ABC released news article stating that Carnival Cruise Lines is among the travel companies allowing employees to avoid countries affected by the Zika virus outbreak. The cruise line announced that employees can change their schedules in order to avoid work in Zika affected counties. According to ABC Carnival Cruise Lines spokeswoman said that employees in ports or on ships are "being provided various options to preclude them from working in Zika affected geographies."

With a fleet of 24 cruise ships Carnival has only two ships currently sailing to countries not affected by Zika virus. All Carnival cruise ships with exception of Carnival Legend and Carnival Spirit sailing in the Pacific, are in the Caribbean. With this in mind in theory Carnival can’t approve every crew member request to work in destinations not affected by Zika virus.

All cruise companies have very strict policy for crew member’s requests to change from one ship to another. Since now the only reason to change ship approved by the company was if your spouse or fiancé was working on another ship. In this case you needed to wait at least one month for approval. Carnival has strict rotation for new crew and crew returning from vacation since every sign off crew needs to be covered by crew signing in.