26 minutes ago, lizord said:

No, I just think Celebrity won't cancel a RCCL cruise, this is the RCCL board.

 

Edit: accidentally put RCL instead of RCCL.

Actually RCCL (whose stock symbol is RCL) is the corporation that owns Celebrity, RCI and other lines. 

The cruise line has been RCI (Royal Caribbean International) for many years.  

The first of my 10 TransAtlantics was in April 2004 on the QE2 Southampton to NY. 3 days of locked off decks, 12 hours of 20 meter (70 foot) waves. Three windows on Deck 8 were broken. Many people the first day were afraid they were going to die, but they quickly got over that when they were so sick they were afraid they weren’t going to die. I had paid for those meals, and damned if I missed any of them. IMO a fun ride. YMMV. 

58 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

On a P&O thread someone asked how a 3000 passenger ship could be profitable with only 1000 passengers.

My response was if you pay 3 times the price it will be.

RCCL has pretty much always lost money on cabin sales. Their profit comes from selling you stuff on-Board. Even if they could triple the price of rooms, do you really think they could triple the price of drinks, spa, speciality restaurants, tours etc and still sell stuff?

1 hour ago, Rako20 said:

• Company News

• News Wire

2h ago

 

Carnival Cruise Line to resume sailing Aug. 1

Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg News

Chart Type - 3month

 

Carnival Cruise Line plans to resume sailing on Aug. 1, potentially ending the pause in operations that began after coronavirus outbreaks on several ships.

I think that headline (copied from News Wire) LEAPS to an unproven conclusion. Announcing that you are cancelling sailings until 1 August is NOT by a long shot the same thing as announcing that you will resume sailing August 1. 

8 hours ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Unfortunately, NRD for a GS. 

You are between a rock and a hard place with:

Choice 1) Cancel before Final Payment and throw away the cancellation fee on the Non Refundable Deposit, OR

Choice 2) Give RCI considerably more $$$ knowing that the cruise will most likely be canceled, at which point you MGHT be able to eventually (after they stall and stall) get all your money back PROVIDED that they don’t go into bankruptcy and you lose it all. 

7 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

That’s a lot of cash to let Royal play with. 

Especially if one doesn’t have Bankruptcy/ Financial Default Insurance Coverage.  

57 minutes ago, travel_wendi said:

Well airlines are not getting cash refunds, it’s a voucher or a credit!

Airlines try to pretend they don’t have t give you cash back on cancelled flights, BUT if the flight is to, from or within the US the US Government says otherwise:

https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer-protection/flight-delays-cancellations

“If your flight is cancelled and you choose to cancel your trip as a result, you are entitled to a refund for the unused transportation – even for non-refundable tickets.  You are also entitled to a refund for any bag fee that you paid, and any extras you may have purchased, such as a seat assignment.”

12 hours ago, travel_wendi said:

OK so I’m feeling we could walk off the ship by 7:00 AM? Royal Caribbean was no help....she said I think you can disembark  at 5 AM and it takes four hours to go through customs. No help! Thank you so much!

1) I will bet you a large amount of money that Cruise is not sailing as scheduled. 
2) In the unlikely case it does sail as scheduled, it never leaves the Schengen zone and there are NO customs involved when you walk off the ship. So much for RCI’s knowledge (or lack there of). 

3) You are throwing good money and time after bad to even consider rebooking your air. Take a refund on your air and say Thank You!

4 hours ago, compman9 said:

I would love an east coast cruise. A proper one from Maine to Key West, loads of stops all the way

There are multiple ways to legally do passenger cruises up or down the east coast of North America. Many of these have been alluded to already in previous posts.  All of these exist in limited numbers. 
1) foreign (non-US) flagged vessels may start in a US port and carry passengers round trip (closed loop) back to the same US port with stops in US ports along the way provided they stop in a foreign port. A common example of this are Fall Foliage cruises out of Boston, New York, etc which may stop in Rhode Island, Maine, etc with at least one stop in Canada. 
2) foreign (non-US) flagged vessels may start in a non-US port (eg Canada) and carry passengers to a US port (eg Florida) (or vice-versa) with stops along the way. A number of “traditional” cruise lines do this for seasonal repositioning of ships. They can legally carry passengers from say Boston to Montreal with stops along the way, and then they can legally carry passengers from say Montreal to Miami with stops along the way, BUT they may not carry B2B passengers from Boston to Miami. 
3) foreign (non-US) flagged vessels may start in a US port and carry passengers to a different US port with stops along the way provided they stop in a DISTANT foreign port (typically South America or the ABCs). This provision is almost always used for one way Panama Canal passenger cruises, but is also used for seasonal repositioning from say New York to Florida. 
4) as long as no US flag vessel provides passenger traffic from the mainland US to Puerto Rico (none do), foreign (non-US) flagged vessels may start in a US port and carry passengers to Puerto Rico with stops along the way with NO requirement to stop in a DISTANT foreign port. I have repositioned from New York to San Juan with Celebrity on such a cruise. 
5) US flagged vessels may legally carry passengers between US ports and there are small vessel lines (such as American Queen) who provide cruises along the US East Coast with “loads of stops all the way”. Such cruises rarely go all the way from Maine to Florida but in years past I have seen  repositioning cruises from New England to Florida. 

6) and of course you could use your own yacht.  

5 hours ago, island lady said:

Yeah, they have "Beach chickens".....really exotic natural birds.  😉 🐔🐓

 

Actually exotic applies to species that are not indigenous, so anything that is exotic by definition is not put there by Mother Nature but has been imported. Seagulls, for better or worse (and they can be annoying), are bequeathed to Coco Cay by Mother Nature. 

On 4/26/2020 at 12:51 PM, island lady said:

Theme park score one

Mother Nature zero.  

