Cruising restarts and reboots

The shutdown of the cruising industry in response to the spread of COVID-19 and resultant travel restrictions means ongoing reviews of restart dates by the respective cruise operators, across the globe.

Below is a snapshot of the latest planned reboots. Customers affected by cancelled cruises are offered options which may include future cruise credits, onboard spending credits or refunds.

Future cruise credits are usually worth more than the original cruise fare paid, say 125 per cent, as an added incentive to book a future cruise as opposed to getting cash back.

Latest cruise cancellations & restart dates (as of April 6)

APRIL

• Cruise & Maritime Voyages — restarts from April 25
• Hurtigruten — voyages suspended to April 28 (expeditions); April 19 (Norway coastal)

MAY

• Costa — restarts from early May; Costa Mediterranea cruises cancelled until May 25
• Celebrity Cruises — restarts from May 12; Alaska sailings suspended until July 1, 2020
• Celestyal — restarts from May 1
• Cunard — restarts from May 16
• Holland America Line — restarts May 15
• Evaluating Alaska and Canada & New New England cruises scheduled to July 1, 2020.
• MSC — restarts from May 30
• Norwegian/Oceania/Regent Seven Seas Cruises — restarts from May 11
• Ponant — no sailings until further notice
• Princess Cruises — restarts from May 11
• Royal Caribbean/Azamara — restarts from May 12
• Seabourn — restarts from May 15
• Silversea — Silver Wind restarts from May 13; other ships on various dates to June 7
• Windstar — restarts from May 22

JUNE

• Carnival Australia — restarts from June 16
• Crystal — ocean cruises cancelled on Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony to May 31 *Note: Crystal Symphony voyages May 24 (Rome to London) & May 31 (Barcelona to London) — only first segment on each cancelled.
• Yacht cruises on Crystal Esprit cancelled to May 31.
• River cruises on: Crystal Bach cancelled to May 28; Crystal Debussy to May 29; Crystal Mahler to June 1; Crystal Ravel to May 29.
• Dream Cruises — Genting Dream Singapore deployment restarts June 3
• Explorer Dream will not return to Australia and New Zealand between October, 2020 and February 2021 as originally planned.
• P&O Cruises Australia — restarts from June 16

JULY

• Viking — restarts from July 1, 2021
• Aurora Expeditions — rescheduled Patagonia and Chilean Fjords, and Costa Rica and the Panama Canal voyages scheduled for April 2, 2020 and April 25, 2020 respectively, to 2021; Arctic voyages between May and October postponed to future seasons; Antarctica 2020-21 season (November onwards) — details to follow.