Royal Caribbean Cruises has partly agreed to US repatriation requirements after balking at the stringent guidelines.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is requiring cruise company chief executives to sign "attestation" paperwork before it allows crew members to disembark for repatriation.
Richard Fain-led Royal Caribbean last week refused to adhere to the rules, which require cruiseships to sail seafarers to their own countries and then home via private means.
The CDC rules also prohibit crew from staying overnight in hotels.
Michael Bayley and Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, chief executives for Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises, respectively, have since signed the attestations, but Royal Caribbean Cruises' four other brands have not.
"The CDC will only allow us to disembark crew members if company executives, myself included, are willing to attest — subject to criminal penalties including imprisonment — that we will not use any public transportation and that each crew member will comply with certain conditions after disembarking the ships," Bayley wrote in a letter to crew members.
"We are happy to do all the things they requested, but the criminal penalties gave us (and our lawyers) pause."
He said Royal Caribbean International has signed off on the CDC rules but is still waiting for the federal agency to respond to its request for changes that prevent dealing with 60 rules each from 60 countries.
"You end up with enough variables to make your head spin," he wrote.
"However, we have decided that the importance of getting you home is so great that we will sign these documents as they are written today to help get you off the ships."
Lutoff-Perlo expressed similar concerns in her letter to Celebrity Cruises seafarers but assured them that they would all be sent home.
"In the spirit of doing everything we possibly can to get you home, I have decided to sign this letter," she wrote.
Royal Caribbean International has sent home 9,098 crew members home so far, while Celebrity Cruises has returned 3,289.
"We have already been able to help more than 12,000 of our crew members return safely home on commercial flights, charter flights and direct sailings to their home countries and thousands more are going home in coming weeks," spokesman Jonathon Fishman said.
"We are grateful for the guidance we’ve received from governments and health authorities, and we very much appreciate our crews’ patience, understanding and good spirit."
Other cruise outfits have pushed back against the CDC rules, including Carnival Corp's Carnival Cruise Line and Holland America Line.
Calls to Carnival, which considers adherence too expensive, were not returned.
