Carnival Cruise Lines was inundated with bookings after announcing it would return to the high seas starting in August, following in the wake of months of being on Chinese coronavirus lockdown.
Cruise Planners, a company that books cruises for the world’s largest cruise liner, said bookings shot up by 600 percent when Carnival announced that it would begin again on August 1,
The spike is a 200 percent increase over last year.
Cruise Planners told TMZ those cruise-bookers were “not a bit concerned about traveling at this time” because many said they were in good health and were looking forward to some fun after being in quarantine for several months.
Carnival and its competitor, Viking, suspended their operations back in March to slow the spread of coronavirus, as ships quickly became hotspots for the virus to breed.
The State Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) then issued warnings to Americans not to travel by cruise ship during the coronavirus outbreak.
Carnival released a statement saying that although they are optimistic they will return to ports by August 1, the cruise line offered no guarantees.
“We are taking a measured approach, focusing on the potential for sailing from a select number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests,” Carnival Cruise Line said in a press statement last week.
“We continue to work with various government agencies, including the CDC, as we introduce new onboard protocols, but there is no assurance of a return on August 1,” the statement continued.