Is Florida Making Mistakes in Its Cruise Line Recovery?
The cruise line industry was meant to have a summer of love, but the bounce for Carnival (NYSE:CCL) (NYSE:CUK), Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL), and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE:NCLH) is starting to sag. Florida has gone from being a state that backed the three Miami-based cruise lines in their efforts to restore operations to one that is now obstructing the process. Carnival, the worlds largest cruise line, currently has only one ship traveling out of Florida. During the busy summer vacation season, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line are also struggling to gain traction. The cruise lines have been caught in the crossfire as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis trade jabs over sailing restrictions. Shareholders and cruise ship passengers are beginning to suffer the price. Just a few months ago, Governor DeSantis was fighting the CDC over requirements that each individual ship perform costly test sailings or require that 95 percent of passengers  and an even greater number of crew members  be vaccinated in order to restart operations. He was just threatening cruise operators with fines if they ordered passengers to wear masks on itineraries departing from Florida. The consequences arent pretty. According to The Miami Herald, starting in August, Carnival will join Royal Caribbean in forcing unvaccinated passengers over the age of 12 to purchase new COVID-19 travel insurance if they are departing from Florida ports. Carnival is requiring passengers to be vaccinated, but in order to play in the gray area between Florida and the CDC, it is allowing pre-approved exemptions for unvaccinated passengers as long as they are willing to undergo additional testing on the ships and, now, purchase Florida-specific travel insurance to cover medical and evacuation costs. Weve already seen a few rare incidents of passengers and crew members contracting the COVID-19 virus on limited sailings, and cruise lines are having a hard time convincing people that cruising is safe. Now, as the restart process becomes politicized between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, brands may be forced to alienate certain customers. Its also possible that Florida rules prohibiting businesses from needing documentation of completed immunizations in order to go maskless indoors are illegal. Brief News from Washington Newsday.