Cruise ship 2.0: setting sail into the new normal
In the midst of the pandemic, cruise ships are back with swab tests, socially distanced mini-golf – and the same old environmental damage. Can the bubble stay intact?
Italians are warm people but we have put aside, for a while, the handshakes and hugs that are our dearest habits. We are on the MSC Grandiosa, the major first cruise ship to depart since lockdown began in Europe.
It's 16 August 2020, the day after an Italian ministerial decree that allowed cruises to restart, and the Grandiosa has already set sail from Genoa.
"I have been on board since 25 January," says one of the Grandisoa crew with an air of frustration and homesickness. "I have seen the ship stop and then leave again. I have never disembarked and, day by day, I have watched the world change."
"It was a sigh of relief for all of us," she says. "After months of being stopped in the waters of the Mediterranean and the illusion of restarting business, this was slow in coming."
The stranded ship has become home for other crew who, like her, spend much of their lives at sea. Docked at Civitavecchia port near Rome, the boat was kept functioning throughout the Covid-19 pandemic by its stranded crew.
