The repatriation voyage for the NCLH-Norwegian cruise crew on Norwegian Joy has been canceled. Instead, the company has decided to repatriate the fleet's all non-essential crew via charter flights.
The news was announced through NCL Joy ship's PA system informing the crew that NCLH had arranged flights from Aruba scheduled for March 4 and 6.
There are a total of 1053 crew on Norwegian Joy who are going to be sent via charter flights to Indonesia and the Philippines.
The liner completed ship-to-ship transfers of the non-essential crew from the fleetmates Norwegian Pearl, Norwegian Sun, and Oceania Insignia, all docked in Oranjestad Aruba.
The crew transfer was due for completion on February 12, after the boarding of Norwegian Gem's crew. Now NCLH will stick to the original plan set for Norwegian Encore and is going to sail the crew from Europe back to Asia.
The crew repatriation had to take place on the NCL ships Encore and Joy. Joy needed to gather non-essential crew from all NCLH vessels in the Caribbean, then head to Asia.
NCL Encore, which was in Southampton UK, will proceed with the original crew repatriation plan. The anticipated arrival of Encore to the final destinations is in late-March/early-April 2021.