PRINCESS SHIPS & CORONA VIRUS

[Aus Traveller]

6 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

We have a 30 day cruise from Los Angeles to Beijing booked in October with some stops in Japan and Korea before disembarking  and flying back to the US from Shanghai. With are final payment due in mid July, do you think it will have peaked by then?

If I was in your position, I would be preparing to cancel. There is probably not much point in doing this now, rather than waiting until closer to the final payment date. Check into how much you would lose at each date. When there is a recommendation from your government that you should not travel to a country, any travel insurance you may hold is likely to cover your loses.

[matadams4u]

This is getting a bit more serious and complicated throughout the travel industry.  I booked a quick land tour to Rome leaving in ten days.  My hotel was changed yesterday since the hotel I was booked being in a 14 day quarantine due to the two cases in Italy staying at the hotel.  My advice right now is -

 

*. Have travel insurance.

*. Book air with your cruise or tour operator.

* recognize even a single case or suspected case could result in a 14 day quarantine.  Have some idea of what a 14 day quarantine would mean.

*. Take your temperature before leaving to the airport.

*. There is some risk in all areas of the world right now except South America and Africa.

*. Expect things to be dicey in more parts of Asia in the days to come.  Although that is not certain just higher than comfort probability.

* Expect high safety protocols throughout your trip.

* Recognize you cannot control what happens.  You can wear a face mask but if one person in your plane, bus, hotel or ship comes down with something everyone will probably at the very least be asked to be in isolation and monitored for a period of time.

 

On the plus side -

 

*. Expect to see some great bargains in the coming months.

*. So many people depend on our travel so don’t give up travel.

 

[npcl]

3 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

If I was in your position, I would be preparing to cancel. There is probably not much point in doing this now, rather than waiting until closer to the final payment date. Check into how much you would lose at each date. When there is a recommendation from your government that you should not travel to a country, any travel insurance you may hold is likely to cover your loses.

Not sure about travel insurance in Australia, but most travel insurance in the US does not have recommendation from government not to travel as a covered reason. Nor disease outbreak in travel region.  You pretty much have to have cancel for any reason to be able to cancel and get covered.

[npcl]

3 minutes ago, matadams4u said:

This is getting a bit more serious and complicated throughout the travel industry.  I booked a quick land tour to Rome leaving in ten days.  My hotel was changed yesterday since the hotel I was booked being in a 14 day quarantine due to the two cases in Italy staying at the hotel.  My advice right now is -

 

*. Have travel insurance.

*. Book air with your cruise or tour operator.

* recognize even a single case or suspected case could result in a 14 day quarantine.  Have some idea of what a 14 day quarantine would mean.

*. Take your temperature before leaving to the airport.

*. There is some risk in all areas of the world right now except South America and Africa.

*. Expect things to be dicey in more parts of Asia in the days to come.  Although that is not certain just higher than comfort probability.

* Expect high safety protocols throughout your trip.

* Recognize you cannot control what happens.  You can wear a face mask but if one person in your plane, bus, hotel or ship comes down with something everyone will probably at the very least be asked to be in isolation and monitored for a period of time.

 

On the plus side -

 

*. Expect to see some great bargains in the coming months.

*. So many people depend on our travel so don’t give up travel.

 

I would change have travel insurance to have cancel for any reason travel insurance. or check your policy and see if government imposed travel restrictions or recommendation is a covered reason.  Most US policies do not cover someone canceling due to an outbreak like this. 

[npcl]

1 hour ago, RMMariner said:

People die on cruises all the time from the normal flu etc.. Coronavirus has yet to kill anyone on a cruise. That being said, I would not be cruising to SE Asia or China until this situation sorts itself out.

 

Average people killed in Canada per year by:

 

lightning - 10

murder - 520

car accident - 2900

normal flu - 6000

cancer - 80,000 +

heart attack - 72000

drownings - 450

killed in shootings at Airbnb rentals since January 1 - 4

 

For comparison:

Deaths from Wuhan coronavirus in Canada and USA - 0

 

Death from SARS virus in Canada in 2003 - 44

 

Keep things in perspective. 

