Florida has threatened to sue the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) if it doesn’t allow cruising to resume this summer, according to reports on a local Florida TV station.
Last week, the CDC reiterated that its conditional sailing order (CSO) will remain in effect until November 1, effectively killing the summer cruise season in the United States.
As a result of the order, many of the big cruise companies including Royal Caribbean International, Crystal and Celebrity Cruises have moved their homeports to the Caribbean to bypass the CSO as well as bulk up their European cruise itineraries.
Speaking at a roundtable discussion with the heads of the main cruise companies in Port Canaveral and his own attorney-general Ashley Moody, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said:
“We need to be able to get these cruise lines operating again.
“In Florida, we have everything going on except the cruise lines because the federal government won’t let the cruise lines sail.”
“You say they can’t sail in the United States. People are still gonna be taking cruises,” DeSantis said. “You’ll have people fly to the Bahamas. They’ll be sailing from the Bahamas. They’ll be sailing from other places.”
DeSantis warned that the no-sail order could cost Florida millions of dollars and countless jobs: “The jobs are very, very important, and it’s not just people that work for the cruise industry,” he said. “This has a ripple effect throughout all kinds of small businesses, mom-and-pop operations, that service the cruise industry.”
