A group of 18 Carnival Cruise Line ships will rendezvous in The Bahamas to help repatriate 10,000 crew members as global sailings are stopped.
The vessels will gather over the next few days as final plans are put in place to sail nine of the ships to repatriate healthy crew who remain on board due to restrictions limiting air travel to Asia, Africa, Europe, India and Latin America.
The ships have been at various US homeports getting provisions and fuel for their journeys.
Certain crew will join ships using water shuttles off the coast of The Bahamas.
Once completed, nine ships will sail to their destinations with crew from North American-based ships on board.
The remaining nine ships will spend most of their time in anchorage in The Bahamas and Panama .
All ships will eventually reduce their crew numbers to safe operational manning levels.
Carnival Cruise Lines’ fleet of 27 ships had almost 29,000 crew on board prior to the Covid-19 pause in operations on March 13.
The line has repatriated more than 10,000 crew via flights and another 10,000 will be traveling on the nine voyages leaving this week.
About 6,000 additional crew will be repatriated by air charters or three ships that have already departed from Australia and Long Beach in California.
Crew members who will be returning home have undergone a health check and cleared fit for travel by Carnival’s medical team.
The company has been working closely with immigration officials in arriving countries on an efficient debarkation process.
All crew have their temperature taken daily and will do so again during the debarkation process, and follow enhanced operational protocols to ensure the health and safety of the crew.
The Carnival fleet will ultimately be down to 3,000 crew members identified for safe operational manning, plus several hundred that will be repatriated as quickly as possible.
The line’s president Christine Duffy said: “The safety and well-being of our team members continues to be a top priority.
“Given the pause in our operations, we are committed to getting our crew members safely home to their families.
“We sincerely thank them for their hard work, patience and understanding during this process.”