Cruise Lines Scheduled To Visit Maritime Ports Suspend Operations
HALIFAX – Cruise lines scheduled for multiple visits to Halifax and Saint John this season have temporarily shut down operations for the next two months.
However, it appears those temporary shutdowns won’t affect any scheduled stops in either city unless the shutdown extends past early May.
Princess Cruises announced Thursday it was temporarily suspending its global operations for the next 60 days as a proactive measure against the spread of Coronavirus.
That means no new Princess cruises will embark until at least May 10.
Viking Cruises also announced it was suspending all of its cruise operations until May 1 “in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 situation.”
Becky Knox, a public relations coordinator with the Port of Saint John, told Huddle that no Princess vessels are scheduled to stop in Saint John during the temporary suspension.
“Princess isn’t calling here until August, so today’s announcement doesn’t impact our 2020 cruise schedule,” she said in an email.
There are no Viking cruises scheduled to stop in Saint John this season.
In Halifax, where both Viking and Princess vessels are scheduled to stop in 2020, the situation is the same.
According to a Port of Halifax 2020 cruise schedule, neither Viking or Princess is scheduled to call on the city until after the temporary suspensions are lifted.
Lane Farguson, the media relations manager at the Port of Halifax, confirms that Princess’s first call is in July, and Viking’s is in September.
Both Saint John and Halifax were poised to have record cruise traffic this year. But while there are no concrete impacts from Coronavirus on either city’s cruise traffic yet, officials remain wary.
“We don’t know what the impact of Coronavirus is going to be. At this point, the schedule hasn’t changed, and at this point, we haven’t had any operational changes here as well,” Lane Farguson, the media relations manager at the Port of Halifax, told Huddle recently.
“With the statements on cruise we’ve seen from the U.S. and Canadian governments this week, there could be fewer folks on the ships arriving in our Port city, but there has been no indication of that to date,” Knox also told Huddle last week.
Last week, both the U.S. and Canadian governments advised citizens to avoid cruise ship travel altogether.