Cancel or Go? For sailings between now and July 30, 2020?

[dazey]

Just read that 3 hrs ago a person from Rhode Island tested positive for the coranovirus. This person visited Italy(they are not saying what city or town in Italy) in late February. Just keep getting more troubling news.  What to do about our upcoming cruises is a major concern.

[villauk]

12 minutes ago, dazey said:

Just read that 3 hrs ago a person from Rhode Island tested positive for the coranovirus. This person visited Italy(they are not saying what city or town in Italy) in late February. Just keep getting more troubling news.  What to do about our upcoming cruises is a major concern.

 

 

Yes, Italy have just reported 566 new cases and 5 more deaths.

[newfiegirl4]

20 hours ago, Tapi said:

We just flew home from a Caribbean cruise on Sunday. I worried some before the cruise, but now that we are back, I realize that, at this point, the hysteria is unnecessary, at least for cruises in this region. Needless to say, passengers who’ve been in China and other affected countries in the last few weeks were banned from boarding, and anybody with any known respiratory illness or fever had to go through secondary medical screening before being allowed to board. Interestingly, I didn’t hear a single cough or sniffle from fellow passengers during the entire week! 
 

We’ll see how things develop in the upcoming months, but at this point in time we are not canceling another cruise that we have planned for later this year. 

Well thank you so much for that! Our Caribbean cruise is in April, out of FLL, and of course past final payment! I was a little concerned but I knew "Caribbean" wasn't on the list for the virus!!! Thank goodness! Let's hope it stays that way! 

Somewhat relieved hearing this. 👏🏻👏🏻

I've touched base with TA and she says Celebrity hasn't given any indication of changing anything as of now!! 

People just need to practice clean hygiene and washy washy Frequently!! I will have my hand sanitizer in beach bag and evening bag!! 

I would like to see an employee manning the restrooms so no one will exit without washing their hands!!!! GROSS! I have seen this many times....I almost wanted to ask...are you going to wash? 😲. It's pretty bad adults have to be reminded to do such simple things, that were taught as children!! 

 

Save travels to everyone!!

[Tapi]

15 minutes ago, newfiegirl4 said:

I would like to see an employee manning the restrooms so no one will exit without washing their hands!!!! GROSS! I have seen this many times....I almost wanted to ask...are you going to wash? 😲. It's pretty bad adults have to be reminded to do such simple things, that were taught as children!! 

I must say that there are times when I’ve felt the same way, when I see people bypass washing their hands after using the public bathroom, but I’m too non-confrontational to say something. 
 

But on this last cruise, already a bit jumpy  about the possible spread of germs and viruses, I gathered enough bravery to say something to another passenger who I saw at the buffet grabbing a jug of water from the a waitstaff stand to refill her already used personal bottle of water. She was resting the jug on the lip of her bottle, and I said to her “are you letting the  spout of the water jug touch your used bottle?” She glared at me ready to say something but I jumped in and said “that’s exactly how diseases are spread!”. A waitstaff was nearby and grabbed the jug, emptied it and put it in the dirty plates bin. I hope that the message was conveyed. 

Edited March 1, 2020 by Tapi

[newfiegirl4]

2 minutes ago, Tapi said:

I must say that there are times when I’ve felt the same way, when I see people bypass washing their hands after using the public bathroom, but I’m too non-confrontational to say something. 
 

But on this last cruise, already a bit jumpy  about the possible spread of germs and viruses, I gathered enough bravery to say something to another passenger who I saw at the buffet grabbing a jug of water from the a waitstaff stand to refill her already used personal bottle of water. She was resting the jug on the lip of her bottle, and I said to her “are you letting the the spout of the water jug touch your used bottle?” She glared at me ready to say something but I jumped in and said “that’s exactly how diseases are spread!”. A waitstaff was nearby and grabbed the jug, emptied it and put it in the dirty plates bin. I hope that the message was conveyed. 

Good for you! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻. I'm not usually confrontational either but I think people need to start speaking up so that these germs aren't spread like in your exact situation!!! I wonder where some people learn simple hygiene and manners!!! Those filling up bottles, I for one won't be doing that!!! 