 

Death from automobiles in 1850 in US  -  0  Its all a matter of timing

 

It is about equivalent to say that it will not be an issue because they has not been any yet.  You are talking about an illness that started in late November.  Had less than 1000 identified cases in mid Jan and is over 13000 now.  With under reporting the real number is probably 50-80,000 cases. To put it in perspective, the majority of those that have contracted the disease still have it and have done so in the last 10 days.

 

6 months from I would be very happy to agree with you if you can still make the same claim. 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by npcl

[matadams4u]

2 minutes ago, npcl said:

I would change have travel insurance to have cancel for any reason travel insurance. or check your policy and see if government imposed travel restrictions or recommendation is a covered reason.  Most US policies do not cover someone canceling due to an outbreak like this. 

I agree - it should have read have cancel for any reason travel insurance.  Additionally, people should wait for airlines and operators make decisions.  Right now trips to China are being cancelled through March - In part due to the number of changes being made are overwhelming tour operators.  A decision for April will probably be made next.  Anything after April is probably within the cancellation window.  Probably best to cancel anything within the cancellation period and book something else but right now you cannot predict a safe haven 75 days out - an educated guess but it depends on your comfort level of probability.  My Rome trip had a minor hiccup yesterday but I can’t say with certainty my tour of the Vatican will go without a hitch in two weeks.  Likewise I am booked on a three day California coastal in May -  I would like to say it is low risk but when you get an email at work to start preparing for pandemic operations you know the risk level is not zero.

[babelfish]

Does anyone know how the cruise industry reacted over time to the SARS and other outbreaks?  

[npcl]

Just now, matadams4u said:

I agree - it should have read have cancel for any reason travel insurance.  Additionally, people should wait for airlines and operators make decisions.  Right now trips to China are being cancelled through March - In part due to the number of changes being made are overwhelming tour operators.  A decision for April will probably be made next.  Anything after April is probably within the cancellation window.  Probably best to cancel anything within the cancellation period and book something else but right now you cannot predict a safe haven 75 days out - an educated guess but it depends on your comfort level of probability.  My Rome trip had a minor hiccup yesterday but I can’t say with certainty my tour of the Vatican will go without a hitch in two weeks.  Likewise I am booked on a three day California coastal in May -  I would like to say it is low risk but when you get an email at work to start preparing for pandemic operations you know the risk level is not zero.

At this time we are booked on a total of 24 days on two Princess cruises out of Sydney in march, followed by a 16 HAL cruise back to Honolulu.  Not quite sure how cruise lines would handle someone getting it on board ship. Past behavior would make me think that they would treat it like an inability to treat medical condition and get the person off ship ASAP if they could find a port to take them.

 

In our cases as healthy adults, not so much concerned about the mortality, as much how things could go badly very quickly on a long cruise with lots of sea days at the end.  As well as if the islands in the pacific start banning cruise ship landings as a couple already seem to have done.

 

[npcl]

3 minutes ago, babelfish said:

Does anyone know how the cruise industry reacted over time to the SARS and other outbreaks?  

SARS not a good comparison rather limited in scope and duration.

 

Swine Flu probably a better example when the cruise lines dropped Mexican ports and turned them into California Coastals.

 

But even there while it was an unusual strain of the flu with impacted younger people more than normal, it was still the flu.  That strain is still around in the annual cycle, just merged in with less impact that when it first appeared.

 

Really no good comparison.

[matadams4u]

10 minutes ago, npcl said:

At this time we are booked on a total of 24 days on two Princess cruises out of Sydney in march, followed by a 16 HAL cruise back to Honolulu.  Not quite sure how cruise lines would handle someone getting it on board ship. Past behavior would make me think that they would treat it like an inability to treat medical condition and get the person off ship ASAP if they could find a port to take them.

