Another Royal Caribbean cruise ship has gotten approval to sail from the United States.
Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas has received its Conditional Sailing Certificate from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which means the ship can offer cruises with paying passengers onboard.
This certificate is the final phase of the CDC's phased approach, known as the Conditional Sail Order (CSO), to allowing cruise ships to resume operations from the United States, and is yet another ship in the fleet to get approval by the U.S. government to sail.
Allure of the Seas had her 2-night test cruise conducted on July 27.
The cruise line shared the good news on social media, although it has not always shared publicly which ships have gotten approval to sail following a test cruise.
Allure of the Seas is scheduled for her first sailing this weekend when she departs Port Canaveral on August 8.
Allure joins Freedom, Serenade, and Odyssey of the Seas as ships able to restart cruises after getting CDC approval.
Update: More progress. After a successful simulated cruise, #AllureoftheSeas has received its CDC Conditional Sailing Certificate to welcome its first guests in @PortCanaveral starting on Sunday, Aug. 8. ? pic.twitter.com/dYP5y2WEl0
— Royal Caribbean PR (@RoyalCaribPR) August 6, 2021
Test cruises are part of the CSO that the CDC implemented as a way for cruise ships to resume operations.
Since Royal Caribbean will not require at least 95% of its cruise passengers to be fully vaccinated, test cruises are needed to demonstrate to the CDC that the onboard health protocols work.
All of the crew members will be fully vaccinated on Allure of the Seas, and any unvaccinated guests (mainly children, according to the cruise line) will be subject to additional testing requirements and specific health protocols.
Sailings on Allure of the Seas will require all guests to get a pre-cruise Covid test up to 3 days before the ship sails, and to bring the negative test result to the ship.
The new test requirement of all guests is a new protocol recently introduced due to the Delta variant and Covid cases subsequently rising across the country, especially in Florida.
Once onboard, Royal Caribbean has new health protocols for guests depending if they fully vaccinated or not.
All guests must wear face masks while indoors, but the mask can be taken off when in a fully vaccinated area, and/or while actively eating or drinking. Masks are also not necessary when outdoors or at the cruise line's private island.
Vaccinated guests also wear a wristband to easily identify themselves as vaccinated, while unvaccinated guests have no such wristband and have a hole punched in their SeaPass card.
