Cruising in sea of red ink, a plea to set sail

Cruise industry threatens mutiny over Australia’s cruise ship ban, demanding government that it be ­allowed back on high seas.

Event host Honida Beram takes a selfie with Patrea and Ed Stuttard onboard the Spirit of Migaloo during a Sydney Harbour cruise on Sunday. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

The Australian cruise industry is threatening mutiny over the federal government’s cruise ship ban, which it claims has already cost $2bn in lost economic output ­nationally, and will cost a further $3bn as the suspension continues through the summer peak.

And Australia’s large cruising community is demanding to be ­allowed back on the high seas, even if only in Australian waters and with no ports of call.

Last week’s extension of the prohibition on international routes until mid-March next year was expected, but the continued ban on domestic voyages — “doughnut trips” — has angered Australia’s cruise tragics.

Nothing was going to stop 50 “Cruiselings” getting back on the water at the weekend, even if it was just for a three-hour jaunt around Sydney Harbour. Ed and Patrea Stuttard are retired and live on the Gold Coast, but drove down to Sydney for the event. The couple have been on 49 cruises, all with P&O.

“We’d have done a lot more, but we only started four years ago,” quips Ed, 64. “We’re late bloomers.”

“After cruise number one we were addicted,” says Patrea, 61. “We took a two-week cruise and we didn’t want that to end, so they became much closer together after that.

“We’ve done Elvis cruises, country music cruises, comedy cruises — there’s something for everybody.”

Both say they have no concerns about cruising again, even after disasters like the Ruby Princess debacle, which resulted in 28 deaths and at least 854 passengers contracting COVID-19.

“People say, ‘will you cruise again?’ Yes, absolutely, 100 per cent. We will abide by the rules and do whatever P&O require of us to get on board,” says Patrea. “If you put the correct procedures in place there won’t be any issues,” says Ed, a retired micro­biologist.

“I mean if we can have 40,000 in Suncorp Stadium, why can’t we have 3000 on a cruise ship?”

The sold-out weekend harbour cruise was organised by Honida Beram, who runs the cruising fraternity’s most popular website, Cruising With Honey, and is so upset by the ban she’s just started an online petition to allow domestic cruises.

That’s also what the industry is pushing for — a staggered return to cruises, starting with “voyages to nowhere” — simply out to sea — then to domestic ports, then to New Zealand and some Pacific islands, before full international travel resumes.

“Given the extensive new health protocols cruise lines have developed, we believe there’s an opportunity to work towards carefully controlled domestic itineraries for Australians only,” Joel Katz, managing director Australasia of Cruise Lines International Association, told The Australian.

Cruise ship devotees Ed and Patrea Stuttard at Surfers Paradise. Picture: Glenn Hunt

The industry has developed a comprehensive set of measures including 100 per cent testing of passengers and crew before boarding, quarantine arrangements for ships and crew before resuming operations in Australia, and enhanced screening, sanitation and distancing requirements.

“This would allow domestic cruises to operate within an Australian bubble,” Mr Katz said.

The industry is already gearing up for a busy year with five large ships from P&O and Carnival Australia scheduled to conduct multiple cruises from Sydney and Brisbane between May and August. Two of those ships had been scheduled to visit the South Pacific, but those plans were changed last week to local cruises.

From October another 394 cruises are planned from all the main local ports on 30 separate ships around the Australian coastline, South Pacific and New Zealand.

Another group that can’t wait are Australia’s travel agents.

“For this vital next summer cruise season to go ahead safely and successfully, the resumption plan needs to commence as soon as possible to allow enough time,” says Dan Russell, who’s family-owned Clean Cruising business has been hit hard by the bans. “The clock is ticking, there’s no question about that.”

Mr Russell says it is vital that travel agents survive because “the cruise is a complex product and it will be even more now with the new COVID-19 protocols”.

But the government’s extension of the cruise ban was backed by clinical epidemiologist Fiona Stanaway, from Sydney University.

“It’s a lower risk if you keep the cruises in Australia, but the risk will never be zero,” she said. “It’s quite different from having people together in a sporting arena where you’re often outside and only with those people for a few hours.

“On a ship you’re going to get that repeated exposure in a closed environment.”

The problems were highlighted last week when a passenger on a “cruise to nowhere” from Singapore tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the ship, the Quantum of the Seas, to return a day early with guests confined to their cabins.

It turned out to be a false alarm — the passenger later tested negative twice — but the damage to the cruise, and to the industry, was done.

Singapore had designed strict protocols with cruises open only to local residents, making no stops and not sailing far.

“If you’re testing a lot of people, you’re going to get false positives,” said Dr Stanaway, “but if you’re on a ship you’re going to have to react to it and spoil everyone’s cruise, being shut in their cabin.”

According to economic modelling commissioned by Cruise Lines International Association, NSW will lose the lion’s share of economic benefit from cruising, having received $2.9bn in direct and indirect economic output in 2019-20. Queensland earns around $832m, Victoria around $381m, followed by Western Australia with $262m. South Australia earns $122m, Tasmania $104m and the Northern Territory $84m.