gatour

19 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

What's wrong with the map🤔

John, I didn't see an answer.

The only thing I have come up with is that cabin 9641 in on the port side vs the starboard side as the map/directions indicate.

9 hours ago, ksp819 said:

Last year we cruised Oceania for the first time.  I was shocked and elated when I found out there was no muster drill!!!  We simply watched a video on our stateroom tv.  The tv was set up to where you had to watch the video before you could access any other functions of the tv.  It was awesome!!!  Would love it if RC would do something similar.  Honestly I think people would get more out of it if at least one family member paid attention and knew what to do in an emergency!

When I get on a cruise ship I don't make bee line to the cabin to use the functions of the TV.

At least if everyone is required to initially go to a muster station they kind of know where to go.  If only one person does this, doesn't matter much later in the cruise for their fellow cabin mates.  I know me and my wife are not married at the hip during a cruise.  I lay to vedge out and read, while she is doing an activity and vice versa.  If I attended the muster drill and she didn't, doesn't do her much good in the event of a real call to muster stations and she is on the other end of the ship from me.

On 4/20/2020 at 11:51 PM, Ourusualbeach said:

I cannot imagine that the few people that are naive enough to think that the cruise lines are going to be sailing the end of June beginning of July are contributing a significant amount of money to Royal’s bank account.  It is about trying to deal with the  issuing of refunds and FCC’s in a controlled manner and not overwhelming their call centre. 

I agree with it having to do with issuing refunds etc.

However the CDC can lift the no-sail rule at anytime before expiration or as expiration approaches, they can extend it.

6 minutes ago, molly361 said:

How about today? I hear you can sit on the beaches again down there 

Don't know about John's county.  But Duval (Jacksonville) beaches are open from 6am-11am and 5pm-10pm.  You can't bring chairs or blankets to lay out.  You can walk/run, fish, and surf.  St Johns county (st augustine) Open 6am-Noon with similar conditions as Duval.

12 hours ago, suzyluvs2cruise said:

Sorry that I didn't post all my thoughts. I should have added guests at a resort can be transported easily from the resort to the hospital while guests on a cruise ship need to be evacuated from the ship and then transported to a hospital. 

Cruise ship can dock.  Patient can then be transported to hospital.  I have been on one ship that had left St Thomas about an hour ago, when the Captain came on the speaker and said we were returning to St Thomas to offload an unhealthy passenger.  We docked the passenger was placed in a waiting ambulance and taken to the hospital. I have been on other cruises where when docked as scheduled and there were waiting ambulance(s)

On 4/14/2020 at 10:27 PM, rolloman said:

No I do not...run along now.... Folks, here is another one who shows no remorse in toying with folks who have suffered due to a breach in contract. What a sad world we live in. 

What breach of contract?  They are refunding money.  It may be taking time, but they are refunding money.

2 hours ago, time4u2go said:

I'm guessing it's illegal to never give them back, but not sure of a law that says that there's a time limit.

As I said above it would be fraud.  However I am with you about an exact time limit.  Since people are reporting receiving refunds, RCCL can say they are making a good faith effort in issuing refunds.  So it probably would be hard to find a lawyer to take a civil case against RCCL.  Same for a State Attorney to try to press criminal charges.

For those lamenting how refunds are not immediate.

During normal times if you cancelled within the penalty you% only get X% of your money back.  So you call to cancel, the agent his the cancel button and the computer figures which penalty phase you are in and calculates the refund and issues it.  This a onesy/twosy thing Now you are getting a 100% refund, so this has to be overriden plus it is not now a onesy/twosy thing, it is now thousands and thousands thing.  The pipe wasn't designed to handle this flow.

As an example,  I supported an application that could handle 16 transactions/minute (not financial transactions).  If we got 1000 transactions in one minute.  The last transaction wouldn't be processed until 62 minutes later.  Doesn't matter if we put the application on a more powerful server, it still would take 62 minutes to process every transaction.  RCCL can be experience the same scenario.  We eventually replace the application with another vendor's application that provided the same functionality and the ability to handle hundreds and hundreds of transaction.

