The Healthy Sail Panel, assembled by Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, has created a list of 74 guidelines to help a safe return to cruising after 4 months of studying data.

The hope is these guidelines will enable the million dollar industry to begin to recover from the damage caused by COVID-19 restrictions. This attempt at recovery has been recently set back by an outbreak on board a TUI ship in the Mediterranean as shown in the following link.

These guidelines were submitted to the CDC in the US for review in the hope they will lift the no-sail order currently in place in US territories. Whether they become compulsory requirements  and therefore part of the due diligence for cruise line  remains to be seen which could lead to some interesting repercussions in the event that a passenger contracts COVID whilst on the cruise and attempts to sue.

It is expected that many cruise ships will ultimately have to go to shipyards for either wet or dry docking to have structural changes. The aim being that initial capex investment will result in increased income in the long run as they become "COVID safe".