Carnival Cruise Line president Christine Duffy has provided another update on the current situation the cruise line is in and a heavy focus on crew vaccinations. It comes as she recently made her ship visit in more than a year and being in Galveston to welcome back two Carnival cruise ships on Sunday.
Christine Duffy Message to the Crew
While the cruise industry in the U.S. is finally starting to move forward in recent days, Carnival Cruise Line president Christine Duffy has released a new video message to the crew members. You can watch the full video below:
Duffy started by talking about her recent visit and meeting the crew of the Carnival Sunshine while the ship was docked at PortMiami in Florida. It was, in fact, her first ship visit in almost 14 months. She spoke about the Carnival Breeze and Carnival Vista arriving into the port of Galveston on Sunday and that she would be visiting the shipboard teams early this week. Duffy said:
“Now we are sending Carnival Vista and Carnival Breeze to Galveston, and I will be in Texas in Galveston early next week. And we’ll have the opportunity to visit our shipboard teams and participate in an event with public officials showing their support for the return of cruising. We have received so much support from our industry partners, travel agents, cruise ports, government officials, and so many others that have been working hard on our behalf to help get cruising going again.”
The message to the crew was mainly focused on crew vaccinations and Duffy went on to say that those crew on the two Carnival ships that arrived in Galveston are having the opportunity to be vaccinated. The CDC recently updated its guidance on allowing cruises to resume from the U.S. by the middle of July and making sure 98% of the crew are vaccinated is one of those requirements.
Duffy continued to say:
“We believe that vaccines may be a requirement for our crew by many governments of the destinations we visit. So, as we’ve said all along, I want to personally encourage all of our crew members who are at home that have access to a vaccine to please, please be vaccinated against COVID-19.”
“Vaccination is such an important step in resuming not only normal cruise operations, but normal life again, and protecting you, your family, your fellow team members and the communities, our ships visit. I know that in many places, vaccine rollout is very slow. So please know that we are also working to get our crew vaccinated if you can’t do so on your own.”
The Carnival President also confirmed that vaccines were received from the government of Barbados. At the same time, the Fantasy-class ship was involved in humanitarian support due to the volcano eruptions in St. Vincent.
Crew members on Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas have recently received the vaccine at PortMiami and MSC Cruises has even started a fleetwide vaccination program ready for its return this summer.
On Monday, Christine Duffy attended a cruise rally at the Port of Galveston to discuss the economic impact of the cruise industry being on pause since March 2020. She’s been pretty busy recently as Carnival Cruise Line has remained “America’s cruise line” throughout and has not shifted vessels to alternative homeports outside the U.S.
As the cruise line works hard to prepare new health measures and get ships ready for a return to service this summer, cruise operations are suspended through June 2021. Cruises are not set to resume until July at the earliest.
