Costa Cruises has pushed out its restart by two weeks with plans to pull up anchor in late March.
Carnival Corp's owner of 11 cruiseships expects to resume sailing again on 27 March with the departure of 5,224-berth Costa Smeralda (built 2020).
Costa Cruises has not changed its itineraries, which include three-day and four-day "mini-cruises" or seven-day voyages to Italian ports Savona, La Spezia, Civitavecchia, Naples, Messina and Cagliari.
The Costa Smeralda will return to sailing week-long cruises in the western Mediterranean on 1 May, with visits to Italy's Savona, Civitavecchia and Palermo), France's Marseille and Spain's Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca.
Its Costa Luminosa will start sailing again on 2 May on one-week cruises that will depart from Trieste, Italy, and then go to the Italian port of Bari before heading to Greece and Croatia.
"Costa is working with national and local authorities of the countries included in the itineraries of its ships outside Italy to define the details of the restart of cruise operations, with enhanced health and safety measures through the implementation of the Costa Safety Protocol," the brand said.
Plenty of protocols
Protocol measures include limited capacity, swab tests for all guests and crew and temperature checks when disembarking and re-embarking.
They also involve protected shore excursions, physical distancing, new ways of using on-board services, better sanitation and medical services, and using face masks when necessary.
Carnival's AIDA Cruises plans to pull up anchor on its fleet of 14 coronavirus-suspended ships a week before Costa Cruises does.
The German brand announced it will open its 2021 cruise season on 20 March, with the 3,300-berth AIDAperla (built 2017) sailing around Spain's Canary Islands off Africa's north-west coast.
The AIDA relaunch, which was initially set for 6 March, will come three weeks after Germany extended its pandemic lockdown until March 2021.
At the same time, many of AIDA's cruise destinations have implemented Covid-19 measures that significantly restrict international holiday travel during early spring, Carnival said.
