Cruise Ship Restart Dates from the US

The great cruise restart of 2021 has already begun – ships are cruising around the United Kingdom and in the Caribbean. The first cruise to depart from the US is set to leave onboard the Celebrity Edge on June 26. This is, and let me pause for emphasis, A. Big. Deal. While Celebrity is leading the pack with their sailing on June 26, there are many that will follow throughout the rest of the year. Knowing when each ship is set to start can be hard to keep track of. Ships are cancelled and then added back in with different itineraries in different places (seriously so much moving and switching around). So, I’ve worked to compile a list (albeit ever changing) of cruise ship restart dates from the US. and answer the oh-so-challenging question of: when do all the cruise ships return to service?

There haven’t been cruises sailing from the United States since March of last year. That’s a long time for an industry to sit and wait (yes, for my theater friends out there, I see you and know you feel the pain). However, as the majority of the United States is very open right now – some states have gotten rid of all or nearly all of the COVID related protocols and masks aren’t even required in a lot of places – it’s time to get back to sea!

Most Cruises Will Be Fully Vaccinated or Nearly Fully Vaccinated

The majority of these cruises will require all guests on board, or all guests that are eligible to receive a vaccine (this leaves some exceptions for children to sail on certain cruise lines and certain voyages) to be fully vaccinated. To be considered fully vaccinated it needs to be at least two weeks past the final dose of whichever vaccine you’ve received.

There are some exceptions out there – notably Royal Caribbean is completing test cruises right now and are going to have some form of system onboard for vaccinated versus unvaccinated cruisers. And, it’s not consistent for all cruise lines on all voyages – for instance – while Royal Caribbean is completing test voyages to have some unvaccinated passengers on it’s cruises that does not apply to it’s sailings in Alaska which will be fully vaccinated unless you’re a child.

*Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links which if you click on and make a purchase I may receive compensation for at no additional expense to you.

Going Ashore:

For the most part cruises out of the US going to US ports will allow fully vaccinated passengers to disembark the ship to explore on their own. Local regulations may differ, so know that this is still a possibility on cruises at least for the next little bit.

Restarting Cruising Has Been A Challenge

Getting to this point was a challenge as the CDC took quite awhile to let the cruise lines know what the reopening procedures would be. They created the Conditional Sail Order and various frameworks and it has all seemed a bit long and unclear.

While the CDC was certainly a barrier, cruise ships don’t stay stationary, so coordinating with the ports of call they visit is also crucial to the success of cruising. And, while a lot of the UK cruises have been “cruises to nowhere” or “staycation” cruises, in the US that’s not really possible because of the Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA).

While the PVSA would prevent cruises to nowhere from happening, it also was the bit of legislation holding up any possibility of cruising to Alaska. For cruises to Alaska legislation had to be passed to allow the cruise season to move forward. The Passenger Vessel Services Act, the PVSA (also sometimes referred to as The Jones Act), requires foreign flagged vessels to call at a port in a foreign country prior to returning to the United States. The Alaskan Tourism Restoration Act has allowed cruise lines to bypass the PVSA regulations and opened up a pathway for cruising to return to that region after Canada closed it’s borders to cruise ships for the rest of the year.

The Ever-Changing List of Cruise Ship Restart Dates From the US:

While this list will absolutely change over the coming months, here is an idea of which ships will be sailing where.

Looking for information on a specific cruise line? Some of them have super handy pages that say which ships are currently scheduled to restart, when and from where. Others have press releases. Others have none of that and you have to dig through all of the information to try to put something logical together. (It’s been fun…ish).

Notes on how this list was compiled:

• This list was compiled of major cruise lines. It does not include small expedition cruise lines such as Uncruise or Lindblad, nor does it include river cruises. For a run-down of pretty much every cruise line out there check out this article. There is every chance that a cruise line or ship has been missed. Feel free to *nicely* let me know in the comments.
• The list is only for the first cruise a respective ship is doing out of the United States and does not include repositioning cruises or a change in itinerary.
• The color coding key was done somewhat to correspond with www.cruisemapper.com. Super great resource if you’re ever curious where a ship happens to be.
• All restarts have been confirmed by their respective website for that cruise line and based on the best information available. For instance, Royal Caribbean’s website has a page that lists the ships with their expected return to service dates. About half of the ships have a scheduled date and half have had their itineraries cancelled through the end of August. Any of the ships that are on their list of not having a return-to-service date have not been included even though you could still book cruises on those ships for voyages after September 1st. Many cruise lines have released similar information through their websites or social media channels.

Helpful Information for Different Cruise Lines:

• Cunard
• Holland America Line
• Norwegian Cruise Line – note, Norwegian Gem is not listed here but is listed in their search and is included on the calendar and spreadsheet.
• Oceania Cruises
• Princess Cruises
• Royal Caribbean International
• Seabourn Cruises

Are You Excited For Cruise Ships to Restart This Year?

Are you going to be cruising? It’s been great watching our counterparts around the world join cruise ships but it will be so great when guests from the US can, too! This pandemic has been long and hard and it’s nice that they’ll be a chance to get back out exploring. It’s also super exciting for the economy where the ships will leave from and go to as well as the crew onboard getting back to work! It’s very exciting that there will be this many cruise ships restarting from the US this year.

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