Castaway Cowgirl

On 2/10/2021 at 8:47 PM, trbarton said:

Here’s what I’m hearing as a suggestion. Bypass the US & start & end cruises in Mexico. Cancun has been suggested. This means the CDC is not involved & we don’t have to deal with the PVSA act plus there is no restrictions to cruises longer than 7 days. 
 

If your were to cruise from Seattle for example to Ensenada your cruise would have to be 7 days or less. 
 

What do other people think?
 

Tom😀

This sounds great.

I see people are saying all of Alaska is cancelled, but on the Princess website it says only Alaska cruises from Vancouver, not Seattle, are cancelled.  Is this right?

Yes but I don’t like it and I agree with those who say masks are pointless 

17 hours ago, Ride-The-Waves said:

You must be kidding!  A traveling serial spreader!  CDC has informed that having COVID-19 once doesn't spare you from getting it again and will not stop the new variants.  Only the vaccination will stop the spread and help to keep you safe.

Sorry, I just don’t have the fear that you do.  I don’t mean that in a defiant or condescending way.  I understand your perspective.  I got covid early on (almost a year ago- hard to believe) and wanted to know as much about it as possible.  I was scared too.  So I’ve done a lot of my own reading on the topic.  I’ve look at the raw data and how it is collected, both of which are not always easy to find.  I recommend that to you.  If you take the media and cdc at face value, you will become paralyzed over a virus with a very low death rate, comparable to a bad flu.  That’s from the cdc’s own numbers.  And the cdc has admitted  that there is inflation in their numbers.  If you are looking for a place to start, I recommend the academics at Stanford’s Hoover institution.  I wish you the best.  

4 hours ago, caribill said:

Per the CDC:

Travelers should avoid all travel to Mexico.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/covid-4/coronavirus-mexico

 

Mexico reached 155,145 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 Thursday, which would make it the country with the world’s third-highest total, passing India’s death toll of 153,847.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4114784

I’ve already had Covid along with the majority of people I know.  Not worried about traveling to Mexico.  I’ve been traveling all over the US (South) since this started.  

It is interesting but POA gets absolutely awful reviews on service.  

1 minute ago, BND said:

If you read up on why they stopped them, it had more to do with some obstacles that they have since overcome and funding having dried up.

 

Also, did you actually read the link you posted and the conclusions?

 

https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-once-dismissed-idea-became-a-leading-technology-in-the-covid-vaccine-race/

 

Yes.  Penn is saying full speed ahead but they are also admitting that we do not know if these rna vaccines are completely safe.  There are risks with everything, or most things, so I am not expecting life to be risk free.  But the point is that for me, the risk isn’t worth it.  Covid isn’t deadly enough.  And there are plenty of therapies.  Not interested in a vaccine that uses new, suspect (for me) technology.  There are a lot of doctors online who are very, very skeptical of this vaccine.  

18 minutes ago, Bgwest said:

That's the spirit!! 😀

I put a laughing emoji but I am serious!  Is it a possibility?  I noticed that they haven’t sent out cancel notifications yet...

On 2/1/2021 at 10:53 AM, BND said:

RNA vaccines have been researched since about 1990.  So, when exactly is long enough?

That is what is disturbing actually.  They have been researching them a long time but never used them because of negative side effects.  The problem is that we really do not know.  Is Covid that bad that you would risk this unknown?  For me, no.
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/cep/COVID/mRNA vaccine review final.pdf

We have an Alaskan cruise scheduled out of Seattle in August.  Can princess just reroute it to Mexico?  

On 1/16/2021 at 9:03 PM, HuliHuli said:

The thought that the USA would have an internet site with names of individuals and associated health information (vaccination status) that a cruise line could access is antithetical to the concept of patient privacy under the requirements of HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).  Such information would fall under the definition of "Protected Health Information."  To wit:

 

"Protected Health Information. The Privacy Rule protects all "individually identifiable health information" held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral. The Privacy Rule calls this information "protected health information (PHI)."

“Individually identifiable health information” is information, including demographic data, that relates to:

• the individual’s past, present or future physical or mental health or condition,
• the provision of health care to the individual, or
• the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to the individual,

and that identifies the individual or for which there is a reasonable basis to believe it can be used to identify the individual.  Individually identifiable health information includes many common identifiers (e.g., name, address, birth date, Social Security Number)."

I agree this will never happen.  

We will be on an August Alaska cruise with 3 kids.  They are generally well behaved, but they are kids. I agree that kids clubs will be limited capacity, so kids will be more visible.  I think the last week of August will have less kids. September probably almost none.

We won’t sail if we have to go on cruise line excursions to leave the ship.  We also will not cruise if we have to wear masks.

12 hours ago, Airbear232 said:

Yes, but there is still uncertainty whether having the virus will grant permanent immunity.  It may only last ~6 months.  Also, some indications in German studies of cardiac impact (mainly inflammation) in up to 80% of total people who recovered from Covid (including those under 50).  People need to be very careful with this.  My son's 22, I don't want him being cavalier thinking he'll shrug it off and potentially damage his heart for life in the process. 

