First Caribbean Cruise Cut Short
We have got some big cruise news stories for you. Cruise ship design is changing as they are adding Covid Testing Labs. We also discuss how the vaccine announcements are affecting cruise stocks. Our final news story looks at the SeaDream and why it had to go into isolation just a few days into its first cruise in the Caribbean. Stay tuned for all that and more.
As the cruise industry continues to find ways to make cruising safer for passengers and crew they are implementing some big changes. Now for the first time ever a cruise ship will have a COVID testing lab on board. The Viking Star cruise ship will be the first to have a PCR laboratory on board. This is a big cruise ship news story, as we may start seeing more cruise lines retrofit their ships to have a laboratory. The PCR test is pretty simple, it only requires a swab to test for antigens. It can also accommodate up to 930 guests. We will see changes to pre-boarding as testing is going to be required.
Has discussions of vaccines got you looking towards cruising? Norwegian Cruise Line CEO, Del Rio, has said that the announcement from Pfizer has got future cruisers excited as they saw a rise in cruise bookings. This announcement had a positive effect on cruise stocks as NCL, Carnival Corp and Royal Caribbean all saw a spike of about 30%. We did also have the CDC lift the no sail order. So it seems that a combination of events has had a positive impact on the cruise industry.
A few weeks ago there was a lot of excitement about cruising returning to the Caribbean. We have a cruise news update on how it is going. The SeaDream 1 set sail over the weekend and on Wednesday announced that they had a positive COVID case. There had been a lot of testing prior to boarding and physical distancing on board. One area of safety which seemed to have slipped for the first couple days was that passengers were not wearing a mask. There have now been 5 COVID cases and the cruise ship has returned to Barbados.
We hope that you liked our cruise industry news update. Do you think a vaccine should be required to cruise? Would you sail on a test cruise? What are your thoughts about the outbreak on the SeaDream? Are there any cruise news stories you would like us to cover?
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Happy Travels! 🦩
