Last week's headlines about a family that was booted off a cruise ship docked at Naples for wandering from their shore excursion highlighted an area where the cruise experience is changing sharply: time spent ashore.
In most ports, passengers have a choice of shore activities purchased through the cruise line or sold by local tour companies, or even wandering on their own. But in these times, as cruising is just beginning to restart in Europe, the lines are treating the whole cruise almost as a group quarantine, with the goal of limiting contact between their virus-cleared passengers and the world outside.
MSC and Costa, the first two to head to sea, require passengers to have been tested and checked before boarding, are sailing with limited passenger capacity and are enforcing mask and social distancing rules on board; they are also allowing passengers off the ship only on company-arranged expeditions, in small groups, with selected guides.
On the other hand, they have made it easier to stick with the company trips by dropping prices; on MSC, sailing from Genoa with only Europeans aboard, each passenger can select three offerings for €100, way below the usual prices.
Less happy with the new measures: the companies that advertise and sell port excursions directly to passengers. They are hoping eventually to work out some kind of arrangement with the cruise lines.
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