Cruise Ship Crews Vow to Return to the Oceans

Crews on cruise ships at standstill around the world are publicly vowing to return.

What appears to be the first public vow was by the crew on Princess Cruises’ Sky Princess, now docked at Port Everglades. In an amazing show, they lit up stateroom lights so the ship’s exterior displays their vow: “We Will Be Back.”

The crew also hung a banner in the Piazza with a similar message: “#PrincessProud. #Wewillbeback.” It was posted on Facebook and received 2,500 comments and shared almost 1,000 times.“Our hearts are full of gratitude as we read your messages of support from near and far,” Princess wrote on its Facebook page. “We will continue to share updates and respond to questions as our teams continue working to ensure a safe return home for guests and teammates, and look forward to welcoming you aboard again soon.”

Sister company Carnival Cruise Line took it a step further, revealing it is lighting up all of its ships in North America and Australia. Illuminating ships with messages was a little tricky but fun at the same time, according to Stefan Christoffersson, Carnival’s vice president of housekeeping who is part of the team that worked on the project.

After reviewing deck plans for each of the company’s ships to determine which staterooms would spell out the message, shipboard teams had to physically turn on the lights of hundreds of staterooms – all without knowing what the finished product would look like.

“In the end, it’s very similar to turning on your Christmas tree once you’re done decorating and seeing how it all turned out,” Christoffersson said, noting that these highly synchronized projects are going off without a hitch. “We haven’t had one ‘We’ll Be Bock’ or ‘We’ll Be Buck.’”

All ships in port or anchored where visible from land will be lit up beginning the evening of March 20, Carnival said.

Ken Muskat, executive vice president and COO at MSC Cruises USA, posted a similar image on Twitter. Translated from Italian, the message says “Everything will be fine.”

The cruise industry may be down right now, but these attitudes show a determination to rebound as quickly as possible.