Virgin Voyages expects to return to service initially from the US to the Caribbean where it can “monitor operations more closely and control the experience”, according to boss Tom McAlpin.
Joining a Travel Weekly webcast from the US, he said: “I think sailings will start here in the US first with Scarlet [Lady]. They’re shorter sailings and closer to home, so we can monitor those very carefully.
“We can control the experience especially in our beach club experience at Bimini, so that’s what we will launch first and hopefully that will happen in the summertime.”
McAlpin was speaking as the line announced the name of the third ship to join its fleet – Resilient Lady – which will offer Mediterranean itineraries from Piraeus in Athens to the Greek islands and the Adriatic in summer 2022.
Asked how soon it would be before initial Mediterranean sailings followed those in the Caribbean, McAlpin said: “I don’t know. We’re keeping an eye on it. That’s more about how we get Americans comfortable flying long-haul flights to the UK, as in, when can we do that without all the restrictions?”
McAlpin added that a Mediterranean restart would also be dependent on UK guests feeling comfortable flying into Europe to join the line’s second ship Valiant Lady in Barcelona.
“It really all depends upon the confidence in the market and we’re measuring that very closely,” he said.
“There’s going to be a slow road to recovery. Although there’s a lot of pent-up demand, there’s certainly a lot of folks who want to test the waters and stay close to home. So that’s where Scarlet comes in, where we’ve got four and five-night cruises to the Caribbean.”
He added: “The good news is that we’ve got a plethora of different itineraries. So we’ve got the Caribbean short cruise market and we’ve got two different multiple itineraries in Europe – that’s three different itineraries out of Barcelona and with Resilient Lady, we will have two different itineraries out of Athens.
“When Valiant Lady comes back to the US, we’ll then have six and eight-night longer cruises out of Miami as well.”
Asked if he expected all passengers to require vaccination certificates before sailing, McAlpin said: “A lot of this depends upon what the requirements of the CDC [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] are. I’m not a scientist so I don’t understand how all of that works.
“But I suspect that as we get a very high level of folks vaccinated within the US and the UK, things may change; we may not have to get 100% vaccinated. It would be nice to get 100% but I don’t know that is achievable or needed.”.
He added: “We’ve got a close eye on it. We’re relying on the scientists to give us good guidance on what is really required but the safety of our sailors and our crew is our number one priority.
“We need to do what’s right for them but I’m feeling more confident about the processes that we go through. People are becoming more comfortable; they know how to deal with it; and companies know how to deal with it from an isolation standpoint, quarantines and all the processes that we need to go through to make sure people are safe.”