Carnival Cruise ships are docked at the Port of Tampa Thursday, March 26, 2020, in Tampa, Fla. Thousands of cruise ships employees are not working in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
By Dee-Ann Durbin
Carnival Cruise Lines said Monday that it plans to gradually resume cruising in North America in August, nearly five months after it halted operations due to the new coronavirus.
Sailings will begin on Aug. 1 with eight ships setting off from Galveston, Texas; Miami; and Port Canaveral, Florida. A majority of customers can easily drive to those ports, the company noted.
Carnival said its operations from other North American and Australian markets will be on hold through Aug. 31. It is also canceling planned sailings from Vancouver to Honolulu on Sept. 25 and Honolulu to Brisbane, Australia, on Oct. 6.
Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines is the largest brand owned by Carnival Corp., which also owns Princess, Holland America Line, and other brands. Carnival Cruise Lines has 27 ships and transported 5 million passengers last year.
The company has taken a huge hit from the new coronavirus, which stranded some ships at sea with sick passengers. Multiple ships reported outbreaks and struggled to find places to dock. In early April, two Holland America cruises disembarked in Florida with at least nine passengers sick with COVID-19.
Carnival Cruise Lines halted new sailings on March 13. It initially expected to be able to sail again on April 10.
Still, parent Carnival Corp. is in strong financial shape. It has raised nearly $6 billion in debt and equity since the crisis began. The company wasn’t eligible for loan assistance from the U.S. government because it is incorporated in Panama.
Carnival Cruise Lines said it is offering future travel credits or refunds to passengers whose cruises are canceled. The company said it will engage government and health experts to ensure that it can safely sail in August.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
