![]() We have a history now of being at the forefront. Harry Sommer: When we first announced it at the very beginning of April, that was considered an extreme position back then. Gradual improvements is all that we want.ĬC: Because Norwegian came out so early with your 100 percent vaccination requirement, do you think that benefitted you in the long run because you didn't have to go back and forth with your protocols? And making sure that if we do get the occasional COVID case, that we have all of our internal protocols in order, and we show that there's never any spread. We're happy to have reduced occupancies so that we can provide an excellent product, with social distance, no crowding, no lines anywhere. We hope to have all the ships in the water by the end of 2022 Q1. We put one ship in the water every two to three weeks. Our main goal now is to get our ships up and running. And when we saw, COVID cases starting to go up in mid-July, we did see a decrease in bookings.Īnd that's okay. They closely follow what's happening in the world. The cruising population is much more highly vaccinated than the general population - when we go out to our past guests, 93 percent are already fully vaccinated, which is well above the country average. When you listen to the cruising population, they're smart people. Harry Sommer: The Caribbean is a little soft. So it's OK with us.ĬC: I have been reading that winter Caribbean is a little soft. But since our goal is only to be in that 50 to 60 percent range, we pretty much have every cruise this year at that. ![]() If we were trying to get 100 percent full, Europe would be a challenging market to do that. ![]() And any time there's concern that leads to hesitation, which leads to a slowdown in bookings. Harry Sommer: It's not so much reluctance, but guests are a little concerned that rules change over time. Is there still reluctance for Americans to go over there? We're going to be running Breakaway this weekend with about 2,000 guests, which is just at half capacity.ĬC: I wanted to specifically ask about Europe. Even with Breakaway, we opened up some of these cruises fairly close in - and we still got them to about 50 percent. And all of our ships have been operating somewhere between 50 and 60 percent on a fairly regular basis. We set an internal goal that we want to be about half full for this introductory season. I think people realize that if they want to go, they gotta go, where some of these other markets opening up now, we sail all winter long. You know, they're a little bit ahead again of Europe on that. Harry Sommer: Of the six ships now, that's probably been the one that's gotten the most interest because, let's face it, it's still a little complicated for Americans to travel to Europe and Americans are - by far - the largest source market to come back to cruising. Norwegian Encore seems to have been doing well in Alaska. So we're excited to be on the forefront, at least in this market.ĬC: I wanted to ask you a little bit about how the different markets are doing. And also the first major cruise line to be sending inbound tourisms to Bermuda - there were a few people doing around-Bermuda cruises, but we're the first cruise line that's going to be visiting there as a port of call. We are the first cruise line to be operating from New York City. ![]() So three ships running there, and now we have three ships running in the U.S. and approving things out of Athens and Rome and then Barcelona. We started first in Europe because they were a little bit ahead of the U.S. We have a big emphasis up there and it was critical for us when we restarted that we tried to pick the places that we move lots of customers from, because, we want to give guests confidence that cruising is back. Harry Sommer: You know, it, it really does. That must mean something, on a symbolic level. To mark the occasion, Cruise Critic caught up with Norwegian Cruise Line President Harry Sommer who spoke about getting ships back in the water, Norwegian's vaccine requirements - and when we can expect things to get back to normal.Ĭruise Critic: You must be pretty excited about Breakaway coming back to New York. While Oasis of the Seas has been sailing out of Bayonne across the river for a month and other cruise ships have pulled into New York, Norwegian Breakaway is the first mainstream ship to return with an NYC homeport. EDT) - The return to service milestones continue to pile up, as more cruise ships return into service in different ports around the U.S.īeginning September 26, Norwegian Breakaway comes back to the Manhattan Terminal in New York City for its fall season of cruises to Bermuda.
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