Italian cruise line Costa Cruises is to begin resuming cruise operations this weekend (6th September 2020) with their German sister line, AIDA, resuming on 1st November 2020.
Both Costa and AIDA have stated that they’re planning a staggered return to cruising, starting with two ships per brand.
On Sunday 6th September Costa Deliziosa will sail from Trieste and visit ports around Southern Italy. Two weeks later, on September 19th, Costa Diadema will begin sailing from Genoa – visiting ports on the west of Italy. At this time only Italian guests are permitted to sail.
Over at AIDA the first ship to resuming sailing will be the AIDAmar, from 1st November, which will be sailing in and around the Canary Islands and joined a week later by AIDAperla. The line is also looking to resume Western Mediterranean cruises aboard AIDAstela and United Arab Emirates aboard AIDAprima in December 2020.
“Our highest responsibilities and top priorities are always compliance, protecting the environment, and the health, safety and well-being of our guests, the communities we visit and our crew,” said Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation. “We are engaged with a large number of medical experts and scientists around the world, and they are providing us with extremely valuable insight that we are using to develop new and enhanced protocols that are in the best interest of our guests, crew and overall public health. In areas of the world where community spread is largely mitigated and authorities are supportive of a gradual return to service over time, we look forward to again welcoming guests on board.”
Perhaps, for those of us looking to set sail again we might not have to wait as long as we feared.
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