you're about to discover seven reasons you should be looking at 2022 and not 2021 cruises including the surprising news that the cruise lines agree with this too i'm gary bembridge and in this episode of tips for travellers i look at why booking 2022 cruising vacations and avoiding committing to 2021 right now and waiting no matter how eager you are to go cruising is your absolute best bet by far probably the most compelling reason for focusing booking for 2022 is the cruise lines themselves are actually recommending it there are a couple of things to note that have developed over the last couple of days and weeks firstly at a recent travel agent virtual cruise showcase arranged by the cruise line association the lions were telling travel agents to encourage travelers to book itineraries earliest from autumn winter 2021 and to focus more on 2022 cruises so why are they doing that or simply because they are much more certain that their advertised cruisers will actually be able to run by then for example peter shanks now he's the managing director of silversea cruises he was very explicit and said that travel agents should focus on promoting and selling their cruises from the autumn of 2021 and he recommended more early 2022 because they would be confident they would be operating them as planned now this also explains why the cruise lines have been putting 2022 and 2023 itineraries on sale to give us as travellers and of course agents further out cruises to focus on secondly the cruise lines simply don't know when for certain they will be able to resume sailing in 2021 no one really knows there's no agreed date in north america nor in major cruising parking countries like the uk and spain there's no agreement on lifting bans in places like canada and australia now there is a process for return to sell in most of these countries like the us cdc framework for conditional sailing but there's no clarity or certainty on the dates when cruisers will really honestly start up in the uk in the u.s in spain australia and so on thirdly even once they can start sailing all the lines have been really clear that they'll be staggering their fleet return to service through most of 2021 it will not be one big ban and all the ships come back to service however they are still listing and selling cruises right across their fleets from the first date they hope to start the very first ship or ship sailing so that cruise you may be eyeing for 2021 that currently shows us running may not be in the end no one really knows for 2021 yet norwegian carnival groups for example they say they only envisage all their ships being back sailing by autumn 2021 so it's clear that many many advertised cruisers won't run now others like fred olson cruises they're already starting to be much more upfront and much more explicit they have laid up one of their ships the braemar already until 2022 as this one is used to sell more distant more flight crews more multi-country itineraries they've cancelled all 20-21 cruises for that ship and they will only bring back ships in 2021 that run no-fly local departures they cruise to domestic or ports that are close to the uk fourthly it's also worth considering as you think about timing that the major cruise groups have been raising cash to enable them to survive without any cruises running through to summer 2021 so that may also be an indication of their thinking so if you want to plan your vacation time your budget with maximum certainty pushing it out to the earliest end of the year 2021 and even better into 2022 is definitely your best option don't just take my word for it the lines are saying it too it's also therefore not a surprise that the lines are making it even easier for you to book cruises in 2022 using your future cruise credit from cancelled trips so if you have future cruise credit do not feel pressurized to use it to cruise in 2021 which of course had been the case for quite some time the cruise lines are allowing you to use your future cruise credit for 2022 cruises and some like msc cruises carnival cruise line for 2023 cruisers already now many cruisers including me for a time think that the expiry date of our future cruise credit is by when you have to have cruised now this is not always the case so check really carefully with your line most cruise lines only require you to have used your future cruise credits to make a booking before the expiry date and usually it can be for any cruise on sale at the time you book so certainly in 2022 and as i mentioned for some lines now there are some exceptions at the time of recording so royal caribbean and holland america you have to have actually cruised before your credit expires but again that date is well well into 2022.
