SAN DIEGO — Gone for the last 17 months was the familiar sight of behemoth cruise ships docked at the downtown terminals, their loud horn blasts signaling the start of voyages bound for Mexico, Hawaii and the Panama Canal — with thousands of passengers on board.
That long absence ended Friday when two ships — the Grand Princess, which originated in Los Angeles a day earlier, and the Disney Wonder — set sail for short trips to Baja California, marking the official return of cruising for San Diego.
They are the first of more than 100 cruise calls scheduled between October and June, which surpasses the 95 sailings during San Diego’s last full cruise season before the pandemic brought the $150 billion global industry to an abrupt halt. As many as 300,000 passengers are estimated to be aboard ships that will be here for round-trip cruises, as well as departures, arrivals and visits en route to other destinations.
The long, federally imposed halt to cruising from U.S. ports has been costly locally, not only for the Port of San Diego’s budget, but especially so for the nearby hotels, restaurants, shops and tourist attractions that benefited each time thousands of passengers were in town, if only for a brief period of time.
The San Diego Unified Port District estimates that each time a cruise begins and ends in San Diego, it delivers a $2 billion infusion into the local economy. In all, more than 170 scheduled cruise calls were canceled since March of last year, which translated to an economic hit of nearly $300 million.
“The restart is extremely important because the economic impact is not limited to just attractions on the waterfront,” said Adam Deaton, senior trade account representative with the Port of San Diego. “There are the flights, the hotels, transportation. And a lot of retail has been looking forward to the visitation ships, like Princess, that bring a lot of people into their shops.
“We haven’t seen a real revenue cruise call since March of 2020. We kept hoping with bated breath it would come and then it didn’t.”
Quarantined at sea
Early on in the pandemic, long before it was known when — or whether — COVID-19 vaccines would be available, the prospect of cruise ships resuming operations any time soon, if at all, seemed remote. Widely publicized images of ships stranded at sea with sickened passengers — among them the Grand Princess — seemed hard to erase, even among loyal fans of cruising.
Dozens of passengers aboard the Princess ship in March of last year ultimately tested positive for COVID-19, and an older passenger from a previous Grand Princess cruise a week earlier was reported as California’s first COVID-19 death.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reacted to the rapid coronavirus contagion by imposing a no-sail order that was extended multiple times. It was later replaced with strict requirements and protocols for resuming cruising, which didn’t begin until this summer, with ships departing from Seattle for Alaska and Florida for the Caribbean.
The cruise industry has been one of the last enterprises to return to some semblance of normalcy, long after the restart of professional sporting events, concerts, and indoor dining with no social distancing. Because the CDC believes the chance of contracting COVID-19 on a cruise ship can be high given the close quarters, it recommends that all unvaccinated individuals refrain from cruising, even on smaller river cruise vessels.
With the return to cruising still a work in progress, many cruise lines are deliberately capping ship occupancies at well below 100% as passengers and crew grow accustomed to mask-wearing, social distancing and heightened sanitation measures. Many of the major cruise lines are requiring crew members as well as passengers over the age of 12 to be fully vaccinated, plus show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within two to three days of sailing.
Holland America President Gus Antorcha said he understands the apprehensions of people still worried about COVID-19 transmission but believes the steps the cruise lines have taken in concert with local ports and health authorities under the guidance of the CDC will avert the kind of crises seen early in the pandemic.
“I remember those images in the early days, not just of cruise ships, but also New York, the streets quiet, the ambulances lined up, those days were tough,” Antorcha said. “Absolutely, there will be people who are worried and have questions, which is perfectly normal to have as we return to some sense of normalcy.
“We have agreements with all the ports we visit and the home ports, communication protocols, procedures with the CDC and local health officials that allow the ship to come back if you have a positive case. In those early days, if you were sick, we would get into lengthy discussions with counties and ports, but that’s all in the past, so the idea of stranding is addressed with these agreements in place.”
Holland America, which homeports in San Diego during its cruise season, and Princess Cruises, which will be making a number of stops in San Diego over the next several months, both say that they will operate the first several sailings at 60 to 75 percent. And like all cruise lines, they will have multiple safety precautions in place, including, in the case of Princess, requiring guests to wash or sanitize their hands upon entering and exiting food service areas.
“We are proud to be back in service sailing guests once again in Southern California who are eager to visit San Diego on Majestic Princess and Grand Princess,” said Princess Cruises President Jan Swartz. “The culture and coastline of San Diego are so attractive to our guests. Everyone onboard looks forward to a real vacation with enhanced protocols for safe cruising and our MedallionClass experiences.”
Because both Princess and Holland America are requiring all passengers to be fully vaccinated, children under the age of 12 cannot be on board given that vaccines are not yet approved for that age group. The CDC defines a fully vaccinated cruise as one with 95 percent of the guests having received all doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Antorcha said there are only a handful of passengers per cruise on Holland America ships that quality for very specific medical exemptions.
Life on board during a pandemic
Even with fully vaccinated ships, the occasional COVID-19 outbreak case can occur, as Cruise Critic editor-in-chief Colleen McDaniel discovered on the first of eight sailings she was on following the resumption of cruising internationally. Two passengers on board the Celebrity Millennium for a cruise to St. Maarten, she said, were found to have COVID-19 because of a test that was required before anyone could return to the United States.
“It was a Thursday night and we were returning on Saturday morning,” McDaniel recalled. “The captain alerted all passengers, and those two passengers were isolated and anyone who had close contact with then ... were also isolated, about 35 passengers in all.