[davekathy]

8 minutes ago, newfiegirl4 said:

I wonder where some people learn simple hygiene and manners!!!

That's the problem, either they have never been taught or they are too lazy to practice what they were taught.  So then they don't teach proper hygiene or manners to their kids and so on...

Edited March 1, 2020 by davekathy

[Fouremco]

51 minutes ago, newfiegirl4 said:

Our Caribbean cruise is in April, out of FLL, and of course past final payment! I was a little concerned but I knew "Caribbean" wasn't on the list for the virus!!! Thank goodness! Let's hope it stays that way! 

Somewhat relieved hearing this.

Unfortunately, things haven't stayed that way. The Dominican Republic's Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of COVID-19 in the country today. According to officials, a tourist visiting the country from Italy tested positive for the virus and is being treated in isolation at a hospital near Santo Domingo. A second individual from France is reportedly being monitored for the virus as well.

[villauk]

2 more in Washington State and one in Scotland have been diagnosed - reaching far and wide.

[TMLAalum]

We don't cruise until late August. Post-cruise we will spend a couple of nights in Barcelona before flying to Bordeaux, visiting the Dordogne region and ending our Europe trip with a week in Paris.

 

It is not Covid-19 that has me anxious- it's the worry of quarantine whether at home or once we are on our journey.

 

We have friends from Wuhan, and I just lunched with them on 2/19. Their family in China is hunkered into their apartment, reading and eating vegetables. When considering the large population of Wuhan and that there are @75k who caught the virus and of those @3k dead, the percentage of the infected and deceased seems reasonable. I am interested in learning more about those who have survived the virus and what might be the variables (aside for old age and heart/respiratory problems) that contributed to their recovery.

[orangedec10]

We have a cruise booked to Norway in May and are taking a “wait and see” approach.  For us, this is a trip we’ve saved up for and I’m concerned that we’ll be forced between a rock and a hard spot - lose our vacation money or be put at risk. We have a very young child so that will ultimately factor into our decision.

[Denny01]

So basically 10x as many are going to continue cruising this season than those cancelling.....You’d thought from all the Corona threads and posts about how you shouldn’t even consider traveling overseas and one actual thread on how they couldn’t believe anyone was posting about drink packages and so on and not just about Corona, that it would be opposite.

 

My faith in human common sense is restored. Those of us continuing to plan on cruising are taking what I think is the rational direction....we’ll watch what is going on but continue to live our lives. Heck, I’m going to Rome in late April. If they cancel that cruise, got it. But since I can’t do anything about it, I’ll sit back, watch and stay alert, but not make what I’d consider irrational décidions costing me thousands. 

 

I understand there are those cancelling because of special circumstances, and that makes a lot of sense, but the ‘cancel a Caribbean cruise because I’m afraid’?????

 

Den

[clskinsfan]

3 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

 

We need to all step back and leave the hysteria out of the equation.  There are are nearly 330 million people in the US.  There are 22 cases of coronavirus confirmed by the US public health department and one died.  And yes, there will be more ... 

Of the patients that have died, the majority were elderly and already suffering from complications and comorbidities.   Even if we narrowed this down to Washington state alone, with 4 confirmed cases out of over 7 million people.  

I worked in infection control in a hospital and in no way would we even remotely considered this to be an outbreak!  It is definitely a concern ... but, no, certainly not what any statistician would call an outbreak. 

For the flu season this year (2019-2020), the CDC reports the following preliminary estimates for the influenza virus in the US: 

32,000,000 – 45,000,000 cases 

18,000 – 46,000 deaths 

They are not even calling this an outbreak  ... and, this is with an available vaccine, although, one that does not cover all strains of the flu.  We probably shouldn't subscribe to the mass hysteria that the media is creating.  Take your precautions and if you are elderly or suffering from many comorbidities, then, I would suggest canceling.  But, I would really be more concerned about infectious diseases such as the flu, MRSA,  and tuberculosis, yes ... many more cases of TB in the US than coronavirus.  