 

In our cases as healthy adults, not so much concerned about the mortality, as much how things could go badly very quickly on a long cruise with lots of sea days at the end.  As well as if the islands in the pacific start banning cruise ship landings as a couple already seem to have done.

 

First the good new -

 

*. Australia has implemented some good procedures to keep people infected from getting into Australia.

* Princess has implemented some good procedures to keep people from getting on ships if they are infected.

 

The bad news -

 

If for any reason these measures fail it would be highly likely everyone would be quarantined to there rooms for 14 days and any port would probably use the ship as a quarantine container since there would not be space onshore for 4000 people.  This would be due to the high transmission rate and risk of transmission onshore.  There would be room service available.

[caribill]

21 hours ago, dog said:

Where was that one person from? China?

 

Yes

[caribill]

1 hour ago, npcl said:

At this time we are booked on a total of 24 days on two Princess cruises out of Sydney in march, followed by a 16 HAL cruise back to Honolulu.  Not quite sure how cruise lines would handle someone getting it on board ship.

 

 

The problem is that medical staff on a cruise ship cannot determine if a person has this virus. A sample must be sent to a facility such as the CDC to do the appropriate testing (which, by the way, does have some false positives and some false negatives).

 

That is what happened with the cruise ship in Italy. One person actually had the flu, but the entire ship with 7000 people was quarantined until it was verified it was the flu and not the coronavirus.

 

At this time of year in the northern hemisphere there will probably be at least one person with the flu on every cruise.

[Linsifer]

On 1/30/2020 at 5:14 PM, RMMariner said:

 

 

Quote

“Don't panic. The fact is that you are still far more likely to die in a car accident or die from the regular flu than from this coronavirus. (globally between 290,000 and 600,000 people die every year of the normal flu) The sky is not falling. We have these panics every 5 years or so. Remember SARS, H1N1, Zika and MERS. The coronavirus is not even particularly lethal compared to some of the previously mentioned diseases. It also does not spread as easily as the common flu. 

 

If I had previous health concerns, I would be leery of travelling to that part of the world right now, but as far as worrying about it very much any place else, there are far more dangerous and statistically probable things to worry about.

 

Wash your hands. Eat healthy food. Work out. Sleep properly. Work on your stress level, and look both ways when you cross the street. Get a flu shot and keep your vaccines updated. Just the increased blood pressure from worrying about this will probably impact your health far more than the coronavirus ever will.

 

The media loves a good panic. Read what the real experts are saying, not what social media is spouting off about. You can mock me later, and bring this post up to remind me how wrong I was, but if this so called pandemic is still a problem in two months, I will be very much surprised.”

 

I agree with you 100%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Linsifer

[Aus Traveller]

We are booked on a few cruises out of Australia and one in Europe this year. I am not concerned about these and do not consider cancelling. However, if I was booked on a cruise out of Asia, or calling into an Asian port, I would feel differently.

[Ken the cruiser]

7 hours ago, npcl said:

I think all you can do is watch and wait until then.  If it is stopped from spreading outside of  China, I expect that it will still be very active there in July.  After  the first cases were in November and look where it is at now and rate of spread.  If it spreads effectively outside of China then it will be a long way from peaking.

We’ve had this cruise booked since it came out over a year ago, but you’re right. So we decided last night as a backup to book the HAL Antarctica and Solar Eclipse cruise in late Nov as a backup.
 

We figure the chances are pretty high that Princess will probably change the mainland Chinese ports to some other nearby Taiwan and/or Japanese island ports and debark in maybe Yokohama before heading south on the next leg towards Singapore. If that’s the case, we would probably cancel the cruise anyway. Plus we get to see a lot more animals and a solar eclipse on the HAL cruise!

[dog]

2 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

We are booked on a few cruises out of Australia and one in Europe this year. I am not concerned about these and do not consider cancelling. However, if I was booked on a cruise out of Asia, or calling into an Asian port, I would feel differently.

