Costa is crewing up their ships for the upcoming Mediterranean season with four vessels set to restart cruises this summer. Crew from all over the world already started boarding assigned ships in Italy with high hopes and determination. You can simply feel the energy among the sign-on crew happy to get back on board and once again to be part of the global Costa family. The road back to the ships was not an easy one, as many encountered challenges and hardship on the way.

Like many nations struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic, Myanmar faces additional destabilizing risks from the military coup. Cruise ship crew members from this country shared their concerns about the current situation and worries that this might affect their next sign-on date. In hopes that the cruise lines will not forget them they sent an open letter voicing their concerns.

The global MSC family is slowly assembling and returning back to the cruise ships. Crew members from the Philippines, Peru, Indonesia and India have already boarded several ships in Italy, ahead of the necessary preparations for a new restart this year. I had the pleasure to talk with several MSC crew members who just joined the ships, while they are in 14-day mandatory quarantine, and shared their experience and expectations.

Crew members are proud and hardworking people, loyal to the cruise lines and committed to their jobs at sea. They are breadwinners for their families but also visionaries who dream for a better future. During this difficult year some found different jobs, others waited for that call from the cruise lines. However, almost all of them are eager to get back at sea and continue doing what they do best.

As Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings prepares for a restart of cruise operations, the company announced important information regarding crew vaccinations and approved vaccine brands in a letter sent to its crew members via email. Following a recent crew survey, which NCLH conducted regarding the availability and intend to return to work on board, the company received a large number of inquiries related to vaccinations against Covid-19.

The start-up luxury residential community at sea Storylines, which is set to debut in 2023 with the cruise ship M/V Narrative has recently created a survey targeting the crew members. The goal is to evaluate the mental health, productivity, safety of the shipboard employees with a focus on the crew living quarters.

Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises will require crew members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine prior to boarding and resuming work on its ships. While the decision to require guests to be vaccinated continues, the crew will be required to receive the vaccine. Royal Caribbean crew members received a letter from the company which reads:

Carnival Corporation has confirmed a security breach, admitting to suffering unauthorized access and ransomware attack on two of the company’s brands information technology systems.

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.

Following yesterday’s news that Royal Caribbean Group will sell Azamara to the private equity firm Sycamore Partners, Captain Carl Smith – Master of the cruise ship Azamara Pursuit reached out to his crew with encouraging words, reassuring them that the company has a bright future ahead.