No lasting effects here...  well, except for a renewed appreciation for life!  The media tries to make it out to be exotic, but it was very, very similar to the flu.

On 8/6/2020 at 9:08 PM, BND said:

Seriously? That's not arrogant, that's reality.  If you haven't had the flu, eventually you will.  I don't know anyone who hasn't ever had the flu at some point in their life.  Do you?

 

Arrogant is saying "I've never".

Although I have usually taken the flu shot yearly, I will never get the flu shot again after COVID.  I had no idea how ineffective flu shots are and that they can lead to other respiratory illnesses like COVID or pneumonia.  I’ve just decided to stay away from vaccines in general unless they are for something with a very high death rate.  

https://www.disabledveterans.org/2020/03/11/flu-vaccine-increases-coronavirus-risk/

So I feel like I should start my own thread for this because I am shocked that princess actually refunded us!  We were en route to our March cruise when Princess shut her doors.  Cruise cancelled.  We took the extra cruise credit option and headed to Disney— theme parks closed 4 days into our stay there.   We received the FCCs from princess in May.  Then, at the beginning of July we received a couple of random credits on chase sapphire for things like prepaid Water and internet.  The next week we were refunded grats (except for 1person out of 6.  No idea, but whatever.). We had two cabins and just today received the refund for taxes and fees.  This was another almost $1000, so a decent amount of money.  It was really a thrill to get refunded  because my husband has been laughing for some time at my naïveté at thinking princess would actually refund us.  Yes, I am glass half full.  Thanks princess for keeping the faith.

12 hours ago, nunuc2000 said:

**UPDATE** Spoke with Carnival, and they said they are unable/unwilling to make any changes to make this right.  The only change they said they could make was to move the deck 1 front of ship room from deck 1 up to deck 2, under the galley and near the rear. Ummm... no thanks. 

 

We have now cancelled both legs of this cruise, along with our B2B Christmas cruise/NYE cruise on the Magic for Dec 19th and 26th.  The plan was to sail B2B out of Port Canaveral for 2 weeks, then drive down to Miami and sail another B2B.  This whole experience with Carnival has left a bad vibe, and we're not interested in cruising with them again until they can sort themselves out.  Odds are the Radiance/Breeze cruise would likely have been cancelled anyway... and I suspect the Christmas/NYE cruises will be too... those are always completely sold out and packed, and I just don't know how they can manage "reduced capacity" cruising unless they plan to cancel passenger's bookings from under them. At least we know we won't be among those if they decide to do that. 

 

Perhaps we'll cruise again later next year... but to be honest, I'm not sure Carnival will be the line we choose.  They've fallen far behind in terms of "great cruising experiences and value" over the last few years for us.  We've sailed over 40 times on 6 different cruise-lines, and RCL and Celebrity are topping the list for us these days.  

 

 

Sorry to hear this.

On 7/23/2020 at 6:46 AM, Jamman54 said:

Exact same thing happened to us but we caught it last Saturday and were able to get moved back to our bowling alley balcony. Check to see if any remain on your sailing then asked to be moved. On our sailing those cabins are now long gone. 😎

Thank you, unfortunately all of those balconies on our sailing were gone right away.  I do not understand how, but Carnival must have filled them when they switched over the bookings.  I was checking for our new Radiance/Breeze booking to show up every day because I was worried about this cabin situation.  I just had a bad feeling about it which turned out to be true 😕.  We are on the Thanksgiving sailing and it has been very full for some time.  We booked a couple of years ago right after bookings opened, so it is very disappointing in general.  Not all Carnival’s fault.  Since CCL hasn’t started sailing yet, we have been leaning towards cancelling this upcoming Radiance/Breeze cruise anyway.  We do not want to have to pay in full and wait for a refund.  But... if they had given us the same bowling alley cabin on the Breeze, we probably would have thrown caution to the wind and just paid in full!
I love your reviews.  

Also not happy with our reassignment.  We were in a bowling alley balcony aft.  Now we are in the middle of the ship in a connecting balcony.  Did Carnival even look at these assignments?  They also did not apply the $200 onboard credit.  We scheduled this cruise over 2 years ago and are very disappointed with the entire situation.  We are just going to cancel.

No, because I already had it.  No, because there is something disturbing about the idea of a company requiring a vaccine.  No, because the mortality rate for this illness is so low that it is not worth the risk for my family.  Maybe in ten years after the vaccine has been around for a while.  Cost/benefit analysis.

Thanks! 

18 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

What if they never announce a vaccine? I don’t mean to pick on you, but it is amazing how many people on this site think it is a foregone conclusion that an effective vaccine will be developed for this current virus. Even if a vaccine is developed, there is a strong possibility that the efficacy rate will not be very high.  

The flu vaccine only has from 40-60% efficacy rate, which for me means it is not effective.  When they do come up with a covid-19 vaccine, it will probably be equally ineffective.  They have not come up with a coronavirus vaccine before which makes me think it is not an easy thing to do.  But I think the vaccine is like a placebo and will make everyone feel better regardless of efficacy— similar to the flu shot.  In that way it doesn’t really matter how effective it is.

I thought key west was its own country.  😎

Thanks, sounds good!