Anthem News Flash

[toxicfairy]

6 hours ago, sellwingri said:

How did they get a free hotel?  We had to pay for another day!  They’re not doing anything for us.  Thank goodness we didn’t leave our hotel this morning until we received confirmation that we weren’t sailing.
 

the letter tht someone posted here states they will reimburse up to $200 per room for anyone who flew in. You have to submit your receipt to the address they stated. 

[pearlie]

1 hour ago, Merion_Mom said:

Would you like to hear a story?

 

A funny/not funny story?

 

Ok, so I started this thread to get away from the labyrinth of the other one, since this one is about the here and now.

 

I boarded the Anthem on January 5, and took three 11 night cruises.  So when I got off today, I had been on board for a little longer than a month.

 

Because my cruise was so long, I did what I usually do:  I called Dave's Best Limo, a Philadelphia-based shuttle service, to take me to Cape Liberty on January 5 and pick me up today.

 

While we "waste" a lot of (my) time driving around picking up or dropping off other people, I am certainly not going to pay 33 x $25 to drive myself and park in the garage.  (Don't even do the math; you'll puke).  And I have to wait until they get there to pick me up, and that time can vary A LOT.  They come up with a load of new passengers, drop them off and pull up to Zone 9 to pick up us, the departing passengers.    When I called at 7:30, I was told that the van would be there at 9:30.  I was standing outside at 9:15 in a cold drizzle, with nowhere to sit and only a small canopy to huddle under.  The driver actually pulled up at 10:20.

 

I learned about the new passengers being sent away by our shuttle driver.  He said, "I just dropped six people off with their luggage, and the porters told them they couldn't take their bags; they were being sent away."  (we didn't really care about them, but he said that Dave's would send another driver to pick them up if they wanted to go home; they probably got an Uber to a hotel once that was announced)

 

So that's how and when I knew about the delay.

 

The driver told us that we had a person already in the van, and we had to take him to JFK!  And we were picking up someone there!

 

Now, if you know your geography, you know that JFK is far away and in the opposite direction from Philadelphia.  But it's a shared van service, and this is the risk you take, although it has NEVER happened to me before, and I use them a lot.

 

So..............indeed, it added about two hours to our transit time.  I didn't get home until almost 2:30.

 

But that's not the funny/not funny story.

 

So, here we are, just disembarked from a ship with a potential case of novel coronavirus, and the news media are freaking out, and every one on Cruise Critic is freaking out, and everyone on Facebook is freaking out.  My son-in-law the TV news reporter texts me and asks if I know anything, and if I want to be interviewed on TV!  (HA! NO!)

 

We drive to JFK, drop the guy off at one terminal, drive around, and pick up a woman at a different terminal.  I veg out in the back of the van, starting this thread and generally checking out social media, texting with my son, etc.

 

At one point, the other couple in the van who had also been on the January 27 cruise, asked the woman where she was returning from.

 

Her answer?

 

"Oh, I was in China for three weeks."

 

And there you have it.

 

 

 

 

Oh Ship!   

[Iamcruzin]

1 hour ago, yogimax said:

I don't think they're giving us the full story here.  Is it delayed until 5PM because they need more time for cleaning or because they are waiting for the last results of testing?

 

Not that I will miss Nassau, but isn't it interesting they didn't cancel Coco Cay, their biggest profit driver?

That is a blessing. Coco Cay is the only port on that itinerary worth getting off of the ship for.

[Iamcruzin]

1 hour ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

 

Her answer?

 

"Oh, I was in China for three weeks."

 

And there you have it.

 

 

 

 

Oh Boy.....

[DELTABLUE]

2 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

Would you like to hear a story?

 

A funny/not funny story?

 

Ok, so I started this thread to get away from the labyrinth of the other one, since this one is about the here and now.

 

I boarded the Anthem on January 5, and took three 11 night cruises.  So when I got off today, I had been on board for a little longer than a month.

 

Because my cruise was so long, I did what I usually do:  I called Dave's Best Limo, a Philadelphia-based shuttle service, to take me to Cape Liberty on January 5 and pick me up today.

 

While we "waste" a lot of (my) time driving around picking up or dropping off other people, I am certainly not going to pay 33 x $25 to drive myself and park in the garage.  (Don't even do the math; you'll puke).  And I have to wait until they get there to pick me up, and that time can vary A LOT.  They come up with a load of new passengers, drop them off and pull up to Zone 9 to pick up us, the departing passengers.    When I called at 7:30, I was told that the van would be there at 9:30.  I was standing outside at 9:15 in a cold drizzle, with nowhere to sit and only a small canopy to huddle under.  The driver actually pulled up at 10:20.