“I was expecting people to have this adverse reaction to that, but everyone was still out, at the shows, the bars, and I spoke to a number of people afterwards and they felt everything was handled the right way. The lines have spent the last year and a half preparing for this and now we’ve seen that the cruise lines know what to do on board.”
The biggest changes she noticed on her cruises compared to pre-pandemic sailings were compliant passengers all wearing facial coverings when inside the ship, except when eating and drinking, socially distanced seating in entertainment venues, and far fewer people on board than normal. Buffets remain, although the food is served by the crew.
“You’ll also notice QR codes for the menus, and you can no longer pick up a drink off a tray, someone will hand it to you,” McDaniel said. “It’s about not having the guest and then the crew touch everything. I couldn’t grab an apple if I wanted one, whereas before I could. And even more so than before, you’ll see those hand sanitizer units show up everywhere.”
Veteran cruisers Mike and Christine Beresky of Chula Vista, both in their early 70s, recently returned from a seven-day cruise on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam and have already booked a week-long Mexican Riviera cruise in December and a California coastal voyage in March, both on Holland America ships.
They felt safe the entire time and after a short time and quickly grew accustomed to regular mask-wearing on board, Mike Beresky said. Unlike sailings before the pandemic, the boarding process was staggered to avoid crowding, a practice that will be in place at the San Diego terminals as well.
“You’re going into an environment where everyone is vaccinated, and the cruise line is going to extraordinary efforts to make sure everything is clean, safe, sanitary,” Beresky said. “We’ve gotten so used to wearing masks. To me, it was a detractor but only to a minor degree. When you sat down to dinner, you took the mask off, when you were outside or on your veranda you don’t have your mask on.
“We certainly felt safer on the ship than going to the Gaslamp Quarter, walking down Fifth Avenue and going to a restaurant where some people are vaccinated and others are not.”
Melanie Arnold, an assistant manager at Madison San Diego, a woman’s boutique at the Headquarters at Seaport that is a 12-minute walk from the cruise ship pier, was almost giddy when she heard the news that cruise ships were returning this week to San Diego.
“Without the conventions and the cruises, it’s felt like a ghost town down here, especially at the Headquarters because we’re facing inward,” Arnold said. “The cruises are huge for us, and they’re right there, we’re one of the first spots they might want to check out when getting off the boat or before embarking.
“I’m excited. I’m looking forward to it, it’s overdue, we’re ready.”
The Manchester Grand Hyatt will benefit from some pre- and post-cruise overnight stays, although the room night revenue for the 1,628-room hotel is not particularly significant compared to the much larger meetings and convention business, said General Manager Daniel Kuperschmid.
“In today’s world, though, every room counts,” he said. “It’s just a sign that things are coming back, that there are more eyes on San Diego. Whether people are walking by Portside Pier (a bayfront dining complex) or they see the county building and there’s an outdoor event there, they’ll think, this is a cool city, I think I’ll come back.”
While it’s hard to know for sure what the restart of cruising will mean initially for the local economy, the return of major, well-known cruise lines will be very helpful in boosting San Diego’s tourism profile, said Kerri Kapich, chief operating officer for the San Diego Tourism Authority.
Not all California tourist destinations, though, are eager to welcome cruise ship passengers amid the still uncertain Delta variant. Some cruise lines had to adjust their California coast itineraries when Santa Barbara decided to suspend upcoming visits to its port for the next several months.
“It’s such an unusual time for all of us, and how do you operate during this new environment,” Kapich said, “so I can understand some hesitancy. There’s a little more caution about everything these days.”
Antorcha said Holland America was forced to substitute a stop in Avalon to make up for the loss of Santa Barbara, but that is the nature of early cruising right now given the unpredictability of COVID-19.
“Each country, each city, each region needs to figure out what’s right for them and their constituents,” Antorcha said. “If a city in California doesn’t feel it’s right for them, that’s OK. I’m very disappointed, but it’s the kind of world we live in. I know San Diego is very excited and supportive of the industry, and Mexico is very supportive as well.”
Wooing first-time cruisers
As the restart of cruising continues, the major cruise lines expect to have no trouble securing bookings from people who have sailed previously. Wooing first-timers, though, may be a little more challenging amid an ongoing pandemic. A recent survey by New York University’s School of Professional Studies that was sponsored by Celebrity Cruises found that 10 percent of respondents planned to take a cruise with their children in the coming year, compared to 36 percent when queried in 2019.
Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald noted at a recent cruise industry conference that its company will have to “chip away” at the population of those who have never cruised before. He noted, though, that word of mouth from passengers who are cruising will be a powerful tool, and “we’ll once again see the growth in the industry that we’ve experienced.”
The pandemic so far has proven costly for Carnival, the parent company of nine cruise lines, including Holland America and Princess. In June, it reported having lost more than $14 billion since the start of the pandemic, and last month reported a third-quarter adjusted loss of $2 billion. On the bright side, Donald said that while the Delta variant had led to “some booking volatility in August,” advanced bookings for the second half of 2022 is ahead of 2019 and “is at a new historical high.”
Janice Howard, a Coronado innkeeper who hadn’t been on a cruise in 16 years, decided on a whim last month to take one from Boston to Bermuda on Crystal Cruises. She was so smitten by the experience — and the health and safety protocols — that she’s booked another sailing in December.
“I felt safer on board than I did going to the grocery store in Coronado,” said Howard, who describes herself as an avid traveler in her early 60s. “I think this pandemic may be the best thing to happen to the cruise industry. They have been forced to think outside their typical customer profile and by doing so they are winning a whole new demographic. If you told me I would be a cruise enthusiast two years ago, I would have thought you crazy.”
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