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Carnival Cancels Most Cruises Through End Of Year, Including In Jacksonville

The Carnival Ecstasy is pictured docked at the JAXPORT Cruise Terminal in March.
BILL BORTZFIELD / WJCT NEWS
The Carnival Ecstasy is pictured docked at the JAXPORT Cruise Terminal in March.

Carnival Cruise Line is canceling most U.S. sailings through the end of this year following word that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has extended its "no sail" order.

WJCT News partner WUSF reported Friday that Carnival is immediately canceling sailing from all ports, except its home ports of Miami and Port Canaveral, adding it still might not sail from those ports in November and December.

The 2,056-passenger Carnival Ecstasy normally sails out of the JAXPORT Cruise Terminal in Jacksonville to Freeport and Nassau in the Bahamas. A check of Carnival’s website shows the next scheduled sailing out of Jacksonville is January 7, 2021.

The Ecstasy is more than 850 feet long and has a water park onboard.

Related: Local, State, And National Coronavirus Coverage

The CDC said it was extending a ban on large cruises in U.S. waters through Oct. 31.

The no-sail order, initially issued in March, was set to expire on Sept. 30, according to WUSF.  NPR reports Florida's U.S. senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, have been pushing for cruises to be allowed to resume.

Here's more information about Carnival’s cancellations.

Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.

Bill joined WJCT News in September of 2017 from The Florida Times-Union, where he served in a variety of multimedia journalism positions.