The cruise ship Norwegian Joy is slowly getting ready to return non-essential crew back home after NCLH announced further cancelations of cruises through April 30, 2021. Norwegian Joy which departed from Manila two months ago arrived in Aruba in January, where the ship was greeted by hundreds of fellow crew members from the NCLH ships docked in Oranjestad in hopes to restart cruising. Now the ship will have to make the same journey and sail back to the Philippines.

Norwegian Joy has already started ship-to-ship transfers of the non-essential crew onboard Norwegian Sun, Norwegian Pearl and Oceania Insignia, which are docked alongside in Oranjestad, Aruba. According to our source, the crew transfers will be completed on February 12, with the boarding of the crew from the Norwegian Gem. Once this is done they will set sail to Manila, Philippines on February 28. A total of 1053 crew members, 819 male and 234 female crew, will be sent back home.

On January 26, NCLH informed the shipboard employees about the difficult decision the company has made to repatriate crew members in non-essential roles. Back in November and December 2020, Norwegian Cruise Line boarded thousands of crew members to prepare several cruise ships for a possible restart. However with the latest announcement and further suspension of operations the company realized they are not going to be starting anytime soon. 

In November 2020 Norwegian Joy set sail from Manila, Philippines to the Caribbean with 1216 crew. Back then many crew members who boarded the ship expressed their happiness and joy to be the first among their fellow crew to resume cruises. Some of them posted videos about the long process, quarantine, and safety protocols they went thru in order to join the ship. But they didn't complain about all of this, they were actually proud to be part of the restart team and expressed their gratitude to the company and the agency for this opportunity.

After completing the long journey the ship finally arrived in Aruba greeted by many crew members. Here is a video of the Norwegian Joy as the ship was entering the port of Oranjestad.