charmed1959

1 hour ago, dockman said:

  Brother, off Rotterdam no symptoms,  had to fly charter to ATL then commercial from Atlanta to Charlotte because FLL would not let them into airport...in spite of fact he could have flown non stop FLL to CLT....so Florida doesn't mind having people go through Atlanta airport but not FLL?? 

 

Meantime FLL airport "open for business" with people arriving from who knows where, infected with who knows what with little or no screening.  Not to mention thousands of people arriving everyday via cars from who knows where infected with who knows what.  Add to that the exemption for Florida churches to hold large services with no social distancing required.  

 

But go ahead and blame your problems on those "virus villains" the cruise passengers.

Considering the four south Florida Counties have more Coronavirus cases than all of Georgia your brother is much less likely to catch the Coronavirus in Atlanta than in FLL.

43 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

10 critically ill pax going to Broward Health.

4 critically ill pax going to Hialeah. 

 

Ambulances lined up.

They must have triaged. Broward health is close.  Hialeah is 25 miles away.  Are they by chance helicoptering them?

5 minutes ago, volk904 said:

It has been almost 2 weeks since Holland tried to get the passengers off the ship.  I am glad that between Carnival, Trump and others were able to convince Florida officials to do the right thing.  One day I expect this might be a move.   Let’s hope the transfer goes well.   

If this does become a movie I very much hope this will be the end and not the beginning.

1 hour ago, Reader0108598 said:

I understand what you are saying but just because you don't appear or feel sick,does not mean you are not. You can still spread it!. I know we need to help these people but I understand Florida.Easy for me to talk from my comfortable home ! I wish all the best of luck! 

 

Given the number of Covid19 cases in South Florida, I’d suspect the healthy looking cruise passengers are no more likely to have the virus than the rest of the people at the Fort Lauderdale or Miami airports.  

For the not visibly sick people, Port Everglades would work, in they could get the 49 Floridians into cars, the 250 other American’s onto commercial flights, and the thousand foreign passengers on charters home.  It’s the sick I worry about the most coming into south Florida.  Maybe they could air ambulance the very sick to other areas of the state with available capacity?  With all but essential services shut down in that part of the state I’m not sure there is a commercial option for those that just need a place to lay low and get over this.  
 

Unlike the Grand Princess, it sounds like they are discussing putting them at a cruise terminal, rather than disembarking them into a parking lot.  After the disembarkation are they going to shutter that terminal until they disinfect it?  I guess they don’t need it for awhile.

What I would have liked to seen in his statement would be them taking some responsibility.  The Diamond Princess fiasco was in Feb.  As was the HAL Maasdam having trouble finding a place to disembark.  The first passenger on the Grand Princess died March 4th, meaning they knew there was a ship in Mexico with the virus spreading in Feb.  There were more than a handful of ships that were denied docking around the world before March 7th.  In retrospect it’s pretty obvious they should have been cancelling all cruises out of an abundance of caution.  But hindsight is 20/20.  And yes, the crew are the folks stuck out there and they did nothing wrong.

What would make everyone feel better is to put out a plan in the statement.  Perhaps say, HAL will charter planes to take passengers back to their home states and countries.  Those living in Florida will have rental cars waiting for them at the port and they are expected to drive home and self quarantine for 14 days.  Ambulance planes will be ready to fly very sick passengers and crew to somewhere that has the capacity to give them wonderful health care, and HAL will foot the part of the bill not covered by insurance.

I hope if the mayor does allow the ship to dock he makes sure he has the facilities to take on the sick passengers.  Bringing them into port without having enough hospitals beds would be cruel.

I think the hesitancy the governor of Florida has about taking in these passengers in South Florida is they would be disembarking people INTO a very live pandemic.  Over half of Florida’s 5400 cases (and growing) are in Dade and Broward counties.  There are already close to 300 people hospitalized in those two counties alone.  It would be unfair to everyone, passengers and locals alike, to have to chose who gets the very limited supplies to save their lives.

Other parts of Florida are no where near as hard hit.  Port Canaveral, Tampa, Jacksonville are all better off in terms of available medical help.

For those in Canada and Nevada that are doing home isolation, what are the logistics? How do they get from the the airport to their home?  If they are being transported on public transit from the plane to their homes, are they tested first?  Or only if they show symptoms?

15 hours ago, SM77 said:

I will check with Viking but do others think this applies to river cruises as well?

 

Given the quarantined river cruise in Luxor, Egypt, I’d guess yes.

Perhaps they think the crew is more likely to be infected.

I run a few short term rentals.  Right now, the big booking companies are letting guests cancel accommodations with even strict cancellation policies.  Some host are upset they are losing money, but I’m thinking I cannot afford to have guests quarantined in my houses.  If a guest is a little sick, but traveling because they already spent the money they are more likely to infect their accommodations and those around them. I’ll take the short term hit on slow business over a disaster.

