Thousands Of Crew Members Still Stuck On Cruise Ships But An End Is In Sight

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After weeks of travel, negotiations, closed ports, and starting all over again, the final 4,000 cruise ship passengers, some of them at sea since January, finally disembarked on April 20th on April 20th. However the fate of people on cruise ships isn’t over – there are still several thousand crew members who are having a heck of a time getting back home.

Most are from Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, etc. But some are from other countries. They’re still living on ships, either moored to ports and not allowed to exit, or floating a few miles off land.

Cruise lines have been trying to arrange for charter flights, but it’s not so easy. They’ll have the plans in place and load the crewmen onto the bus, but then something falls through, and they go right back onto the ship – and now are stuck in quarantine for 14 days.

So a few cruise companies are negotiating for a different mode of transportation.

Cruise ships.

Plans are in the making to bring crew home by ship. Port stops, timing and transfer of crew between ships are still being worked out, but according to Cruise Industry News, the following is planned:

• The Regal Princess will sail to Southampton and Rotterdam to bring European crew home.
• The Crown Princess will sail to Asia to repatriate crew from the Philippines, Indonesia, India and South Africa.
• The Island Princess will sail to Asia to repatriate crew from the Philippines, Indonesia, India and South Africa.
• The Veendam, Volendam and Nieuw Amsterdam will also head to Asia to repatriate all Holland America crew from the Philippines, Indonesia, India and South Africa.
• The Caribbean Princess is heading to the Caribbean and then South America.
• The Disney Magic has taken crew from the Disney Fantasy & Dream ships and is on its way to Europe to return their European crew members back home.
• Finally, the Seabourn Quest will head to Europe, bringing home Seabourn crew from the Quest and Odyssey.

Fingers crossed that all these crew members will be able to get respective homes soon!

#stayhealthy #stayathome #washyourhands

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary