celebrity Cruises crew member said that crew tours are back for designated beaches. Another Royal Caribbean International crew member said the crew is allowed shoe leave in Coco Cay and the company will once again allow bubble shore excursions. Royal Caribbean International is also rolling back the free flow in US home ports program for crew starting with 100 crew members to be granted shore leave in the first week and gradually increasing the number. 

Virgin Voyages

Virgin Voyages has also reduced the onboard quarantine for new sign-on to 3 days. VV crew are allowed to go out at the cruise lines’ private beach club in Bimini.

MSC Cruises

The crew joining MSC Cruises ships will have to spend 7 days in quarantine before starting regular duties onboard. MSC Cruises haven’t reduced the quarantine period onboard, however they allowed shore leave for crew at Ocean Cay – MSC Marine Reserve. For now MSC Cruises Private Island is the only shore leave option for crew. A crew member onboard MSC Seashore said that in the past two week none of the crew tested positive for COVID-19.

Carnival Cruise Line

Carnival has reduced the onboard quarantine for new sign-on crew about a month ago. Fully vaccinated crew go in 4 days quarantine while the rest go to 10 days quarantine, said one crew member. Besides specific ports/ships, shore leave is granted.

Norwegian Cruise Line

NCL haven’t made any changes with the 7 days quarantine policy for new sign-on crew. However, with zero covid cases reported on several ships the cruise line is once again allowing shore leave for crew.

“This is our second cruise without any positive crew members. Yesterday they tested the crew and all are negative. So now we have shore leave, only by the terminal or with a shore excursion,” said one NCL crew member.

NCL crew are granted shore leave in most of the Caribbean ports except in Freeport and US home ports.

• - In Costa Maya, shore leave is approved at the Terminal area only.
• - In Nassau, Cozumel and Ocho Rios shore leave is also granted for crew with no restrictions.
• - Harvest Caye shore leave is granted providing the Health Authorities are satisfied with the health status of the vessel. In Roatan free flow shore leave is allowed.
• - In Cartagena, Colon and Puerto Limon shore leave is granted with antigen-negative test no more than 48 hours to ship arrival and full scheme Covid vaccine.

Viking Ocean Crew

The quarantine policy for the Viking Cruises crew remains the same. New sign-on crew are required to spend 7 days in a hotel near the port, prior to joining the ship, and additional 5-day quarantine onboard. We don’t have information if the Viking crew are permitted shore leave in ports.