 

 

 

Heres the thing you are leaving out. If there end up being 32-45 million Americans that contract Coronavirus 640000-900000 Americans will die from it. Comparing that to the 18-46000 deaths from flu puts it into perspective I think.

[Pushka]

12 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

 

Heres the thing you are leaving out. If there end up being 32-45 million Americans that contract Coronavirus 640000-900000 Americans will die from it. Comparing that to the 18-46000 deaths from flu puts it into perspective I think.

Yes there will be deaths but the death rate currently focuses on China and from countries where the health systems are indeterminate, although Italy may be the one indicator. We are more knowledgeable about detection and treatment than we were just even a week ago. I don't believe the current death rate will be maintained once this bug hits countries like US and Australia. 
 

Italy and Iran seem to be the weak leaks at the moment. We have had several returning from Iran of recent days who brought back this thing with them. 🤧

Edited March 1, 2020 by Pushka

[Cruise Raider]

10 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

 

Heres the thing you are leaving out. If there end up being 32-45 million Americans that contract Coronavirus 640000-900000 Americans will die from it. Comparing that to the 18-46000 deaths from flu puts it into perspective I think.

 

I didn't leave it out because it is mere speculation at this point in time.  Even the experts are not willing to put this type of speculation into play.  I was saying, and I stand behind it, that there is currently NO outbreak of Coronavirus in the Seattle area, or in the US, for that matter.  If it jumps to an actual statistically significant rate of transmission and deaths, I would be more than happy to call it an outbreak and would also strongly consider cancelling my cruise.  It's just not there ... maybe not yet, maybe not there ever ... I'm not going to cancel a cruise now because of what might, what could, what possibly, what maybe will happen in the future.  I also am not going to cancel a cruise because I might contract the influenza virus in the future.  

Just to compare, if the same people that are canceling their sailings took the number of influenza deaths into account, they probably would never have cruised in their entire lifetime.   

[clskinsfan]

19 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

 

I didn't leave it out because it is mere speculation at this point in time.  Even the experts are not willing to put this type of speculation into play.  I was saying, and I stand behind it, that there is currently NO outbreak of Coronavirus in the Seattle area, or in the US, for that matter.  If it jumps to an actual statistically significant rate of transmission and deaths, I would be more than happy to call it an outbreak and would also strongly consider cancelling my cruise.  It's just not there ... maybe not yet, maybe not there ever ... I'm not going to cancel a cruise now because of what might, what could, what possibly, what maybe will happen in the future.  I also am not going to cancel a cruise because I might contract the influenza virus in the future.  

Just to compare, if the same people that are canceling their sailings took the number of influenza deaths into account, they probably would never have cruised in their entire lifetime.   

The experts are certainly putting out data. There are tons of medical write ups on the disease. Here is the current death rate if infected:

 

COVID-19 Fatality Rate by AGE:

*Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%). This probability differs depending on the age group. The percentages shown below do not have to add up to 100%, as they do NOT represent share of deaths by age group. Rather, it represents, for a person in a given age group, the risk of dying if infected with COVID-19.

AGE	DEATH RATE confirmed cases	DEATH RATE all cases
80+ years old	21.9%	14.8%
70-79 years old		8.0%
60-69 years old		3.6%
50-59 years old		1.3%
40-49 years old		0.4%
30-39 years old		0.2%
20-29 years old		0.2%
10-19 years old		0.2%
0-9 years old		no fatalities

[Cruise Raider]

2 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

The experts are certainly putting out data. There are tons of medical write ups on the disease. Here is the current death rate if infected:

 

COVID-19 Fatality Rate by AGE:

*Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%). This probability differs depending on the age group. The percentages shown below do not have to add up to 100%, as they do NOT represent share of deaths by age group. Rather, it represents, for a person in a given age group, the risk of dying if infected with COVID-19.

