Carnival’s Diamond Princess cruise ship delays return to sailing in spring

Aug.25 (Reuters) – The Diamond Princess cruise ship, which became one of the first hotbeds of coronavirus infections when the pandemic erupted last year, will delay its return to sailing in the spring of 2022, said Wednesday the operator of the Princess Cruises.

Princess Cruises, owned by Carnival Corp (CCL.N), said it canceled the ship’s scheduled fall cruise to South America, which was due to mark its return to service. He also canceled the ship’s trip to Antarctica which was scheduled for the spring of next year.

The ship will now return next year for a season of sailing to Japan, the country where it ran aground last year following hundreds of infections on board. At the time, the ship had the largest concentration of cases outside of China.

Carnival did not respond to a request for comment on the reason for the delay in resuming Diamond Princess cruises.

A passenger on one of the company’s cruise ships, the Carnival Vista, died earlier this month after testing positive for COVID-19.

Princess Cruises, which resumed sailing last month, has also delayed the return to service of its Island Princess cruise ship.

Uday Sampath report in Bangalore; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli

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