You probably won’t be surprised to hear that when Royal Caribbean carries out its required ‘trial cruises’ for U.S. passengers its elite ‘Pinnacle’ loyalty members will be at the head of the line, along with company employees and travel agency partners.
When the U.S. CDC told cruise lines they’d have to try out full-scale cruises with volunteers before being allowed to sail with paying passengers, volunteers poured out to sign up; Royal Caribbean, the only line that’s made a public process of it, says it quickly hit 200,000 volunteers willing to take a free cruise to try out all the new rules and procedures.
In an announcement late last week, the cruise line said it hadn’t figured out all its criteria, but the Pinnacle members have “cruised with us a gazillion times … they’ll be amongst the first to receive the invitation.”
RC also said it had run trial cruises from Singapore before last week’s first paying cruise, and will do so in Europe as well, possibly before any U.S. tests are ready. The first paying Singapore cruise, on Quantum of the Seas, was limited to Singapore residents and included no port calls. However, it cut its voyage short when a passenger tested positive. A retest of the passenger returned a negative result.