Same here.  I have several trips booked but not to Asia. It is up to what each person feels comfortable with. I would not want to be wondering if the cruise was going to be cancelled by cruise line.  Can always book in the future. 

[fountainpen]

it's been reported that a 80 year HK old man who travelled to the Chinese border city for a few hours then boarded the  Diamond Princess at Yokohama on 20 Jan developed fever onboard ship but did not see doctor on board. He disembarked on the 25th Jan in HK and was confirmed 2019-nCorona Virus positive yesterday, The ship is due back in Yokohama in a few days on Feb 4

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/141062/Two-more-preliminary-positive-cases-for-coronavirus

https://www.cruisemapper.com/ships/Diamond-Princess-534

Now what would Princess do?

Edited February 2, 2020 by fountainpen

[fountainpen]

Sorry

41 minutes ago, fountainpen said:

it's been reported that a 80 year HK old man who travelled to the Chinese border city for a few hours then boarded the  Diamond Princess at Yokohama on 20 Jan developed fever onboard ship but did not see doctor on board. He disembarked on the 25th Jan in HK and was confirmed 2019-nCorona Virus positive yesterday, The ship is due back in Yokohama in a few days on Feb 4

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/141062/Two-more-preliminary-positive-cases-for-coronavirus

https://www.cruisemapper.com/ships/Diamond-Princess-534

Now what would Princess do?

sorry newspaper said developed cough only not fever,

[dog]

1 hour ago, fountainpen said:

Sorry

sorry newspaper said developed cough only not fever,

I could not find this. Where is it found? Link?

i read he was diagnosed with the virus after disembarking in Hong Kong 

[fountainpen]

42 minutes ago, dog said:

I could not find this. Where is it found? Link?

i read he was diagnosed with the virus after disembarking in Hong Kong 

https://news.mingpao.com/ins/港聞/article/20200201/s00001/1580560524880/【武漢肺炎】明愛醫院男病人確診-居葵涌邨-橫濱乘郵輪1月25日抵港

This article reported by chankahon above is in Chinese or Kanji

 

its generally agreed that the incubation period for this disease can be up to 14 days.He developed  cough on the 19 , disembark on the 25th, fever on the 30th and admitted same day HK time to Hk Caritas Hospital.Newspaper article on 1 Feb Hk time.

Princess has yet to say whether anybody is occupying his former stateroom after he disembarked on the 25th.The ship is due in Yokohama on the 4 th Feb.

So now if you suddenly get a free upgrade on that ship since yesterday,you know what you are in for.

Edited February 2, 2020 by fountainpen

[npcl]

8 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

We are booked on a few cruises out of Australia and one in Europe this year. I am not concerned about these and do not consider cancelling. However, if I was booked on a cruise out of Asia, or calling into an Asian port, I would feel differently.

AS I have mentioned before it depends upon how this spreads.  The next 3-4 weeks should be pretty informative. If it starts spreading out from China, then concern rises.  If 4 weeks from now there is limited or no spread outside of China then concern drops. Unfortunately the long incubation time is somewhat concerning when it comes to control.

[dog]

Someone posted link to Princess website on their current position dealing with virus. Search website. I cannot get link to posr

[sidari]

4 minutes ago, npcl said:

AS I have mentioned before it depends upon how this spreads.  The next 3-4 weeks should be pretty informative. If it starts spreading out from China, then concern rises.  If 4 weeks from now there is limited or no spread outside of China then concern drops. Unfortunately the long incubation time is somewhat concerning when it comes to control.

Indonesia have reported a death there from this virus, it has spread to around 30 countries worldwide so far, the UK has 2 confirmed cases so far with around 80 people evacuated from Wuhan in quarantine.

[RMMariner]

Worldwide deaths from malaria last year somewhere above 400,000. 

[dog]

12 minutes ago, dog said:

Someone posted link to Princess website on their current position dealing with virus. Search website. I cannot get link to posr

Chrylis on thread itineraries going to China has posted this link. Go there for updates