Displaying items by tag: Post 1st Lockdown

24th August 2020

Med-Cruise from Italy Denies a Family Re-Embarkation after Breaking Cruiseship's 'Social Bubble'

Med-Cruise: MSC Grandiosa's stringent Covid-19 guidelines were breached by a family on a shore excursion (Italy), which led to them being denied re-entry to the cruiseship. Afloat adds the leadship of the 'Meraviglia' class called to the Irish capital in recent years.

It is just over a week ago when MSC Grandiosa set sail from Genoa, Italy - with only citizens of Europe's Schengen-area countries and below its 70% capacity limit - it became the first cruiseship in MSC's fleet to return to cruising since spring coronavirus lockdowns halted cruising in Europe.

But it wasn't long before the cruise line's stringent Covid-19 guidelines were breached by a family on a shore excursion in Naples, which MSC says led to them denying those passengers re-entry to the liner.

"In line with our health and safety protocol, developed to ensure health and well-being of our guests, crew and the communities we visit, we had to deny re-embarkation to a family who broke from their shore excursion (Tuesday) while visiting Naples," an MSC Cruises spokesperson said in an email.

"By departing from the organised shore excursion, this family broke from the 'social bubble' created for them and all other guests, and therefore could not be permitted to re-board the ship."

For more reading from Independent.ie on the cruiseship of the 'Meraviglia' Plus-class ship.

The MSC Meraviglia became the largest cruiseship to enter Irish waters when a maiden port of call to Dublin Port took place in 2018.

Published in Cruise Liners

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Competitions

The most significant events for the Half Ton Class has been the annual Half Ton Cup which was sailed under the IOR rules until 1993. More recently this has been replaced with the Half Ton Classics Cup. The venue of the event moved from continent to continent with over-representation on French or British ports. In later years the event is held biennially. Initially, it was proposed to hold events in Ireland, Britain and France by rotation. However, it was the Belgians who took the ball and ran with it. The Class is now managed from Belgium.