New lockdown measures in France and Germany this week due to fast-rising numbers of COVID cases forced at least 6 cruise shipping companies to cancel voyages across Europe since Wednesday.
Most notably, AIDA Cruises (on October 29) cancelled all sailings through the end of November. AIDA had just resumed around Italy roundtrips from Civitavecchia-Rome on October 17.
Also canceling upcoming sailings was Costa, which had resumed voyages on September 6. On Wednesday, the line announced it would drop plans for cruises from Italy to ports in France, Spain, and Italy that were scheduled to begin on November 14. Instead, Costa Smeralda will continue with Italy-only cruises. Costa also canceled a world voyage on Costa Deliziosa, and said the ship would skip visits to Croatia and Montenegro on current itineraries leaving roundtrip from Italy. Costa also canceled plans for upcoming voyages on 3 more ships: Diadema, Favolosa and Firenze.
In addition, on Thursday, some river cruise lines started canceling voyages across Europe:
- A-Rosa River Cruises (Germany) canceled all Danube and Rhine river voyages through November 30. The company has also canceled all remaining sailings for 2020 in France and Portugal.
- The Germany-based river cruise seller Viva Cruises canceled all sailings through the end of November 2020.
- The Germany-based cruisetour operator Plantours canceled Thursday’s sailing of its 173-guest river ship Lady Diletta on the Rhine. It was the only river cruise Plantours had planned to operate in November.
- CroisiEurope (France) this week also canceled a wide range of sailings.
Many of the cruise lines specifically cited the far-reaching lockdown measures announced by the government of Germany on Wednesday as the main reason for the cancellations.