So from my research and looking around it looks to me like virtually all cruise lines enable you to use future cruise credit no matter when it was issued to sale sometime in 2022 so consider that and your ability to use that if you want the absolute certainty to escape that cycle of booking cancellations and rebook and use your future cruise credit for 2022. another reason to hold off booking a cruise until 2022 is there is no certainty when all the protocols being put in place for cruising to resume are going to be lifted many of which i've seen lots of cruisers object to and they only want to cruise when these things are lifted vaccination is being seen as the cruise lines as i've covered in the past episode as being really really key to being able to lift many of the limitations and rules that are being put in place now although we are all optimistic that vaccination programs are going to roll out really quickly in 2021 to be honest we just don't know for certain the time scale right now it could be quite some time into 2021 before these programs have really been rolled out across all the age groups my other thinking is with the attitude towards cruising being generally pretty negative and pretty cautious by the various authorities i would suspect that permission to lift the protocols on cruise ships will be slower than many of us hope i believe that's going to happen even as vaccinations rather i think it's going to be really cautious timing on lifting off the protocols so if you object to any of the protocols for any reason you should only book as far as possible the end of 2021 more sensibly into 2022 to increase the chance that they've been eased or lifted to your satisfaction so if you object to testing compulsory mask wearing physical distancing which means you have to reserve places to dine attend events sit around the pool go to the theater and so on if you object to cruise line only excursions in ports venues like saunas and nightclubs being closed events like pool parties not being held then do not book during at least i would say the first nine months of 2021 and more realistically focus on 2022 until you know for sure that these have been lifted be cautious about when you book now until the likelihood of passengers contracting coronavirus or even showing these symptoms is really really low you do need to consider the risk of your crews being truncated even it's able to run when you start booking so the risk of any outbreak is likely to be lower the more further out you look when the combination of you know vaccine adoption ever more effective testing protocols just the general level of the virus circulating is much lower now the reason i'm saying that is important is as all the return to cruise protocols they currently say that if there are suspected cases of coronavirus on board usually above a small threshold the cruise will be curtailed and has to return to the embarkation port so even if the cases end up being false positives such as we saw for sea dream in norway and cruise in alaska poor gagan and french polynesia and even more recently on royal caribbean quantum of the seas out of singapore cruises still get cut short if even if it ends up being a false positive and of course better track and trace means only those who came into contact with the infected passenger or passengers gets really strictly isolated everyone gets quarantined in their cabins until it can be more land-based testing and you get sent home so your cruise gets short if there's a suspected outbreak on board so waiting further out into the end of 2021 and into 2022 should reduce the risk of this so it's another thing of course to consider and another reason for booking further out just the chance of that happening of course if you want to do a cruise longer than seven nights that leave arrive or call on ports in the united states then you do have to wait until 2022 to book those the cdc has banned longer cruises at the stage until at least the end of november 2021.
Lions currently have adopted different approaches so be careful when you're looking at what's on sale some have stopped selling longer cruises hoping over time the cdc will relax the ruling they haven't cancelled them others have cancelled them and put different cruises in their place so for example seabourn they've changed all their alaska season into seven night trips some like windstar have gone even further and they've pulled every single cruise out of the usa for 2021 and gone to different regions so if you want longer cruises out of the us according to the us you do have to book further out into 2022.
Also consider booking cruises only at the end of 2021 and 2022 if they involve flying to a foreign destination and include calling on multiple countries it's really uncertain when countries will open and what restrictions they will of course be putting in place we're all probably being over optimistic at how fast this will all change in 2021 i think i am i think the first half of the year will be fine but i don't think that's going to be the case now so this is really really especially true if you have big bucket list destination cruises these could be once in a lifetime cruises and i would say you want to be confident that you can see everything do everything not have to be constrained or follow things like wearing masks restricted excursions and so on so as i mentioned earlier no one knows when countries will be able to open freely to tourism without restrictions testing requirements for vaccines or whatever most countries are hoping and saying that by summer things will be more easy but as we learn through 2020 things end up being volatile they are unpredictable and what we've learned is they are just much slower to happen than we expect so if you have a multiple country trip that's a big bucket list one in mind i would definitely recommend booking at least the end of 2021 but probably 2022 which is what the lines are suggesting focus much more on domestic and close to home cruises in 2021 if you are wanting to focus on that because once the cruise lines are actually sailing again and offer trips that they know they can deliver i think we can all revisit our 2021 plans with certainty then we saw that in italy and germany because when the lines were given the okay to sail there were only specific ports and places they could go so what they did is they scrapped existing cruises and they developed and they put on sell brand new trips based on the limitations so once the lines get the full okay in 2021 they will launch new trips that they can absolutely deliver this is the time to then book 2021 wait for those new cruises for example uk lions are working on uk only ports with uk destination cruises for when they can start selling in 2021 because they think both the authorities and travelers will prefer those we've heard the lines selling out of us ports talking about creating new cruises focused on private caribbean islands for a while in 2021 once they resume most of 2021 cruisers once they resume will almost certainly be new cruises i believe from what we've seen so wait for those and focus on 2022 right now to book those more back to usual itineraries and plans and then revisit 2021 when you see what's really really available another great reason for looking at 2022 is the lions are really keen to get people to commit to 2022 and beyond as they are also sure they can deliver them they want to get your deposits in they want to get commitments locked in and not have all that uncertainty so there are many fantastic deals and incentives to encourage bookings further out the first few months of the year is known as wave season and this is where lions traditionally already run promotions for cruises because so many people book their vacations this time of year expect lots of deals and offers for 2022 and 2023 a great reason to be booking as you will find amazing opportunities and savings by looking further ahead i hope that's given you something to think about as you plan your vacations budgets and all the different plans for 21 and 22.
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