A Carnival cruise ship currently docked in Long Beach, California. The cruise industry is set to restart soon in the US. — Reuters After more than a year of frustration, diehard American fans of cruise vacations at last sense an end to their Covid-19-imposed stranding, and many are booking trips as soon as they can. Steve Butcher, who has had about 10 trips cancelled in the last year, is finally confident an upcoming voyage in July will go ahead – but the ship will depart from St Maarten in the Caribbean, beyond the reach of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has barred almost all cruise voyages from the United States.