Cruises are back - will you jump on board?

With much hullabaloo, after two years a cruise ship has returned to Sydney Harbour as the industry gears up to relive its glory days after the Covid shutdown.

P&O cruises’ flagship, the Pacific Explorer, was given a mighty maritime welcome. The line says bookings for Australian cruises are approaching the pre-pandemic levels, and they expect a nearly normal season for next summer.

More than one million Australians took a cruise in 2018-19, but the passengers are seemingly flooding back. Will you be amongst them?

Are the happy memories of life aboard the luxury liners enough to banish the fears, vaccines notwithstanding, of being stuck on what were only recently called ‘floating Petri dishes’?

The nightmare for the operators began when international cruise ships were banned from Australian waters in March 2020 after the Covid-19 outbreak aboard the Ruby Princess ship, which was linked to 28 deaths.

Since there’s been much experience around the world, which essentially kept cruising, on how to reduce the infection risk. In addition, all passengers and crews in Australia will need to show they are fully vaccinated.
 
I’m unlikely to be one of them, not out of fear of tiny viruses but because of the far more real danger I would eat and drink too much!

Throw in all the tempting offers to get us back on board, and there could be a revival, but given a choice, would you rather walk the plank than take a discounted passage?

Or is there something special about cruising you are not prepared to farewell forever?