Cruise holidays for Brits are finally back, as cruise lines P&O Cruises and Saga both saw ships sailing from the UK for the first time since March 2020.
P&O Cruises welcomed guests for the first time in 15 months onboard Britannia for a four-day sailing, while Saga's Spirit of Discovery left Tilbury for an itinerary including Portsmouth, Portland, the Isles of Scilly and Falmouth.
Meanwhile, MSC Cruises made a return to the UK back in May when new flagship MSC Virtuosa sailed on a maiden voyage from Southampton.
Domestic cruises have been able to resume in England since May 17 as part of step three in the government's roadmap for easing lockdown restrictions.
As a result, there are a number of cruise lines offering UK sailings including the likes of Royal Caribbean, Disney Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises and Princess Cruises. Some companies such as P&O or Princess Cruises require passengers to be fully vaccinated against Covid in order to be allowed on board their UK sailings.
The domestic cruises will also mark the launch of plenty of highly-anticipated new cruise ships. This includes Saga's new Spirit of Adventure which will sail on July 26 and P&O's new ship Iona - the biggest cruise ship ever built for the UK market - which is due to sail in August.
Meanwhile, Virgin's first ever cruise ship will finally make her debut a year later than planned, sailing on a maiden voyage from the UK instead of her homeport in Florida. The ship arrived earlier this month in Portsmouth where, at 110,000 tonnes, she was the largest ship to have ever docked in the city.
Currently it's only domestic cruises in England which are available to Brits. For other cruises such as international sailings, the Foreign Office continues to advise against cruise ship travel, as it has since March 2020.
The FCDO explains: "Cruise ship travel means staying overnight for at least 1 night on a sea-going cruise ship with people from multiple households.
"Our advice against cruises applies to international travel on a ship that is exclusively for pleasure or recreation, providing overnight accommodation and other leisure facilities such as entertainment venues or swimming pools."
There is some hope for holidaymakers though, as the government's Global Travel Taskforce had previously revealed that it could allow international cruises to restart under the traffic light system.
This is of course dependent on a whole host of factors from countries' own travel restrictions to the global Covid situation. However, the government has said it would look at how successful domestic cruises were when determining when international cruises could restart.
While cruise lines have been forced to cancel sailings and in some cases temporarily suspend operations, some have been noting a surge in bookings for once-in-a-lifetime cruises for late 2022 and even into 2023.
NCL's Eamonn Ferrin told the Mirror that the cruise line anticipates "holidaymakers to be investing in ‘bucket list’ trips in the coming years", while Saga previously reported a 40% increase in the average number of nights spent away.
People appear to be willing to splash the cash too - one cruise costing £54,000 sold out in just one day.
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