 

I learned about the new passengers being sent away by our shuttle driver.  He said, "I just dropped six people off with their luggage, and the porters told them they couldn't take their bags; they were being sent away."  (we didn't really care about them, but he said that Dave's would send another driver to pick them up if they wanted to go home; they probably got an Uber to a hotel once that was announced)

 

So that's how and when I knew about the delay.

 

The driver told us that we had a person already in the van, and we had to take him to JFK!  And we were picking up someone there!

 

Now, if you know your geography, you know that JFK is far away and in the opposite direction from Philadelphia.  But it's a shared van service, and this is the risk you take, although it has NEVER happened to me before, and I use them a lot.

 

So..............indeed, it added about two hours to our transit time.  I didn't get home until almost 2:30.

 

But that's not the funny/not funny story.

 

So, here we are, just disembarked from a ship with a potential case of novel coronavirus, and the news media are freaking out, and every one on Cruise Critic is freaking out, and everyone on Facebook is freaking out.  My son-in-law the TV news reporter texts me and asks if I know anything, and if I want to be interviewed on TV!  (HA! NO!)

 

We drive to JFK, drop the guy off at one terminal, drive around, and pick up a woman at a different terminal.  I veg out in the back of the van, starting this thread and generally checking out social media, texting with my son, etc.

 

At one point, the other couple in the van who had also been on the January 27 cruise, asked the woman where she was returning from.

 

Her answer?

 

"Oh, I was in China for three weeks."

 

And there you have it.

 

 

 

 

One word...OY!

[Merion_Mom]

My daughter just sent me this.

 

 

[Merion_Mom]

2 hours ago, sndral said:

Hope you don’t have any cruises planned for the next 15 days since you now are in the banned from cruising category of having been in ‘close’ contact w/ a person who’s been to China, Hong Kong, or Macau ...unless it was a very large van?

 

It was. She was in the front seat. I was in the back of four rows, trying to nap some of the time. 😉

[JaneStarr]

22 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

It was. She was in the front seat. I was in the back of four rows, trying to nap some of the time. 😉

Phew! That’s got to be well over the 6 foot distance not to count as “close contact”

[PhoenixCruiser]

3 hours ago, yogimax said:

I don't think they're giving us the full story here.  Is it delayed until 5PM because they need more time for cleaning or because they are waiting for the last results of testing?

 

Not that I will miss Nassau, but isn't it interesting they didn't cancel Coco Cay, their biggest profit driver?

 

Less people just in case someone is carrying the virus.

 

 

3 hours ago, PortFees45 said:

So if someone says "I had a fever of 103 last night and I feel like hell" - is someone at the Terminal really going to say, "Shut up, faker. Get on the ship and go hit the buffet!" 

 

They should just cancel the dang cruise. The revenue from one dinky little Bahamas sailing is a drop in the bucket for this company. 

 

Were you sick at the time you posted this?

[yogimax]

43 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

My daughter just sent me this.

 

 

MM -  Thank you for posting this.  Your daughter is wise indeed.  The far greater danger to us all is the racism and xenophobia that this is engendering.  When someone who has Chinese/Asian background is singled out solely because of their appearance, it becomes scary.  Yes, thoroughly check those who have recently been to China, and especially Wuhan, but remember that we Americans do not all look alike, and that is the greatness of our nation!

[OSUZorba]

1 hour ago, Merion_Mom said:

My daughter just sent me this.

 

 

Although the flu kills more people (it is not more deadly, though), the point isn't that this is the most deadly virus ever. It is that it is a deadly novel virus and we have a very short window to try to make it go extinct, as what happened with SARS. If we allow the virus to spread at will, it'll be with us forever like the flu. At this time we don't know if we can ever make an effective vaccine and we don't know if it can mutate into something much more deadly. Even if we can not fully stop the spread, the more we slow it down the more time we give ourselves to develop treatment and prevention.

 

On the Deadliness vs contagious chart the cornavirus is in just about the same spot as the Spanish Flu. The Spanish Flu killed 5% of the world population in 1918-1920. https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-microbescope-infectious-diseases-in-context/

 

We don't have these massive reactions to the flu, because the flu is ubiquitous at this point and would be impossible to eliminate without a universal, highly effective vaccine, that we have so far failed to create.

