The cruise ship Britannia will set sail on Sunday evening for the first time since the start of the pandemic, giving holidaymakers a rare chance to leave UK shores as the battered industry navigates the remaining Covid restrictions with a summer of short coastal cruises. Only double-vaccinated UK residents have been allowed to book on P&O’s domestic sailings from Southampton, as cruises restart limited itineraries that skirt Britain’s coast. Alongside P&O, the biggest UK brand, Saga’s Spirit of Discovery is also resuming cruises, taking in little more than views of the south coast as it spends six nights sailing from London’s Tilbury docks and back. While Swiss line MSC Cruises has started a route that calls at Liverpool and Belfast from Southampton, and Royal Caribbean will offer a similar itinerary from early July, hopes of briefly touching dry land in Scotland have been blocked on Covid grounds by Holyrood. The resumption of these short cruises represents a significant moment for an industry whose future has been in jeopardy and is still one of the few ways Britons can holiday offshore without quarantine on return. For the passenger who likes to get away from it all, post-pandemic cruising could have additional charm: fewer people on board, socially distanced activities booked online, and no stops at all to disrupt life on the waves. P&O says there will be “a few reassuring changes” for its clientele, including using an app to reserve slots at restaurants and pools to minimise queues. “Precious and longed-for time on board can therefore be spent getting the very most out of the experience,” said P&O Cruises president Paul Ludlow. Saga meanwhile has doubled its medical teams and created new isolation wings. The wearing of masks will be obligatory indoors except for the cabins, and health declarations by the double-vaccinated will be topped up with antigen tests for every passenger before boarding. Passengers are undeterred: lines are reporting strong bookings, if not quite sold-out ships for the summer. The restart has not been plain sailing, with the schedule pinned to the government’s unlocking roadmap and the original hoped-for end of restrictions on 21 June. Instead, the delayed relaxation of distancing rules means ships are permitted a maximum of 1,000 passengers aboard – about a quarter of the number Britannia would normally carry, leaving P&O last week having to issue last-minute refunds and vouchers for overbooked ships. On the plus side, the ratio of staff attending to holidaymakers will be higher than usual – 300 more crew, in fact, than passengers, mainly from abroad and having flown in and quarantined. But those who enjoy mixing at the buffet or mingling with their fellow travellers may rue Covid-secure regulations that only allow table service and no mixed groups indoors. The limited numbers and short itineraries mean the first cruises are barely likely to turn a profit, but the sight of ships sailing again will be a significant moment for the likes of Carnival Corp, the Panama-incorporated cruise giant that owns the British P&O and upmarket Cunard. Carnival last year swiftly gave a stark assessment of the impact of Covid-19 on the industry, warning as early as March 2020 that the sector might never recover and could be indelibly associated with images of sickness and death, after ships were locked offshore by countries unwilling to admit boatloads of infected holidaymakers and crew. The group lost billions in the following months and put six ships up for sale. Many crew worldwide were stranded for far longer than the passengers during the crisis, with many unable to return to their own countries. Ships also retained a skeleton crew on board to keep the giant vessels serviced and functioning while anchored off the coast, with around 100 staff on the Britannia. Now, the international crews running the coastal cruises have been fully vaccinated, quarantined on land and onboard, and are regularly tested, according to Royal Caribbean. Although an exemption for key workers meant that most could skip the UK’s quarantine hotel and head straight for ship, even coming from red list countries, cruise firms are adamant they have gone above and beyond the requirements. Carnival last week reported another $2bn (£1.4bn) quarterly loss worldwide, but said cumulative bookings for 2022 – including rebookings – are now ahead of 2019 levels. International sailings from the UK are planned to restart in September. Before that, P&O’s new Iona, billed as the UK’s greenest ship and running on liquefied natural gas, will make its maiden voyage in August – still in local, but more hopeful, waters.