ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday urged the federal government to allow Florida-based cruise ships to start sailing again this June.
“We need to be able to get these cruise lines operating again,” DeSantis said during a discussion with cruise industry leaders at Port Canaveral, a crucial dock for Florida-based cruise ships. “In Florida, we have everything going on except the cruise lines because the federal government won’t let the cruise lines sail.”
He added, “We’re the most crippled by what they’re doing with this national cruise lockdown, and so we get liberated from that, you’re going to be able to see maybe tens of thousands, maybe even 100,000 more people going back to work.”
Meeting at the new Cruise Terminal 3, executives from Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, MSC Cruises and Disney Cruise Line joined DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and other politicians to highlight the industry’s desire to get more information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has kept cruise ships from sailing from U.S. ports since last March.
“You see here the five leading cruise line companies in the world,” said Norwegian Cruise Line President and CEO Harry Sommer. “We are united to support you in this effort to take the cruise industry forward. We just ask Dr. (Rochelle) Walensky from the CDC to come and have a dialogue with us. That’s our only request.”
DeSantis and Moody said they have looked into legal action to force the industry to reopen, but they want to help get discussions open now to target sailing as soon as possible.
“If you’re not going to be willing to greenlight this, then you need to explain why everywhere else in the world can do it,” DeSantis said.
While under a conditional sail order from the CDC since last fall, the lines remain at a standstill awaiting more guidance from the agency.
The framework order, which is in place until Nov. 1, features 74 points cruise lines must address before the CDC would consider letting them sail with paying passengers. It contains aspects such as testing and safeguards for crew members and then simulated cruises to make sure the lines can manage COVID-19 risk. If lines get through those steps, they can apply to sail with passengers, who will be required to take and pass with negative results on COVID-19 tests on both the day they arrive and the day they depart, the CDC states.
The order was based in large part on suggestions from the Healthy Sail Panel formed by both Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line, but that was developed over last summer.
“What is obviously clear is that the orders that we’re operating under are based on outdated medical information and they’re untimely,” Moody said. “They have put in place a new conditional order to sail which hasn’t allowed you to do anything so we are still effectively in a lockdown.”
Florida’s two U.S. senators joined other federal politicians this week urging the CDC to answer questions on how to get the industry back running in the U.S.
“We are disappointed that the CDC has been neither transparent nor forthright with the cruise industry,” reads the letter signed by Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio among others. “Leaving a sector that is a significant economic driver for our states at a standstill, and affecting jobs in all major ports and surrounding cities.”
In the meantime, several lines have begun to sail in markets around the world including Asia, Europe and soon the Caribbean. Royal Caribbean will be sailing from the Bahamas and Bermuda, for instance.
Royal Caribbean Cruises President and CEO Michael Bayley expressed his and other line leaders’ frustration with the CDC.
“Suddenly it stopped and yet we can’t get any reliable information from the entity that’s closed us down,” he said. “It’s in interagency government review month after month after month. It’s devastating.”
The CDC this week stated as much when Cruise Lines International Association made a push asking for it to drop its sail order by July, citing the success that lines have had with their safety protocols from places like Singapore and Europe already.
“We’ve been doing it without vaccines,” Bayley pointed out, although several lines have begun to make plans so that both crew and passengers 18 and over would require vaccination to sail. “Now vaccines have come into this and we know now that in America, and in Florida, there’s been a huge success, so why are we waiting?”
CLIA’s stance focuses on President Joe Biden’s statement that he expects all adults in the U.S. to be eligible to be vaccinated by May 1, and that the global efforts already taken to return to sailing have seen nearly 400,000 passengers but fewer than 50 publicly reported COVID-19 cases.
The cruise industry, though, was ground zero for deadly outbreaks when the pandemic began in early 2020. Several ships had outbreaks on board, and passengers were at times not allowed to disembark.
One of the worst was on Princess Cruises’ Diamond Princess, which left 14 dead. Those problems led to both the cruise industry voluntarily shutting down last March and a no-sail order from the CDC.
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