Carnival Cruise Line announced Monday that it was canceling all of its cruises leaving Florida scheduled for November.
The company also announced that it was canceling all cruises from Australia until February 2021.
Previously, Carnival had announced that following the expiration of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s no-sail order, it would only offer cruises on six ships coming in and out of two Florida ports.
“Carnival Cruise Line has notified guests and travel agents that it is cancelling the remaining cruises for the six total ships operating from PortMiami and Port Canaveral for November 2020,” the company wrote in a press release. “It has now determined that November 2020 operations will not be feasible.”
Carnival still has cruises planned for December out of the two Florida ports, according to ABC News.
In September, Axios reported that the White House nixed CDC Director Robert Redfield’s request to extend the no-sail ban until 2021. Vice President Mike Pence reportedly told Redfield, “they would be proceeding with a different plan.”
Following outbreaks of the coronavirus on cruise ships in March, like the Diamond Princess, which had more than 800 positive coronavirus cases alone, the CDC issued a no-sail order on all U.S. cruise ships for 30 days. The order has since expired after being extended until Sept. 30.
A separate agreement among cruise industry businesses bars any cruises until Oct. 31.
“Carnival continues to work on protocols and procedures that would allow for the resumption of cruise operations, with a gradual, phased-in approach, designating Miami and Port Canaveral as the first two homeports for embarkations,” Carnival wrote in the press release.
The Cruise Line International Association, which represents 95% of global oceangoing passenger ship capacity, wants to resume sailing gradually, using test voyages with crew members posing as passengers.
Pre-cruise testing will be a key part of avoiding the same cruise ship outbreaks that occurred in the early spring.
“The one thing that you want to make sure of is that the virus doesn’t get on there in the first place,” former acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Dr. Stephen Ostroff told the New York Times.
