Royal Caribbean to set sail on test cruise from Florida on Tuesday
Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas departs from Port Canaveral ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Dorian. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. - On Tuesday, Royal Caribbean will set sail from Port Canaveral on a test cruise.
The Allure of the Seas will depart at 5 p.m. with a mix of employees and volunteers on board. It'll return on Thursday. This will be the first Royal Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral since the pandemic began.
The idea is to make sure the cruise line can operate safely during the pandemic.
The Disney Dream cruise ship recently returned from a test cruise with Disney employees.
MORE NEWS: Disney Dream returns to Port Canaveral after first test cruise
It is part of Disney’s efforts to get the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) approval to sail with paying customers.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said the CDC’s four-step process to allowing cruising from Florida is overly burdensome and harms a multi-billion dollar industry and Florida’s economy.
"We’ve seen throughout the country government overstep its bounds in response to the coronavirus pandemic," Governor DeSantis said in June. "And you can’t have an agency relying on flimsy legal authority to keep an entire industry closed with no path forward."
The CDC said its rules will prevent COVID-19 outbreaks on ships that have close quarters and frequent stops at foreign ports.