FOX 35 EXCLUSIVE: Royal Caribbean CEO discusses first paid passenger cruise after shutdown

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - The first test cruise.

The first paid passenger cruise leaving from a U.S. port.

It's a lot of firsts for what turned into a "sink-or-swim" industry.

Royal Caribbean’s CEO is swimming laps around the competition.

"Failure simply was never an option," Richard Fain said.

Captain of Royal Caribbean's group Richard Fain is on Celebrity's first passenger paid cruise since the industry-wide shutdown. 

He says he is thrilled at the progress.

"It took us all a while to learn the science. A year and a quarter ago, we didn't have a vaccine. We had almost no testing; we didn't know what caused it. Hell, at that time, the CDC was still advising against wearing face masks. So, we learned, and what we learned was, when we have an environment that we can control, that unlike being on land, you know where you can go. You know who the other passengers are and who has been vaccinated and who hasn’t," Fain said.

Questions over vaccination requirements got messy, especially in Florida. 

Fain says 95% of passengers on his ships must be vaccinated. 

"Well, it is very clear that the vast bulk of our guests want to be vaccinated and want to be able to take advantage of a highly vaccinated environment. What we have done in conjunction with health experts is to design a set of protocols that allow us to do that and to make sure that despite there will be some few exceptions with the number of vaccinated on board, this is the healthiest place you could be, much more so than any comparable land base," Fain said.

Looking ahead, he expects most of the company’s ships to be sailing by the end of the year and says, finally, the company's bookings are booming.

"Twenty-twenty was a terrible year. Twenty-twenty-one is a terrible year, but as we are going into 2022 and 2023, the pent-up demand is just overwhelming. I mean you see it, you can feel it when you talk to people. It is just terrific," Fain said.