While the cruise industry made huge strides in August in its “return to service,” this past week delivered a mixed bag of results. Most notably, several cruise lines including Princess Cruises and Holland America Line cancelled their 2022 "World Cruises."
Princess delayed the return of Island Princess and Diamond Princess until spring 2022; those ships will restart with Caribbean/Panama Canal and Japan itineraries, respectively. That meant cancellation of Diamond Princess’ 2021-2022 “South America & Antarctica” program, the 2022 “World Cruise” along with two December 2021 Island Princess cruises.
Holland America announced that Volendam and Zaandam, also will return to service later than expected—in May 2022. That's meant cancellation of the line's 2022 "Grand World Voyage" and "Grand South America and Antarctica Voyage."
In the ever-changing process to meet COVID-19 destination rules as well as keep people safe, Atlas Ocean Voyages became the latest cruise line to require all guests be fully vaccinated at least 14 days prior to sailing. The new policy begins with World Navigator’s October 4, 2021 sailing.
On the new ship front, Hurtigruten Expeditions' new Otto Sverdrup, the expedition line's third battery-hybrid-powered ship has set sail; it will offer year-round expedition cruises from Germany. Separately, Hurtigruten Expeditions also is adding a new region—Russia. A 17-day "Expedition Cruise to the White Sea–Norway and Russia Adventure" itinerary will sail from Bergen, Norway northward on October 6, 2022
Small-ship Variety Cruises announced new itineraries for the Caribbean and the Panama Canal this winter and in 2023/ Panorama's eight-day "Caribbean Christmas” cruise will sail from Barbados on December 13, 2021, while two “Crossing The Panama Canal” itineraries will sail between Panama and Costa Rica.
More Moves
Swan Hellenic appointed Lori Sheller as vice president of sales and marketing, North America. Most recently, she was senior vice president of strategic sales at MSC Cruises USA.
In a different kind of “move,” Silversea has been posting social media messages about issues with its technology systems which have been "down." Impacted over the past several days have been reservations, the line's Web site, telephones and emails.
On one online consumer board, Barbara Muckermann, the line's chief commercial officer said: “Silversea’s systems have been shut off by our IT Team exactly to avoid an attack. All is good. We are restoring systems but it takes more time to put them back on than to take them off so unfortunately we need to ask you all to be patient."
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