Costa Cruises, an Italian line owned by Carnival Corp., plans to have its flagship Costa Smeralda resume operations next month with an itinerary of three-, four- and seven-day cruises to Savona, La Spezia, Civitavecchia, Naples, Messina, and Cagliari. The ship is scheduled to set sail on March 27.
In May, the Smeralda will then switch to week-long cruises within the western Mediterranean, with stops in Italy, France, and Spain, according to the cruise line. And another ship, the Costa Luminosa, will also return to service for week-long cruises in Greece and Croatia.
Costa mentioned it has added new measures to help protect guests and crew since the start of the pandemic, such as limiting capacity and adding temperature checks for everyone disembarking and re-embarking the ship.
“Costa is working with national and local authorities of the nations included within the itineraries of its ships outside Italy to define the details of the restart of cruise operations, with enhanced health and safety measures by the implementation of the Costa Safety Protocol,” the company mentioned in its announcement.
Costa isn’t the only Carnival-owned brand set to return to service in March. Its German cruise line, AIDA, will have a ship sailing across the Canary Islands starting on March 20, it mentioned earlier this week.
Both cruise lines had resumed service within the fall but had to again cancel their voyages as the worsening spread of COVID-19 necessitated another round of lockdowns.
Passengers aboard the ships should expect those enhanced safety measures to be taken seriously. In October, when it had resumed cruising, AIDA refused to allow one passenger to return to a ship after he broke virus protocols by leaving his travel group during a shore excursion.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear when passengers may be able to return to cruises within the U.S. Norwegian Cruise Line mentioned this week that it was extending its suspension till June, and a Royal Caribbean executive lately informed travel advisors that the company was waiting for the CDC to say when it could hold trial sailings to test its coronavirus safety protocols.