BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A few days into 2022, Captain John Murray’s prediction for the new year is that the cruise industry won’t see another mass shutdown, like the one that dominated the majority of the pandemic so far. 

Speaking with reporters on Wednesday morning, the CEO of the Port Canaveral Port Authority said things are trending in the right direction for the port and he didn’t see the pandemic stopping that.

“If you were out here in the last couple of weekends, our cruising numbers were very strong through the holidays,” Murray said. “You know, the average traveler knows that if you're on a cruise ship, they do their investigation ahead of time and you're safer probably on a cruise ship than you are in a grocery store.”

Murray said that because all passengers and crew need to be vaccinated ahead of each departure, any potential breakthrough infection won’t be as potent.

“The cruise lines have the protocols in place as do we at the ports to manage these. We've done this from the very beginning, we said that, you know his conditions changed we’d modify,” Murray said.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention increased its COVID-19 Travel Health Notice and advised against cruising, even for those who are vaccinated. Murray said the level four designation for cruising won’t slow things down for the industry.

“If you follow the CDC website to where those announcements are, it falls right in line with every other country in the world, basically,” Murray said. “Ireland's on the list, Germany's on the list, all are level four. So, you know, cruising is just one more country, so to speak, that's on the level four list. So, it really doesn't, in my view, mean that much.”

While the spread of the coronavirus hasn’t halted operations at Port Canaveral, outbreaks of COVID-19 onboard cruise ships have prompted some cruise lines to take actions on their own. 

On Wednesday, Norwegian Cruise Line announced the cancellation of voyages on eight of its cruise ships:

• Norwegian Getaway (cruise with embarkation date of Jan. 5, 2022)
• Norwegian Pearl (cruises with embarkation dates through and including Jan. 14, 2022)
• Norwegian Sky (cruises with embarkation dates through and including Feb. 25, 2022)
• Pride of America (cruises with embarkation dates through and including Feb. 26, 2022)
• Norwegian Jade (cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 3, 2022)
• Norwegian Star (cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 19, 2022)
• Norwegian Sun (cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 19, 2022)
• Norwegian Spirit (cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 23, 2022)

The Norwegian Getaway’s nine-day Caribbean itinerary trip was scheduled from January 5 through January 14. The day before, the cruise line announced the cancellation of the Norwegian Pearl, which set sail from Port Miami on January 3. It will return to port on January 6.

The Associated Press reports that several dozen crew members aboard the Pearl tested positive for COVID-19.

Stock value of the company ($NCLH) fell 3.6% by the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The Norwegian Escape is the only member of the company’s fleet that is home-ported at Port Canaveral and was not a part of the slate of cancellations. 

Currently, there are 10 ships that call Port Canaveral their home port, with a record 11^th coming January 24 when the Carnival Liberty arrives at the Space Coast. The current list is as follows:

• Carnival Elation
• Carnival Magic
• Carnival Mardi Gras
• Disney Dream
• Disney Fantasy
• Norwegian Escape
• MSC Meraviglia
• Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas
• Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas
• Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas

As of the January 5 CDC Cruise Ship Color Status report, which pulls data submitted on January 4, all 10 are in the Yellow designation and state that the “CDC has investigated and [the] ship remains under observation.”

The classification doesn’t clarify how many cases may have triggered the investigation. Murray said that ambiguity means that people should overly worry about the ships.

“One crew member on a ship triggers a shift from green to yellow, one crew member having a COVID diagnosis. It's [0.1 percent] of the passenger community will trigger the investigation,” Murray said. “So, if you've got 5000 people on a ship, that's five cases, bam, now the whole ship is under investigation.”

Murray said Port Canaveral doesn’t help manage quarantines for cases of COVID-19 that pop and said that is handled by the cruise lines themselves in coordination with the CDC. The port would step in to assist if a ship were designated as Red in the CDC’s guide.

“If there was a ship that went into the red status, there’d definitely be communication with us and what was going on because that would indicate it’s a much more serious event,” Murray said. “But so far, you know, the cases that we have heard about are all mild. They're manageable, the cruise lines have been able to manage it. It's proof that the protocols that were put in place work.”

Hotels near Port Canaveral have been assisting with those passengers and crew that need to quarantine because of a positive COVID-19 test. Eric Garvey, the COO of Baugher Hotel Group said that they’ve been working with the cruise lines since sailing resumed in August and have been working on ways to account for COVID-19 cases as they come up.

“I think we’re very good at it. We have a great property that can support that and so, we’ve been doing it long enough where it’s just become a regular thing,” Garvey said.

He said they act as if anyone who comes in may have the virus and have had precautions like masking, extra sanitizing and distancing in place throughout the pandemic. He said they are in regular contact with the cruise lines and if a ship has need for quarantines, they will reach out and see if there are rooms available for those needing to stay near the port.

“Supporting the cruise lines is an important business segment for us overall, for the whole community. So, we’ll try to do anything we can for the cruise industry, cruise lines to help them, whatever they might need,” Garvey said.

The CDC’s Conditional Sailing Order for Cruise Ships was temporarily extended on October 25, 2021, through January 15, 2022. A CDC spokesperson told Spectrum News that the “CDC intends to transition to a voluntary program, in coordination with cruise ship operators and other stakeholders, to assist the cruise ship industry to detect, mitigate and control the spread of COVID-19 onboard cruise ships.”