Virgin Voyages has temporarily cancelled Scarlet Lady’s New York City stop on its Showcase Tour, originally scheduled for March 8 – 11.
In a statement, Virgin Voyages said, “As we have been making our way across the Atlantic Ocean, we have been keeping a watchful eye on the news. In light of current global headlines, we have made the decision to postpone our upcoming Showcase Tour pitstop in New York City.
“We have absolutely no health concerns or issues onboard. The elevated health protocols and processes we put in place when we took delivery of Scarlet Lady have kept our crew and their family and friends well and happy.”
As one of the media entities scheduled to visit the ship while it was in New York, Virgin tells Travel Agent that the ship will instead continue to its home in Miami, where Virgin Voyages still plans to accept guests and make its official debut on time. Virgin Voyages adds that it plans to bring the ship back to New York later in spring for media to visit, although no dates are set yet.
Virgin Voyages took delivery of the ship two weeks ago after departing the shipyard in Genoa, Italy. (Genoa is not located in Veneto or Lombardy, two of the regions in Italy that has been hardest hit by outbreaks of the coronavirus.) The Scarlet Lady previously made stops in Dover and Liverpool. The ship was never in Asia and a spokesperson for Virgin Voyages says there were no issues with the New York/New Jersey Port Authority when it came to docking.
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