Tag Archives: pandemic

Disney Delays Launch Dates of 2 Ships by 2 Years

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Disney Wish postponed.

Disney Cruise Line will be postponing the launch of its sixth and seventh ships from 2022 and 2023 to 2024 and 2025, respectively.

This was announced by CEO Bob Chapek during the question and answer part of the Nov. 12 financial results conference call.

Chapek blamed the delay on having to go through and adapt to “quite thorough” latest CDC guidelines.

“They really entail some really high hurdles in terms of not only testing by the potential guests that we host on the ships but also a process that has to happen in order to certify our first sailings,” he said. “Those will necessarily result in delays beyond what we had hoped in terms of getting our ships back in service and making magic for our guests.”

Chapek also reminded that the launch of the Disney Wish, the cruise line’s fifth ship, was postponed from the end of 2021 to summer 2022.

Pandemic-related issues at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany were cited as the reason for the six-month delay back in mid-October when it was first announced.

Chapek added that the cruise line sees a “very, very strong demand” for its new cruise ships.

“We hope and expect that the world will back to normal by then, and anticipate having a fine time trying to fill up the demand of those ships. And we think there’s going to be so much pent-up demand that we don’t expect to have many issues given the love that our guests have for Disney Cruise Lines,” Chapek said.

Cruise Line Stocks Surge on Monday on Vaccine News

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Premarket on Monday, cruise line stocks surged up to the tune of between 20 to 30 per cent based on positive vaccine news.

Carnival Corporation was up 29.16 per cent; Royal Caribbean Group 21.05 per cent; Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings 25.81 per cent and Lindblad Expeditions 17.43 per cent in premarket trading. 

The positive momentum was driven by good news from clinical trials evaluating a COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech. With multiple news outlets reporting vaccine trials were seen as more than 90 per cent effective. Drugmakers may apply for emergency use as soon as later this month.

Palfinger Completes First Cruise Drydock Since Pandemic

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Palfinger Marine has completed its first major refurbishment jobs since the start of the pandemic, according to a press release.

The job involved servicing 18 lifeboats and 20 winches for the Allure of the Seas from Royal Caribbean International.

To complete the job, 11 technicians from Palfenger’s U.S. service office travelled to Naventia’s shipyard in Cádiz, Spain, where they joined five LSA- and seven refinishing technicians from Palfinger Spain. 

Palfinger’s Florida-based Operations Manager Josh Lozano has celebrated the resumption of major cruise operations at Palfinger.

“Slowly but surely, we were able to resume our work after the lockdown, starting with the first successful service job for the Allure of the Seas,” he said.

Together, the technicians working on the Allure refinished the canopies on 18 lifeboats – which can carry up to 370 people each – and inspected the boats and release gear. 

This work included “cleaning and maintaining the release hooks as well as inspecting the boats according to MSC.402 and other regulations required by class and flag,” the company stated. The jobs took 30 days to complete.

Lozano said that they have also been performing two cruise drydocking in Italy and Singapore, utilizing the company’s corresponding local offices. Additional planned inspections were performed by the company’s UK office.