Carnival Cruise Line is finalizing plans to repatriate more than 10,000 crew members and 18 ships will meet over several days in the Bahamas.
Carnival Cruise Line To Begin Huge Crew Repatriation Effort
The Miami-based cruise line has announced a major effort to make sure thousands of crew members get back to their home countries. Carnival has detailed plans for 18 Carnival cruise ships to meet in the Bahamas over the next several days.
When the cruise ships meet, crew members will be transferred to the correct vessel via water shuttles off the coast of the Bahamas. A total of nine vessels between them will take more than 10,000 healthy crew members back home. Those nine vessels will then sail to specific regions around the world to repatriate crew including Asia, Africa, Europe, India, and Latin America.
Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said:
“The safety and well-being of our team members continues to be a top priority. Given the pause in our operations, we are committed to getting our crew members safely home to their families. We sincerely thank them for their hard work, patience and understanding during this process.
We would also like to thank the government of The Bahamas for their support of this operation, as well as the CDC, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and local port agencies.”
It will be North American-based Carnival ships that will sail the crew back home. The nine other remaining vessels will spend most of their time in anchorage positions in the Bahamas or Panama. All Carnival Cruise Line operated ships will eventually only have essential crew onboard to keep the ships running and maintained.
Crew members who will be on the nine cruise ships heading home have been assessed by Carnival’s medical team to make sure they are healthy. The cruise line has been working with authorities in countries to make sure the crew will be able to disembark once each ship arrives.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line Preparing Next Phase of Crew Transfers
During the voyage home, each crew member will have their temperature checked daily and during the debarkation process. Strict health protocols will remain in place during the voyage.
Another 6,000 crew members still being going home via arranged charter flights and via two cruise ships. The Carnival Spirit and Carnival Splendor are already repatriating crew members including the Philippines and Indonesia.
The cruise line has already announced that cruises are expected to resume from June 27 but it will not be all at once and ships will slowly get back up and running again. This is also due to the extended “No-Sail Order” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Since the cruise line paused operation on March 13 over 10,000 crew members have already been repatriated from 27 cruise ships via flights. Many of the flights were charters arranged by the cruise line.
