Key West City (Florida USA) will vote on limiting cruise ships in 2021 due to COVID after a group named "Key West Citizens for Safer Cleaner Ships" suggested changes. Meanwhile, Bar Harbor Maine (in early-July) blocked cruise ships for the rest of 2020.
The pushback on large cruise liners is another problem for the major passenger shipping companies that had to repeatedly postpone voyages and even cancel entire (seasonally) itinerary programs planned for 2020.
Key West Citizens for Safer Cleaner Ships pushed for a November referendum on disembarkations and is calling for:
- limiting passengers disembarking from cruise ships to 1500 per day
- prohibiting cruise vessels with max passenger capacity 1300+ from disembarking
- giving priority to newer vessels, as well as ships with fewer accidents and better health and environmental CDC records
In 2019, nearly 400 cruise ships (carrying 1,2+ million passengers) visited Key West.