7 minutes ago, homedepot124 said:

...Don't leave you plate unattended because the birds will help themselves before you get back to sit down. 

Sounds like the birds didn’t get the “Mother Nature zero” memo....

4 minutes ago, momof3cruisers said:

No. It’s called the armed forces. 
I am baffled that you can’t tell the difference.

Well some can’t even tell the difference between a naval ship and a navel ship😳

1 hour ago, molly361 said:

Sorry but this thread is NOT FCC, what will it take to cruise again or COVID related😇

Actually it seems to me that it is pretty much “what will it take for you to cruise again”. Roughly $1000 ($500pp) with C&A discount for a week in a Harmony balcony seems to have some takers. 

7 minutes ago, FishLips23 said:

What are the chances of getting an oceanview balcony? Or is that just for central park/boardwalk? We've never booked a balcony guarantee on Harmony so I'm not sure how it works.

I’d guess 99.99+% chance it is CP/Boardwalk. 
The one date I looked at the balcony discount was $135pp LESS than an Inside before C&A, so close to $250pp less with my discount. I wonder how many insides they are selling? This is nuts. 

Even though I am D+ on RCI (and separately Elite + on Celebrity) I chose to take the 12 day Hurtigruten Cruise round trip up and back down the coast out of Bergen. Hurtigruten has been doing this trip since 1893 (yep, they started delivering mail to coastal towns with no roads in 1893). Comfortable but not fancy; no casino just fantastic scenery and stops at dozens of small towns. I did it the end of May and had 5 days with no sunset and a little bit of all 4 seasons. Immensely satisfied. If your interest is in really seeing the Norwegian fjords I highly recommend this trip

1 hour ago, lifes-a-beach said:

What if they made you sign a document saying if you die on the ship you would be buried at sea?  OMG let’s speculate!

If you thought RCI’s wedding packages were expensive, wait until you see their funeral packages. And don’t forget the 18% gratuity that will be added. 

34 minutes ago, Ukigirl said:

I’ve been wondering if there’s any security at Labadee, every time we sail away you see workers staying behind.  Thought the same about CocoCay but mostly Labadee.

Obviously you have never walked as far as the barbed wire topped fence and seen the guards with guns. Only locals with a work permit get in, and except for rare cases cruise passengers are not allowed out. 

2 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Then why are the numbers so low in Africa?

Much of Africa has always had significantly lower travel (both tourist and business) arrivals compared to most of the rest of the world. 

45 minutes ago, JAMESCC said:

It literally says "Government lab proved". I mean literally. There is no doubt that this going to take a big to huge dip here in the summer. I have gotten the normal Flu only in the winter, I never got it in the summer. It makes sense to me that this would dip pretty steeply in the summer. Hopefully within that time treatments such as Remdesivir can be proven to be super effective. More progress on a vaccine as well. I am hopefully unlike most on this board and that is not slight to you. I don't mean it to be but negativity rules the day around here.

No identification of what lab. No documentation. Basically just words made up by someone. And you might reread this part of the article:

“It would be irresponsible to speculate, draw conclusions, or to inadvertently try to influence the public based upon a document that has not yet been peer-reviewed or subjected to the rigorous scientific validation approach.”

32 minutes ago, LMaxwell said:

 

Neither of those ports have real passenger terminal infrastructure. 

Neither does Ensenada, Mexico, yet I have commenced a Celebrity voyage there in order to facilitate what would otherwise have been an illegal San Diego to Seattle repositioning. I’ll admit the boarding was less than smooth

21 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Based on 15 analysts offering 12 month price targets for Royal Caribbean in the last 3 months

3 months ago I doubt that stock analysts had even heard of COVID-19. Any analysis done earlier than March is useless, and ones more than a couple of weeks ago are next to useless. Without dates for those 15 analysts reports, I would ignore this article. 

The answer is somewhere between “yes” and “it depends”. 😳
Do you understand the difference between an engine and a motor? Most vessels have engines and some vessels use the engine to generate electricity that in turns powers motors that move the vessel, but most river boats are powered directly by the engine; if powered directly by the engine “motoring” or “motor vessel” would be incorrect. 
Purist could argue that “sailing” requires sails, but in general that word can be applied to the movement of any vessel in motion other than ones propelled by humans rowing or paddling. 
IMO “cruising” would be the safest word to use for river boat in motion. 

3 hours ago, NavyCruiser said:

Alright, river cruising won't start  again until there'll be regular flights returns to normal again, not just a very few special allowed flights today....

I don’t think airlines are under any new (new since Coronavirus became an issue) restrictions on flights. Indeed in some routes cargo flights have actually increased as available freight lift on passenger planes has decreased. The restrictions are on passengers based on nationality, where they have been recently, and how long they will have to quarantine. When passengers (first business, then tourist) don’t face quarantine and are ready to fly, air service will quickly fill in. I think the US to Europe tourist market will be near zero for 2020 between worries about COVID-19 and worries about economics. Even most people with steady jobs and income have lost considerable savings. And cruises probably are going to be the last tourist market to recover - river boats will suffer being tarred with the news of plague ocean ships. I hope I am overly pessimistic, but I foresee very little cruising, ocean or river, in 2020. 

9 minutes ago, jalves said:

Those forecasts are so far wrong that it is a wonder anybody bothers to read them.  I suspect the only reason they go out is so that people will take proper precautions (gathering supplies) so if one does hit they are ready.  

Gee, I hope nobody gets there first and gets all the toilet paper. 

6 hours ago, NavyCruiser said:

wondering when they'll allow flights between US & Europe again.

Not sure how to answer this. There are numerous flights available TODAY, TOMORROW, etc. There may be restrictions on certain nationalities and quarantines involved, but a number of flights are going NOW.