The boss of MSC Cruises says the domestic sailings it plans to operate around the British Isles from May 20 will “replicate in the UK what we have successfully done in the Mediterranean since last August”.
Chief executive Gianni Onorato said sailings in the first period from May 20–June 21 will be capped at 1,000 passengers per cruise, according to UK government rules, with more “normal” occupancy levels expected for the rest of the summer.
Guests joining the initial three and four-night mini cruises, and subsequently the seven-night sailings, will not need to be vaccinated, in contrast to policies being operated by lines including P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises and Saga.
Onorato told Travel Weekly: “There are there are a few reasons for this choice. The first one is that obviously we do hope that by then, the majority of the UK population will be vaccinated. However, there is a portion of the population which will not be vaccinated, at least if you’re following the present rules, which includes whoever is below 16 years old.”
He added that MSC Cruises was famous for family cruising so did not want to exclude them from the UK domestic programme.
“We do believe that we need to give the opportunities to families to cruise with us. We are a family company and family cruise is very important for us so we want to give the opportunity to everyone,” he said. “Our target has always been everybody, but with a very, very strong presence of families. So we could not be on the UK market without giving the possibility to the families to join an MSC cruise.
“We do believe that as the as the time goes on, and the situation improves, there will be always less and less people who aren’t vaccinated – especially in UK, because the UK has really taken the lead for the vaccination.”
Onorato explained there would be different rules for vaccinated and non-vaccinated guests joining the ship.
“The vaccinated ones can come to the ship without testing prior to coming to the cruise terminal, while the non-vaccinated guests need to have a negative test 72 hours prior to the to the arrival at the cruise terminal,” he said.
“The vaccinated people need to show the certification of that vaccination, then everyone – no matter if you’re vaccinated or not – will be further tested with the rapid antigen testing in the cruise terminal before then finally joining the ship.
“At the moment, scientists have not yet certified that vaccinated people cannot transmit and spread the virus. Obviously, this is a protocol that we have already followed for months now since last August in the Mediterranean.”
Onorato said crew members would also go through a deep screening and testing process.
“The crew will be tested before leaving their country of origin, upon arrival to the ship and then they will go to a quarantine for 14 days before then being tested again before going into service. And then they will be tested weekly,” he said.
“We have carried 50,000 guests and our protocol has proved to work well, both in the prevention with the testing processes which were in place, and also with additional measures, like temperature checks every day for guests and crew, and things like social distancing and wearing of masks.”
Onorato said MSC’s ‘protected shore excursions’ approach would also be brought to the UK.
“We want to repeat that for the destinations that we are going to call into around the UK, so that the local communities also feel properly protected from the guests arriving from other parts of UK,” he added.
“We’re creating a sort of social bubble where everyone is protected, and then everybody feels protected.”