Canada has joined the list of countries that are now open for cruise ships. After 19 long months, on November 1st, the ban on large cruise ships at Canadian ports came to an end, however, the federal government has advised its citizens against traveling aboard cruise ships.

According to FleetMon, “The move is largely ceremonial as the Canadian cruise season has already concluded and the last of the cruise ships operating to Alaska completed their voyage in mid-October.
“Last year at the beginning of the pandemic in mid-March, Canada announced that it would close its ports for cruise ships. The ban was later extended in February 2021 till the end of this year’s cruise season. The ban also disrupted the ferry service operating on the Pacific Coast.

“The Canadian Government has issued an advisory to its citizens, where citizens have been advised to avoid cruise ships until further notice. The warning was first issued in early pandemic days and it warns that travelers might end up in quarantine situations where the Canadian Government would have little diplomatic authority to assist its citizens. However, the traveler community is now asking the federal government to end the advisory against cruises.

“Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra said that the decision to shorten the cruise ban was taken to aid the cruise lines in planning 2022 cruise operations. The federal government wanted to send a positive signal to the cruise industry that Canada would be open for tourists from next year. The Government officials in British Columbia said that already more than 600 cruise ship visits have been scheduled for 2022 in Victoria and Vancouver and it’s expected that more than one million passengers will be visiting each of the ports next year.”