CCL-Carnival Cruise Line's 2018-built ship Carnival Horizon returned to PortMiami Florida early Monday morning, November 23, to prepare for returning to service. The liner is the first Carnival "Fun Ship" currently scheduled to restart cruises.
In October, Carnival Horizon was in Philipsburg (St Maarten Island, Dutch Antilles) for crewing before returning to the USA. Since then, the vessel has been crewed and underwent quarantine before sailing back to the USA.
Horizon will now start implementing measures outlined in the "Conditional Sail Order" set by the US agency CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in late-October 2020. Some of these measures include setting the cruise ship up to sail with new features and guidelines in place to accommodate sailing with new health protocols. Carnival Horizon will have to expand her medical facilities, make airflow modifications, dedicate certain staterooms as isolation units, as well as arrange public areas with space in mind.
The cruise terminals will have to be configured to check passengers in for their voyage while remaining socially distant, and implementing health and testing stations inside/outside of the terminal.
CCL, along with every other cruise shipping companies with operations from North America, made it clear that when cruising resumes, it will be done strategically, based on science.
The first two Carnival ships to resume voyages will be Carnival Horizon (Feb 14 from Miami) and Carnival Breeze (May 5 from Galveston Texas).
Horizon has been homeported in Miami since 2018. She repositioned to Florida following a mini-season in Europe-Mediterranean and NYC New York.