Cruise lines end 2020 sailings over Scotland's alcohol ban
Two Scottish cruise operators have cancelled the rest of this year’s scheduled sailings in the wake of new Holyrood government rules on serving alcohol in hospitality venues.
The Majestic Line, which has been running two boats carrying up to 10 passengers each, said it had taken “the difficult decision” to end the season early because “we feel we would not be able to provide the high level of hospitality that is synonymous with our name”.
Managing director Ken Grant – who is also an epidemiologist – told The Telegraph: “I understand why the Scottish Government felt they had to do something because undoubtedly rates are rising. However, people are not going to give up socialising and I think they’re safer meeting in a well-balanced environment than in their own houses. I think that certainly applied to us.”
When the new ban on serving drinks indoors was announced last week, The Majestic Line was only able to give two days’ notice to customers intending to sail on Saturday. Two cruises in the following weeks were also cancelled.
Dr Grant said: “We felt people might not be too worried about drinking but we contacted a good cross-section of our clients who were booked to come and there were absolutely no takers for a dry cruise.”
He added: “I do think that when the Scottish Government makes changes to the tourism part of the hospitality industry they need to recognise we operate from Saturday to Saturday and they should have their meetings on a Monday and get something out that night.”
The Majestic Line is now exploring whether to offer weekend mini-cruises from a base near Glasgow next month, after the alcohol rules end.
Dr Grant believes the chances of a successful vaccine by the end of this year are “slightly more than 50/50” and certainly hopes there will be one by the start of the 2021 season – otherwise The Majestic Line might charter a bigger boat to help with social distancing.
The owners of Red Moon, a former Admiralty fishing vessel that takes up to four guests, have also decided to stop cruising.
In a statement to Telegraph Travel, Scott Atkinson and Mary Waller said: “It is very unfortunate that the Government has cut off the last few vital weeks of seasonal trading for Scotland’s hospitality businesses. It is, perhaps unavoidably, a situation which, while targeting the perceived troublesome zones of virus spread, has swept other less risky operations along with them.”
They added: “We made a decision to close our calendar ahead of the latest new rules. When the change to rules on households meeting indoors came in we had conflicting advice on how this might affect cruise vessels. We think there may have been a lack of understanding about how our particular sector operates - as ‘floating hotels’ rather than anything else.
“As we only had one cruise left – for a couple – we decided not to take any more bookings and to finish after that voyage. We could see that things were only going to get more difficult and serious so it was a case of being thankful for what we had managed to do and cut our losses.
“Our bigger fear is for next season – which in our case really could be feast or famine depending on how things go.”
