Carnival Cancels Cruises Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Princess Cruises Line Suspends Operations For Two Months

The ongoing COVID-19 virus outbreak has seen Princess Cruises cancel all voyages across all 18 of its cruise ships for two months, the company announced.

The California-based cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation, has seen two of its cruise ships (Grand Princess and Diamond Princess), which each carried around 3,000 passengers, report cases of the virus since last month.

The cruise line is planning to resume operations with cruises departing on May 11, the company confirmed in a statement sent to Newsweek.

The president of Princess Cruises, Jan Swartz, said in the statement: "By taking this bold action of voluntarily pausing the operations of our ships, it is our intention to reassure our loyal guests, team members and global stakeholders of our commitment to the health, safety and well-being of all who sail with us, as well as those who do business with us, and the countries and communities we visit around the world."

"While this is a difficult business decision, we firmly believe it is the right one and is in alignment with our company's core values," she said in a video posted on the cruise line's official YouTube channel.

Passengers currently on a cruise that ends in the next five days will continue the rest of their journey to its destination, while cruises departing after March 17 will end at the most convenient location for guests, factoring in operational requirements, the company confirmed.

Affected passengers can "transfer 100% of the money paid for their cancelled cruise to a future cruise of their choice" and the cruise line will offer "additional future cruise credit benefit which can be applied to the cruise fare or onboard expenses," the company said.

"In addition, Princess will honour this offer for those guests who had made final payment and cancelled their booking on or after February 4, 2020. The future cruise credit can be used on any voyage departing through to May 1, 2022. If the future cruise credit option does not work for some guests, they will be able to complete an electronic form on Princess.com to request a cash refund," the company added.

Princess Cruises operates from 70 countries and serves more than 50,000 guests per day. Its summer 2020 to 2021 schedule includes various cruise itineraries in North America (including California, Alaska, Hawaii, New England region of the U.S., Canada and Mexico), the Caribbean, Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, Tahiti, French Polynesia and Antarctica.

This month, the Grand Princess cruise ship which was quarantined off the coast of San Francisco while several aboard were screened for the virus, saw 21 people test positive. The ship was allowed to dock in Oakland this week, where infected patients were transferred to be treated at a hospital in California while Americans who tested negative were sent to various quarantine stations.

The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the world, as of March 12.

Earlier this month, two crew members aboard the Regal Princess, who were transferred from the Grand Princess, also underwent testing for the virus, the results of which were negative.

Last month, the Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in Japan for two weeks after a passenger from Hong Kong was reported to be infected. At least 46 of the infected people on the ship were Americans, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the world as of March 12.

This article has been updated with comment from Princess Cruises.