Another example yesterday Suntrust/BB&T Online Banking crashed due to the number of people checking on their stimulus money.

There was mention of 90 days.  That was RCCL guidance.  I have seen threads where people are receiving refunds in about a month.

1 hour ago, EscapeFromConnecticut said:

 

Exactly. During a global pandemic - the only one of my lifetime, and I'm old - the cruise industry forced port authorities, health agencies, marine police units and others to deal with one self-created crisis after another: after Diamond came Golden, Coral, the Zaandam, Ruby. 

Cruise lines burned bridges in numerous countries by their short-sighted stupidity and greed in letting too many sailings go forward. Now they'll pay the price.

 

Governments are not the emergency cavalry for lousy planning by corporations. 

Disney World has guests from all over the country and the world.  Using this logic why should Florida tax payers take care of people getting sick at Disney World due lack of planning my Disney corporation.

51 minutes ago, rimmit said:

You are missing the argument.  The previous poster was stating that resorts aren’t denied access to hospitals, why should cruise ships be denied.   It’s not the passengers being denied access to hospitals. It’s the passengers being denied access to the country.    Big difference.  Once in the country, most likely the country would assist the passengers on a healthcare front whether they are a Citizen or not and sort the bill out later.  However, they are being blocked at the gate.

 

They aren’t being denied healthcare, they are being denied either coastguard, naval, or other extraordinary assistance.  If they got to the US they wouldn’t be denied healthcare.  This issue is getting into the US as since these are foreign flagged boats the US is not so eager to let them dock with a ship full of infected people and ports are closing to cruise ships whether people are infected or not. 

At this point the people who boarded the boat knowingly during a pandemic are knowingly subjecting themselves to a high level of risk and possible quarantine.  The CDC is basically saying at this point, unless you abide by our rules we aren’t bailing you out anymore.  The issue at hand is that cruise ships are drawing a lot of resources every time they require quarantine and repatriation which is becoming incredibly common place and cruise ships are banking on the USN and USCG to continually bail them out when Covid strikes their ships.

I am not missing the argument.

By the CDC/Coast Guard denying ships carrying UNITED STATE's passengers to dock.  They are denying UNITED STATE's passengers access to health care.  Remember these are tax paying citizens.

On 4/10/2020 at 6:08 PM, Hlitner said:

It is not just Dr. Argarwal who has reached that conclusion.  It has also been studied by some academics in the USA that have reached the same conclusion.   We also have some first hand experience since we live in a cruise port during the winter and see how little the passengers contribute to the local economy other then supporting one major local tour company who has a near monopoly on all cruise excursions.  

 

But your comment about places that would barely exist without cruise ship passengers got my interest.  DW and I have probably been to over 150 cruise destinations, over more then forty years, and we have yet to see any port or surrounding region that has benefited from the cruise influx.  Can you site some places that would "barely exist" without cruise ship passengers?

 

I will tell you that we are very aware of some major European ports that would be very happy to see the demise of cruise visits.  And we have watched cruise ship visits all but destroy the charm of several Caribbean islands.....as some others continue to do their utmost to keep ships out (St Barts and Anguilla are two good examples).

 

Hank

For the barely exist.  I would say Costa Maya.  For one of our cruises last year I tried to book a beach club day visit.  It was completely booked by other passengers on the ship we were sailing on.  Found another place "in town"  The whole promenade was full of beach clubs and various restaurants.  They were staffed by locals.  When the Costa Maya dock was first built it was just a sleepy fishing village.

While some locals may not like how the area has changed, I am sure those that are  making a living don't mind the change.

Remember Orlando was a sleepy little citrus/cattle town before Disney arrived.