Edited February 8, 2020 by OSUZorba

[TravelinGert]

6 hours ago, Cel_cruise said:

This new update about regardless of residency is a total bummer ... but it has to be because they don’t have devices to actually track/view your passport locations - so they don’t know how to trust that you are a Chinese citizen who resides here in the states.  

It is very easy to prove you're a foreign passport holder residing in the US as you would have a pile of immigration papers to prove it. 

[Merion_Mom]

A friend of mine is on a different cruise line, currently in Asia.  She posted this and gave me permission to share:

 

Lessons of Travel:
(Her travel agency) is escorting a group on Silver Sea Cruise Line (highly recommend) in Asia.
Prior to disembarkation Hong Kong was replaced with Manila as the final port destination. Changed flights.
As we were cruising along the South China Sea the itinerary changed from one Philippine Island to another. Then just like that the ship was denied entry into all Philippine ports.
At this point the cruise was cancelled and we were cruising back to Vietnam. Ok, safety always comes first thus we changed our flights again.
A few hours from Vietnam, the Captain called everyone into the lounge (never been summoned like that in 35 years of travel) and we were informed that we were denied access into Vietnam.
We are going to attempt to disembark in Bangkok (where we started) in a few days. A cruise of sea days. Back on the phone with American...who have been wonderful (I know, surprising to us as well) and changed our flight. Hopefully, third time is a charm.
Some great questions were posed, "Will we run out of champagne?", "How long can we sail around aimlessly, because it is fun to play mah jongg, eat all day, go to the spa, and laugh with fellow passengers?" "What do you think our next port of disembarkation might be if not Bangkok?"
Everyone is in great spirits, because we are completely safe...chronic cleaning of stairwells, door knobs, elevator buttons, temperature checks, etc..
The lessons learned are: it always helps to have a positive attitude, it can always be worse, be flexible, stay calm, keep smiling and laughing. Eventually we will be home and back at work!

[Steelers0854]

7 hours ago, TravelinGert said:

It is very easy to prove you're a foreign passport holder residing in the US as you would have a pile of immigration papers to prove it. 

 

I don’t think that’s the issue, my guess would be the issue is that if you have a Chinese passport there is no paper trail showing when you go in and out of the country.  Thus the cruise line has to take your ward that you have not traveled there recently, and lets be honest people are going to lie.  In contrast, a US (or any other) Passport holder that travels ina nd out of China will have a stamp in their book or some kind of VISA.  

[Iamcruzin]

10 minutes ago, Steelers0854 said:

 

I don’t think that’s the issue, my guess would be the issue is that if you have a Chinese passport there is no paper trail showing when you go in and out of the country.  Thus the cruise line has to take your ward that you have not traveled there recently, and lets be honest people are going to lie.  In contrast, a US (or any other) Passport holder that travels ina nd out of China will have a stamp in their book or some kind of VISA.  

Debit cards are used in everyday life just to buy a cup of coffee. I wonder if a bank statement with local charges can be used to track where you have been for the past month.

[Steelers0854]

Just now, Iamcruzin said:

Debit cards are used in everyday life just to buy a cup of coffee. I wonder if a bank statement with local charges can be used to track where you have been for the past month.

 

There are plenty of ways to prove that you haven’t been there in the last 2 weeks, but the issue I think is to have a policy that can be applied to everyone, and this is the only way to do it.  I agree in a perfect world they should have some kind of exception process, but that’s an administrative nightmare.  From a corporate perspective better to have a bunch of mad customers for an evenly applied policy than to have everyone trying to prove their case and being mad when Passenger A gets to board but B doesn’t.  

[toad455]

I'm hoping for those that still want to cruise get to sail tonight. Curious what/where people are planning to do that are in a hotel currently if the hotel and/or RCCL is letting you stay there until the afternoon since most check-outs are at 11am and boarding isn't starting until 5pm.

[iceberg1116]

2 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

Debit cards are used in everyday life just to buy a cup of coffee. I wonder if a bank statement with local charges can be used to track where you have been for the past month.

People have multiple banks and even traveled for work. Those charges won't show up. 

[PortFees45]

The plot thickens....

 

Dear Guest,

Here’s the latest concerning your sailing on Anthem of the Seas.