I think some cruise lines are thinking like the other hosts, that they will have half empty ships if they allow cancellations.  And other cruise lines like Seaborne and Viking are thinking more like myself, that a full ship with folks that shouldn’t have been cruising will require them to refund everyone on that quarantined ship, offer them another free cruise, and refund all on the cruises that have to be cancelled to clean up the ship. And that would cost more than a few less than full cruises. 
 

Also, those with the easy to cancel policies will continue to get bookings as this crisis goes on, and once it’s under control those cruisers will all show up.  While those with the strict cancellation policies will have less people booking, as they are afraid to sign up for a trip that three months from now they think is unsafe.  
 

The final piece of the puzzle is PR.  Unfortunately, it will be awhile before the Princess Cruise name is not associated with quarantined ships.  The high end cruise lines don’t want that type of PR.

2 hours ago, Coral said:

Nebraska Medicine is gaining one more patient from the Diamond Princess who has tested positive for the virus.. This individual has been staying in Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and is being flown to Omaha. I am not exactly sure why they are coming here - except their spouse is in an isolation unit in Omaha. They will also be in an isolation unit as their condition doesn't warrant the biocontainment unit.

 

This brings out count to 14 in Omaha.

 

Here is a daily update site: https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID 

The CDC is reporting 36 passengers from the Diamond Princess that we brought home are testing positive for the virus.

Omaha has 14. Lackland AFB says they have 5 more.  Are the other 17 near Travis AFB?

The US CDC numbers released today show 36 repatriated Diamond Princess tested positive.

The CDC now says there are 18 Diamond Princess passengers brought back to the US that have tested positive. Eleven of that number were the folks that tested positive before they got on the plane and were retested in Omaha.  I’m confused whether the 12th one did not retest positive or if they stayed in California and are included those.
 

11 minutes ago, littlelulu01 said:

Do we know the status of the 621 passengers infected?  Ie what percent is mild, critical...  

According to worldometers.info, 621 infected, 20 critical, 17 recovered.  Anyone hear what happened to the recovered passengers?  Were they sent home?

Does the app allow you to make reservations today? You might have better availability getting reservations before the cruise.

We sailed with my parents on the Nov 12th Harmony sailing. They had a central park balcony. They got the bottle of wine, the offer for a casino lesson, and the free lunch at Jamie's. They were told they only could go to lunch on Friday, the last day of the cruise. When they went they thought it had a limited menu, perhaps for the neighborhood lunch folks. We raved about a pasta dish we had at dinner there, but there were no pasta dishes on their lunch menu.

All and all, they wish they had a sea balcony. The park itself had it's own climate, and was very windy most of the trip. They were also thinking a balcony over the park would be quiet and restful filled with the sounds of guitarists or other calming music. During the day there were Zumba classes on the bridge between pools on the 15th floor. The sound echoed through park, it was ridiculously loud. They never used their balcony.

We used ours for 150 central park, and it was pretty good. We actually paid for Jamies, and that was our favorite.

Our AAA dining voucher could not be booked in advance, somyou might want to wander central park on your first day and see what's available.

Looks awesome!! Hope you are enjoying everything!

 

Question:

Sailing on Harmony on 1/28/17. Have restaurant bookings for 4 of the 7 nights. Any chance on getting the MDR menus posted to see which nights are best for eating there?

We just got off the Harmony last Saturday. We were with a large group, and had MDR reservations as a group every night. I'd say you can safely skip the MDR. No one in our very large group was impressed.

We took 3 nights off. Our dinner at Jamie's was our favorite. We had a free dinner at 100 Central Park, and it had good and less good choices. We enjoyed the sushi at Izumi one night. And some evenings after the MDR disappointed us we headed to the Windjammer and found some much better food.

Anyone have experience with splitting the wifi signal using a travel router on a RCCL ship? Why pay for 4 device access when you can pay one. Just curious.

We just got off the Harmony, and they way their wifi works was you would get a login and password that would work for as many devices as you paid for at a time. For instance, we paid for two, and we could move back and forth between it being for my phone and my ipad, or my husband's ipad and my ipad, or his phone and my phone. So you only need to pay for as many devices as you will have accessing it at a time.

You can also pay by the day, so if you only wanted access for a second device on sea days you don't have to pay for two for the entire trip.

On our Budapest to Visholen most stuck to slacks for dinner, but jeans were certainly acceptable.

I know that on the Vantage River Navigator the dining room is on the Navigator deck (just below the open upper deck).

 

Thanks. That's what I was looking for.

My parents recently took them. AMA put them on a LAX to Munich, Munich to Budapest. They did have a long layover in Munich, about 5 or 6 hours, that then got them to the ship just in time for the welcome drink. They didn't have time to shower before their first night dinner at the captain's table. But other then that, my parents were pretty happy with the flights.

 

I can't imagine having another ship on both sides of you, it must be very gloomy. It doesn't sound like very good planning on behalf of the cruise line.

Yeah, I was wondering how common that was. I think AMA is trying to save on docking fees. I wouldn't recommend this cruise.