17 hours ago, rimmit said:

The nursing homes and resorts pay taxes to the country they are located.  They do not fly foreign flags to circumvent local labor laws and taxes.  They pay for the right to have access to the local healthcare system via taxes.  In theory the ships need to go to the Bahamas, Liberia, malta, etc to receive the support as that is the flag they fly.

The vast majority of passengers sailing from US ports are US citizens.  Being US citizens they pay taxes, so should they be denied healthcare.

1 hour ago, Coopdog08 said:

Biggest piece for me from article was that most of the layoffs were permanent vs designated days furloughed. 

Permanent is a relative term.  I imagine if RCCL survives as a going entity, when things pick they probably look at rehiring the former employees first.  Saves on training costs.  Obviously if RCCL is smaller then probably won't rehire everyone.

Many companies have laid off employees.  I am sure they also would do the same.

It would be considered fraud if they kept the money you paid for taxes and port fees.  Since people are reporting that they are receiving refunds, that means RCCL isn't holding the money.  It is just taking time to process the refunds.

4 hours ago, BP99 said:

In most cruise line contracts, it states that they can change cruise ports at

their discretion. Once I had a phone call from a cruise line that told me that

my Baltic cruise WAS NOT CANCELLED but instead it was going to the

caribbean. I already had hotels, flights etc booked in Europe. Yes, they

can find other ports or miss ports and stay at sea (called a cruise to nowhere).

From my understanding some European countries have laws/regulations similar to the US PVSA laws, that do not allow cruises to nowhere.

I find it hard to believe that a Baltic cruise was changed to a Caribbean cruise.  The only exception would be a TA cruise starting here in the states that include some Baltic ports, and disembarking at a European port.

Otherwise it would have to sail from some European port to the Caribbean (taking 6-7 days)  stop at some Caribbean ports and the spend another 6-7 days going back to Europe.

On 4/10/2020 at 8:56 PM, reallyitsmema said:

LOL

 

Not going to waste my time with a post like this.

Why not?

Have you taken statistics classes, and classes on how polls are constructed? If so please enlighten me.

3 hours ago, fudgbug said:

Ya, I have and once was enough.  It was on the Sovereign.

I sailed on Sovereign when she the largest cruise ship in the world.  She would now be considered small to middling.  Wondering what ships you sail on now.

Getting back to the original topic.

Consolidation, no.  They are all fighting their own battles.

I see RCCL saleing their smaller ships.

CCL is an interesting case.  They like to use their older/smaller ships in smaller niche markets that can't fill a larger/newer ship.  These ships are "paid for"  I.E. they have already returned the initial build costs (years ago).  So they are only paying for operating and maintenance costs.  Think what happens when you pay off your mortgage.  You are now only paying utilities, property taxes and maintenance (i.e. periodically repainting the house).

The Saudi stock purchase did not dilute the number of existing shares.  These were existing shares owned by other investment banks, firms, etc.  No money went into Carnival coffers.  In regards to the cultural thing being thrust on the ships.  The Saudi sovereign fund has multiple investments in things that would not be allowed at home.

In regards to a cargo shipping company buying one of the cruise lines I highly doubt that would happen.  MSC is a privately owned company, so the decision to branch out and try out the cruise market would only have had to be ran by a few others.  As opposed to a corporate board/shareholders.

Investment firms most likely have interest in buying into the cruise line.  Over the last 10-20 years, they would leverage buy out restaurants.  Take out cash and property ownership and then spin off the restaurant chain with tons of crushing debt.  This wouldn't work with the cruise companies because of their high fixed cost and lack of liquidity of their primary assets, the ships themselves.

Carnival will probably survive more or less as is, maybe shedding a few ships and cancelling newbuilds.

RCCL may have to enter bankruptcy but it will be more of an reorganization/forgiveness of debt.  With the inclusion of a sale/retirement of some ships

NCL.  This is the wild card.  It will survive in some shape or form.  Who owns them is another question.

2 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

1000% agree. 

 

Like the talking heads on CNN that spout out information out of context and without true basis and most do.

