Dothan1952

We have done several Alaska cruises in the past (pre-pandemic) from Pittsburgh. We now live in SE Alabama. When looking at flight time for the return flight it looks like most flight from Seattle leave about 11:30 AM ( yes can be done but is risky ) or are red-eye flights around midnight or so. What are other cruisers doing that live on the eastern part of the country?

On 12/15/2023 at 1:16 AM, oakridger said:

 

Embassy Suites was shabby when I last stayed there in 2012!  I understand that it has not been renovated since then!!   It's a shame because it has a great location and cute pool area. 

 

Riverside is my "Go To" hotel now in Ft. Lauderdale. About $20 Taxi or Uber to the port.

 

~Nancy

 

 

Thats really sad, we stayed there about the same time ( give or take a few years ) and the rooms really needed renovated. Lobby was nice and its in a great location . We have an ES nearby in Destin Fl and its exactly the same shape.

amazed how so many people are freaking out about this Polka cruise. These thing occur all the time , one time on the QE2. William H Miller had a cruise group about the golden age of transatlantic cruising, would have loved to attend some of his lectures but it was closed to the general public. Another time there was a cruise group hosted by G Gordon Liddy, his talk were also closed to the public - got a good laugh when anyone under 40 was asking each other who this Liddy follow was .There is no way that there are going to be hundreds of accordions , there will be at most 5 polka bands so maybe the could be 5 accordions max. Most likely most or all of the music was be restricted events - otherwise it defeats the purpose of drumming up business for jimmy Sturr travel.

This Polka cruise was reasonably priced, just out of curiosity we priced next years  Star Trek cruise ( also  7 day ) its was very expensive- at least twice the cost of similar  cruise , would be fun but not at that price!

We booked this  cruise because of the Polka bands, only Polka music in lower Alabama is via the internet. The performances in question are open only those that booked thru Jimmy Sturr travel..The only inconvenience others should experience is an occasionally closed public room.

We are looking at several possible Southern Caribbean cruises on Princess. When reviewing the shore excursion offered I saw several excursions that did not look very strenuous but had an upper age limit of 85. We will be traveling with my mother who is an extremely  active 87 (she actually in better health then either of us )

Does anyone have any experience with this age limit- do that actually enforce it or is it just a suggestion .

On 1/22/2021 at 7:51 PM, Ombud said:

Thank you @mtnesterz I was hoping you'd pop in!! Golden & Star are still in the 'family' and probably will be for a while. I'll see them on POAU 

 

Also hoping QM2 stays with Cunard. New ships are great if I'm primarily interested in listening to music onboard but the others are better for ports. 

Really doubt that QM2 would leave Cunard, too many $ spent on a ship designed for crossing the North Atlantic - no other Cunard ship has that capability and don't see any other cruise line with that kind of client base that would want to purchase her.

Nordic Empress, Nov 1991. We thought the ship was huge especially when docked next to the Britanis. It got us hooked on cruising.

We missed an Alaska cruise years ago due to a huge auto accident that stopped traffic on the interstate on the way to the airport for several hours. Luckily we had cruise insurance that covered the trip. Also learned our lesson, always fly out a day early if possible-its worth the expense  for peace of mind plus your well rested on embarkation day. 

Do they still give out the ceramic tile squares with a picture of an old HAL ship ?

ID Now is a valid PCR test, however is some areas they have few or no appointments available at Walgreens -most likely its dependent on local Covid rates.

Looks like HAL has taken a stand on the vaccine requirement, at least till the end of this year.

Smart move on their part since 95-99% of hospitalized  Covid patients are unvaccinated.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/worry-free-promise/travel-well.html

2 hours ago, POA1 said:

WHO backed the cycle recommendation down to 28 in late January. Not every lab followed the recommendation immediately. Here in Florida, the labs are supposed to report amplification cycles, but not all do.

 

A lot of states and labs don't report the # of amplification cycles, but when you can find the raw data you see a pretty big drop in positivity rates as the thresholds are reduced.

Not surprising labs don't report number of cycles, most are using an interface to a LIS, not sure if any of them are set up to capture that data (not sure if the instrument even sends that out). Also for the manufacture to change the number of cycles would require FDA approval, even  with the Emergency Use Authorization I'm sure that was criteria  included . Actually if the low viral load= no transmission holds true that might be good news for ships full of vaccinated passengers - any infection would be very mild or even asymptomatic and no big outbreak like on Diamond Princess will occur

8 minutes ago, POA1 said:

My bad. It was an actual blood test, not a swabbing. BTW - If the # of amplification cycles is too high, you're going to get a lot of positive test results for people who aren't capable of infecting others.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

Interesting article, I will have research this further , the Cepheid test uses 45 cycles, they always strive for high sensitivity to prevent a false negative test (something critical for diseases like GC, chlamydia or Tuberculosis )

11 hours ago, POA1 said:

Is your point that they're going to be installing full blown labs on board if tests are required? If not, then it'll have to be rapid tests with their errors and, of course, "outbreaks."

 

My nephew had 4 antigen tests over a 6 week period. No positive results. I doubt he will have T-cell immunity.