AGE	DEATH RATE confirmed cases	DEATH RATE all cases
80+ years old	21.9%	14.8%
70-79 years old		8.0%
60-69 years old		3.6%
50-59 years old		1.3%
40-49 years old		0.4%
30-39 years old		0.2%
20-29 years old		0.2%
10-19 years old		0.2%
0-9 years old		no fatalities

 

To clarify one more time ... I did not say there was no data on cases from other countries that has been compiled.  I simply stated at this point in time, there is NO CURRENT OUTBREAK IN THE UNITED STATES, MUCH LESS, IN WASHINGTON STATE!  Excuse my shouting but some of you are arguing a moot point.  The experts have stated that there will be more cases in the US, that is a given ... yet, they are still unwilling to speculate if there will be an OUTBREAK here with this being a novel virus.  They don't know if it will burn itself out, if it will mutate, if we will get a viable vaccine within the next few months or if it will be a year.  The media hysteria, however, is a completely different animal.  Perhaps people need to step away from this for awhile as they are all coming up with worst case scenarios.  The sky is not falling and no, this is not the zombie apocalypse ... practice prevention and hopefully, it will never get to that point.    

At the current time, I have not seen anything close to one convincing argument that there is a OUTBREAK in Washington state.  Why not?  Because there isn't one!  There may be one in the future ... currently, there is not!   

BTW, I still believe you will get a more accurate incidence and death rate from within the US once more people in the contract and die from this disease.  Then, the rate will need to be risk adjusted to glean any valuable information from it.  

[NMTraveller]

I have a Canada New England cruise that is at 90 days final payment either today or tomorrow.  I am going to take that one.

 

I have a Norwary/Iceland/UK one in July.  I have a month before final payment is due.  I will wait and see on that one.  That is overseas and 3 weeks.  

 

With the cruise lines warning that you may not make your ports due to the CoronaVirus,  that is starting to make me lean towards cancelling my 3 week vacation unless the infection rates start declining.  I would not want to be overseas in quarantine.

[Lastdance]

It is interesting that friends and I had to cancel our cruise on May 4, due to one of us getting a cancer diagnosis for a third time.  Two of us received the full amount back, and the other two were charged a $200 pp fee for airfare which will be covered by our insurance plans.  I was  disappointed, as I did so much of the planning, but things happen for a reason, and cancer surgery is the most important issue no matter how sad we all were about our trip.  This virus is evolving, and no one has all the answers.  IMHO, people need to make their own decisions regarding travel, but with as much factual information as possible.  Fear is something that can spread like wildfire, and does not help the issue at hand.  I was always told that life is difficult, so monitoring and adjusting is all you can do, especially when you do not have a lot of control.  I hope you all make the best decision for your own situation!

Edited March 1, 2020 by Lastdance

[twentyknots]

Booked on Reflection for April 13-24, Cartagena, ABC Islands, and Grand Cayman.  Final payment made, so guess we'll go unless the situation changes significantly.  No cases in  the Caribbean yet.  If we weren't in the penalty phase, we would cancel.

 

Correction: Dominican Republic now has a case

Edited March 1, 2020 by twentyknots
correction

[NMTraveller]

I am starting to see cruises open up again that were fully booked many months ago.

[luv2trvlnow]

There is now 3 cases confirmed in St Bart's and 2 suspected cases in St Martin.  

https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/ars-confirms-three-cases-of-coronavirus-in-st-barths-two-in-st-martin-suspected

 

 

[villauk]

Second death in Washington State and 50 waiting for results:

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/department-health-confirms-first-coronavirus-death-washington-state/XIDPHMLVOJAAREQ5YCL75367PU/

 

Interesting that the new cases in California were returning pax from Egypt:

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/

[BigAl94]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8063217/Sun-Princess-cruise-passengers-heckled-protesters-Reunion-Island-coronavirus-fears.html

Will we see increasing events of cruise ships being made unwelcome? 

 

[villauk]

With the first case in Rome now being reported, the TAs for many cruise lines are looking doubtful, especially with France and Spain’s current numbers.

[villauk]

27 minutes ago, BigAl94 said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8063217/Sun-Princess-cruise-passengers-heckled-protesters-Reunion-Island-coronavirus-fears.html

Will we see increasing events of cruise ships being made unwelcome? 

 

 

 

Yes, I think more and more ports will refuse to accept the ships. No one wants to have to deal with another Diamond Princess incident.