 

 

 Sarcastic mode on.  And Fox News is a bellwether of objectivity. Sarcastic mode off.

Does any news organization get everything correct 100% of the time no.  But please make a better effort than Fox News.

On 4/11/2020 at 2:15 PM, cpaman said:

If I can not buy American Products, Then I will Buy from India, Mexico, etc.

I will never support a Country that unleashed death and destruction on the World.

 

On 4/11/2020 at 2:29 PM, time4u2go said:

I guess you won't be buying a TV or a cell phone or a computer ever again

Nor an automobile.  Or a major appliance.  They all contain parts from China, no matter where the final point of assembly happens.

CPAMAN, I could go on with other items, if you so desire

Ourusualbeach,

While I have no skin in the game as I had no cruises booked.  I would like to thank you for keeping people update/researching what may be in happening regards to FCC/refunds.

14 hours ago, jeremyosborne81 said:

Except that it literally IS a SARS virus. It CAN easily be compared to other viruses of the same type, in this case SARS.

There is no vaccine for the previous SARS virus, which as you stated was not as bad as this, right? So why would people assume there will be a vaccine for this?

In 2016 there was a SARS vaccine ready to go to human testing, but the scientists involved couldn't get private industry to invest or gov't grants.  Not saying it would have been successful there was potential. 

1 hour ago, chipmaster said:

Suspect there the lawyers will be very busy with Grand, Coral, Diamond and also the other lines notably HAL with the Zaandam 

 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/09/grand-princess-passengers-sue-cruise-line-for-negligence-over-covid-19-outbreak/

 

But looks like the cruise lines are very clever?

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/04/02/coronavirus-lawsuits-face-uphill-battle-against-cruise-industry/5111173002/

They are not being clever, they are just using what is available to them.  It is not just the cruise lines but cargo companies that utilized the existing laws (international or otherwise) that have been in place for decades if not a century.

The USA today Article even references this, and the attempt to change some of the laws.

2 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Enforcing hand washing is great in concept, but does little to help with COVID-19 which is easily spread via a cough or sneeze.   And consider that even the newest ships only have a few handwashing stations to serve thousands of passengers.  Imagine 500 passengers queued up for two handwashing sinks at a Lido entrance!  Folks are not going to pay for that kind of vacation!

 

Hank

In regards to hand washing stations, I am assuming you are referencing the front of the Lido buffet.  The most recent Royal Caribbean Oasis class ships have handwashing stations at the beginning.  There are multiple sinks and the queues were at most a minute or two.

Covid is also spread through shaking hands with someone who recently wiped their nose and then you scratching your nose/face with your now infected hands.  So you hand washing is conducive for you not getting infected.

4 hours ago, reallyitsmema said:

They surveyed approximately 1600 people, half of which weren't even cruisers.  I take a pass on this information.  

 

Why not start a poll on ages here, there are more here who are not seniors than you seem to think.

You obviously don't understand the underlying methodology of polling and statistics in general.

It looks like they were trying to poll various age groups, income and people that have cruised and people have not cruised.

If I owned a cruise line I want to know about the people that have not cruised and what drew/draws them  to a particular vacation.

Yes you want to compete against other cruise lines but you also want compete and draw people from land based vacations (Walt Disney World/all-inclusives etc).  If you do the former you are just slicing the the same size pie in a different way.  If you do the latter you are increasing the size of the pie and getting your share.

Since this is a CLIA sponsored poll, I imagine they are trying to increase the size of the cruise pie at the expense of the size of the land based vacation pie.

For reservations for shows, Royal Caribbean does it for the Oasis class ships.

I agree with you, world cruises will be curtailed

Dining room separation, most likely won't happen.  If you have all cabins booked they need to be fed.  To get all fed and them separated would require three seatings or three turns in an anytime seating situation.  People would have to eat dinner at 5:00, 7:30, and 10:00

Don't know if delaying embarkation  by one hour helps in the disinfecting process.