Why did he keep getting rapid antigen test, after the first negative result he really should have gotten a PCR (just not Abbott)

They can and probably will install small table top PCR analyzers on ships, Cepheid has several tablet top models, it would  be low volume testing but could handle testing passengers or crew suspected of having Covid  , its a moderately complex assay that any laboratory professional could run.

2 hours ago, POA1 said:

 

What happens if in-voyage testing is required? We know that there's a 2+% false positive rate. Multiply that by 1,000 - 2,000 pax and you're pretty much guaranteed what will be reported as an outbreak, even if no one gets sick.

 

My nephew tested positive right before Thanksgiving and was quarantined at college for 14 days. Follow up tests never found antibodies. In other words, a false positive. (An infection would have resulted in detectable antibodies.) The same thing happened to my barber and DW's nail girl. Neither of them got paid to sit home and wait.

 

I have neighbors who have been vaccinated and then tested positive. (I can only assume they're addicted to deep nasal swabbing. I figured the whole point of getting the shot or shots was to prevent Covid-19.) In their defense, they had some symptoms.

Covid 19 antibody testing is unreliable, especially the cheap rapid cartridge test (most manufactured in China by companies with little or no prior experience). Even IgG/IgM antibody testing done on complex analyzers are not perfect ( test too soon and IgG has not developed yet, but test too late and the IgM antibodies are already gone) Also your claim of a 2% false positive rate, it might  be true of a rapid antigen test (never the gold standard of any testing system for any infectious disease) but a quick review of the FDA approval documents show the the Cepheid Covid 19 PCR test had 0% false positive rate. Other than the Abbot PCR test (which was banned by many large hospital systems due to poor performance), almost all other PCR system have performances  similar to Cepheid.

13 hours ago, chrisbu315 said:

At this point we should all understand the risks and make a personal decision.  The government nor the cruise lines are forcing you on-board.

But if they end up with another Diamond Princess fiasco it will be the cruise line that will take the financial hit, not the non vaccinated passenger that caused it, its all about trying not to go bankrupt 

1 hour ago, bigrednole said:

2 things have to happen for FL to cruise any time soon (next 24 months in my opinion). First, they need to get the CDC straightened out. No one is cruising when a mask has to be worn 99.9% of the time outside the cabin. No one is going to cruise with that restriction, period!!! If you think anyone will, you are crazy. Second, after the CDC is taken care and sailing has reasonable rules for passengers and crew, DeSantis is going to have to amend the law. If not, the cruise lines will leave FL. It is not difficult to sail out of Galveston, NOLA, Baltimore, NY, and other places. 

Don't forget Philadelphia , they use to have a cruise port for Bermuda cruises, its sitting empty plus Philly is a hub for American so they would have plenty of flights

On 5/6/2021 at 3:46 AM, BoozinCroozin said:

The difference is that the cruise lines are not a privately owned business. They are a multi-billion dollar publicly traded business. Like I said, if the May 12th case is in favor of FL, the injunction on the CSO will allow cruises to operate restriction free. If the CDC wins, then the cruise lines will demand vaccines. Either way, the cruise lines win with the outcome. This is just to see how far the CDC or FL can reach the fence if you catch the meaning.

No, if the cruise lines go without a vaccine requirement and have another big Covid outbreak (a very possible if not probable outcome) the 24/7 media coverage with be the final  nail in the cruise     industry's coffin  - they really cant afford another Diamond Princess fiasco.

On 3/16/2021 at 8:03 AM, Hlitner said:

Just to keep it full disclosure, FL prohibits collection of fines for failure to follow local mask rules.  That being said you would have to look far and wide in our country to find folks who have actually paid fines for not wearing a mask.  And while we were in KY (early Dec) they did have a mask requirement (even outdoors) that was followed by more then 50%.

 

Those who live in States where Governor's are enjoying dictatorial powers might enjoy visiting FL where just about everything is open (and has been open) with the usual capacity restrictions.  They are doing much better then NY (where lock downs were strict) and about the same as the Newsom Republic of CA.

 

Hank

Hank you might want to rethink your Covid 19 analysis, California numbers have greatly improved, lower cases per 100,000 persons that Florida and Texas, very few red states are doing better than California  except for West Virginia (whose Governor has been very serious about Covid and had one of the best vaccine rollout)

Cruise lines that don't require full vaccination, all it will require is one outbreak ( with all the bad publicity that will follow)and they will fall in line.

My guess is those cruise lines not requiring vaccination will reverse course after they (or another non-vaccination requiring  line) sails and has a Covid outbreak. The economic impact and all the bad press will force their hand

yes

Alabama just started to vaccinate 65 and older starting on 2/10/21, my wife and I received the Pfizer shot at Southeast Health that day, Today schools were closed so teachers (regardless of age) can be vaccinated if they choose. . County Health  Department is now calling those on wait list to make appointments (most likely Moderna vaccine)

Local hospitals learned the lessons from Florida and required appointment times, we were in and out in under 30 minutes - have a classmate from Daytona Beach that waited in line for 17 hours for her first shot !!!