Knowing the insides of typical cruise operation, in addition to all the new well-known Coronavirus complications, I don't see how we could have passengers sailing on cruises out of U.S. ports in one month's time.
Let's look at what needs to happen to get those ships back in business:
The floating hotels have been empty for over half a year now, dust has settled and chairs are piled up and covered in cloths, pantries and freezers are half empty and all cutlery and small items are put away.
First, we'll need to fully re-stock ships with food and drink, it takes a lot of inventory manpower to trace, catalog, and properly place all this, which will probably be more than a regular turnaround day, and we know those are madness already.
Second, we need the facilities & housekeeping crew to get all venues and rooms ready. Place all furniture where it belongs, tend to any needed upkeeping and clean the settled dust.
All boarding crew members need to get their bearings in their workspaces again after months, and this time there's no smooth handover, nobody to let you know where things where left and in what state. For non-crew reading this, we don't always go back to the same ship so it could mean a new workplace even if it's the same job or perhaps someone changed things around while you were on vacation.
As a technician I know we'll need to check all equipment, see if it's all in working order plus restart all systems that have been shut down.
On top of awakening a sleeping giant we'll probably have to go through some new Coronavirus training before we are ready to handle guests.
So already we are talking about at least a couple of days of work that needs to be done before we can receive passengers.
Read: New Protocols for Crew
In times of Coronavirus, everything takes extra steps too...
Let's not forget, when we arrive we'll probably have to do at least one week of quarantine, perhaps two, before we can even start doing any of these.
Assuming we didn't encounter any obstacles trying to make it to the ship in times of covid travels.
There's nobody on board right now anyway, and it's too quiet!
And finally... as crew members we are constantly in contact with one another and we know for a fact that ships are not fully manned right know, there's rumors of some people here or there having their assigned ships, some even boarded, but everything is so uncertain...
Either crew are going to start flying in this very fortnight (which I haven't heard anyone say so in our social circles...) or we won't make it time to be ready for November 1st, simply doing the maths here...
I would be glad to be wrong!
But I do believe we'll be sailing in December thanks to this new pressure by the White House on the CDC.
Let me know in the comments if you are going on board soon we are all waiting for news!
Hoping to have a view like this as soon as possible!
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