The latest change to cruise vacations is a just-announced temporary “booking hold” on Princess cruises 8 days or longer embarking between January 1 and November 1, 2021.

Read: Princess cancels 2021 cruises on Sapphire Princess

Princess Cruises has reviewed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Framework for Conditional Sailing and is seeking additional clarification to fully understand the requirements.  While we await further information, we have (temporarily) stopped selling all cruises eight days and longer which call upon a U.S. port and depart January 1 through November 1, 2021.  For those who are currently booked on one of these cruises, we ask for your patience to receive further information from Princess on whether your cruise is impacted.

Princess

As with all the updates, this booking hold on Princess cruises leaves us with more questions than answers. Does this mean cruising will return on January 1st? No. There is zero chance cruises will be sailing on January 1, 2021, even though the current cancelations for all the cruise lines are currently through December 31, 2020.

I know the booking hold on Princess 8+ day cruises between Jan 1 and Nov 1, 2021, have NOT been canceled, and if you’re booked on one, don’t cancel your reservation. By the way, you shouldn’t be canceling any cruises anyway; let the cruise lines cancel on you and take the future cruise credit.

Related: Why you should use a travel agent

With the current CDC framework for a safe return to cruising, nobody, including the cruise lines, know which cruises will be able to sail next Summer. At the moment, cruises are expected to sail next Summer, but because of the uncertainty, Princess is not accepting new reservations while they figure out what the protocols and limitations are.

Since the booking hold on Princess cruises mentions only cruises that sail to US ports, 8+ Europe cruises are still an option, although most of them aren’t open to US passengers.

Again, this booking hold is temporary, not from January – November. Once the details are worked out they’ll begin accepting bookings again. Of course, cruises will be very different, but you’ll be able to take one, including 8+ day voyages.

In the meantime, there are plenty of great shorter Princess cruises available to book, and extending them is an option by adding a cruisetour in some destinations. Adding a stay before or after your shorter cruise will extend your vacation adventure.

Related: Redeem your Future Cruise Credit