We are still waiting on the conclusive results from the CDC from their office in Atlanta, GA. We are planning to announce the status of boarding at 1:30 PM EST today. If we do not have confirmation of when we can expect results, our plan is to delay boarding until tomorrow. If we do end up needing to delay boarding until Sunday, we will provide you with updated boarding times, itinerary, and compensation at 1:30 PM EST.

If we have to delay further, and you no longer want to sail with us on Sunday, we completely understand, and you may cancel and receive a full refund.

We are hopeful that we will not need to delay your vacation further, but we also don’t want to have you start to make your way to the terminal only for us to find out that we won’t have the test results this afternoon.

We will continue to provide updates every hour. We greatly appreciate your patience and apologize for this situation.

Sincerely,

Royal Caribbean International

[cruiserchuck]

1 minute ago, PortFees45 said:

The plot thickens....

 

Dear Guest,

Here’s the latest concerning your sailing on Anthem of the Seas.

We are still waiting on the conclusive results from the CDC from their office in Atlanta, GA. We are planning to announce the status of boarding at 1:30 PM EST today. If we do not have confirmation of when we can expect results, our plan is to delay boarding until tomorrow. If we do end up needing to delay boarding until Sunday, we will provide you with updated boarding times, itinerary, and compensation at 1:30 PM EST.

If we have to delay further, and you no longer want to sail with us on Sunday, we completely understand, and you may cancel and receive a full refund.

We are hopeful that we will not need to delay your vacation further, but we also don’t want to have you start to make your way to the terminal only for us to find out that we won’t have the test results this afternoon.

We will continue to provide updates every hour. We greatly appreciate your patience and apologize for this situation.

Sincerely,

Royal Caribbean International

 

So you may get your full refund after all (but not in cash.)  Call CNN!

[PortFees45]

1 minute ago, cruiserchuck said:

 

So you may get your full refund after all (but not in cash.)  Call CNN!

"cash refund" is a term of art for a refund back to the card you used to purchase the cruise - I obviously didn't think I'd be handed a wad of bills. That said, a future cruise credit is NOT a refund. 

[cruiserchuck]

9 minutes ago, PortFees45 said:

"cash refund" is a term of art for a refund back to the card you used to purchase the cruise - I obviously didn't think I'd be handed a wad of bills. That said, a future cruise credit is NOT a refund. 

 

Yea, I knew that.  But look at the bright side - your sudden illness might clear up by tomorrow, and you can board and go straight to the buffet if you want to.  I personally try to avoid the buffet on boarding day, but each to their own.

[toad455]

24 minutes ago, PortFees45 said:

The plot thickens....

 

Dear Guest,

Here’s the latest concerning your sailing on Anthem of the Seas.

We are still waiting on the conclusive results from the CDC from their office in Atlanta, GA. We are planning to announce the status of boarding at 1:30 PM EST today. If we do not have confirmation of when we can expect results, our plan is to delay boarding until tomorrow. If we do end up needing to delay boarding until Sunday, we will provide you with updated boarding times, itinerary, and compensation at 1:30 PM EST.

If we have to delay further, and you no longer want to sail with us on Sunday, we completely understand, and you may cancel and receive a full refund.

We are hopeful that we will not need to delay your vacation further, but we also don’t want to have you start to make your way to the terminal only for us to find out that we won’t have the test results this afternoon.

We will continue to provide updates every hour. We greatly appreciate your patience and apologize for this situation.

Sincerely,

Royal Caribbean International

 

Realistically if they can't sail tonight, why bother with a 6-day cruise to Coco Cay? Just cancel the cruise and clean the ship for a week. But I'm hopefully for those wishing to sail that you leave tonight. Fingers crossed for good news at 1:30pm today!

[Ocean Boy]

Just now, toad455 said:

 

Realistically if they can't sail tonight, why bother with a 6-day cruise to Coco Cay? Just cancel the cruise and clean the ship for a week. But I'm hopefully for those wishing to sail that you leave tonight. Fingers crossed for good news at 1:30pm today!

Seems to me you asked and answered your question. Some people may still want to go. RCI will recup some money. Those who don't want to go get money back. Sounds like a win-win-win for everyone.

[Another_Critic]

6 minutes ago, toad455 said:

Realistically if they can't sail tonight, why bother with a 6-day cruise to Coco Cay? 

 

Hmm ... a [cheap?] 6-day solo cruise to get me to D+.  Are they taking last minute bookings?  😄

Edited February 8, 2020 by Another_Critic