Holland America Cruisers -- How are things where YOU live?

[sail7seas]

On 4/4/2020 at 10:39 PM, sambamama said:

I live in MA, and things are bad here, but worse in Eastern MA. The entire state has been shut down except for essential businesses. I work as a criminal defense lawyer for poor people, so I am essential. I have to go to the jail where people have tested positive. Some people aren't paying much attention to social distancing locally. About 800 people have been diagnosed with corona in my county and 45 people in my town. 22 veterans have died from corona at a local nursing home. It's impossible to find bleach., hand sanitizer, toliet paper, and disinfecting wipes. The governor has said we don't have enough hospital beds or ventilators. We don't have enough PPE, either. The peak should be hitting in 10 days are so. I live alone, so it's even more isolating and scary. 

 

 

Our trial  courts  are closed with no hint when they will re-open

 

Sambamama

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay safe and be well

 

 

 

[mamaofami]

My city in New Jersey has over 500,cases of CoVid 19. Of 65 deaths in the city, 49 are from long term facilities. We continue to have new cases everyday. We’ve been in lockdown since March 13 and have been doing lots of zoom parties and holidays. We have two high school senior grandsons who will probably be having a graduation in August ( one in NY and one in NJ) 

but although both have been accepted at college, neither knows if they’ll take a gap year or actually set foot on campus.

[AlanF65]

We had geese and their chicks in the business front yard the other day, today an owl wandered into work. I go in get the mail and packages have some guys working by themselves. We are shutdown otherwise. Received a PPP loan so that helps.  I want to get back to work, our jobs all open Monday but we are closed

Edited May 1, 2020 by AlanF65

[chev29]

We called everyone on our church member for a wellness check. People were so thankful that someone was concerned about them. Got plenty of thankful responses. Such a small act of kindness and compassion for our fellow human beings is a small task to do. God bless all and be safe. We live in Fl. and alot of them are elderly and some live alone. 

[Bxianesq]

Well, I semi-retired on 3/1 and had 4 cruises booked over the next 2 years.  So far, the first 2 have been cancelled by HAL (Panama Canal and a cruise out of Venice).  I am not optimistic about the 3rd (SE Asia in January of 2021) given the way the virus broke out this year.  While we are hugely disappointed, there are so many people who have lost loved ones, their livelihoods, and so much more, so I'm not feeling sorry for myself.   

 

Despite my semi-retirement, I have been somewhat busy with work because I am a health care attorney who represents hospitals, nursing homes and physician practices with regard to regulatory compliance and business transactions.  Lots of questions, as you might imagine. I really admire my clients, who have been under a great deal of stress.  My sister (a hospital nurse in NY) was exposed to Covid-19 at work and got sick-thankfully, she pulled through with mid to moderate symptoms. and recovered at home.  She was terrified about passing the virus on to my BIL, who is a retired NYC firefighter who was at the WTC on 9/11 and has reduced lung capacity after working on the recovery for 3 weeks thereafter. He is fine as well. 

 

My physician thinks that I had a mild case of the virus in March, and my 91 1/2 year old mom appears to have contracted it at her nursing home.  They had to put her on oxygen, but she seems to have pulled through (sadly, about 40 other residents at her facility have not).  We are really grateful that she is OK. 

 

We are under a continued shelter in place order until at least June 5th in NJ.  State parks and some county parks have reopened, as well as some beaches.  I have only been to the grocery store once-my husband and son have been doing quick trips in full mask mode.  We have done 3 takeout meals so far.  I have been enjoying cooking-I used to get home so late from work that my husband did most of the weekday cooking.  I have been making a game out of "what can I make today with what we have on hand?" The Budget Bytes website has featured some great recipes using pantry staples. I have also been reading a ton.  I ran to the library the day before it closed and took out 14 movies on DVD-we have been working through those, as well as some on Amazon Prime and Netflix.  Grateful for Zoom so that I can FaceTime with my daughter in DC and with friends and family. 

 

Even with some work, a lot of reading/movies, a decent amount of basement exercise, and a lot of cooking, I feel incredibly unproductive.  I guess I was under the delusion that I would completely declutter my house once I stopped practicing law full-time.  However, my wise friend who is a yoga instructor convinced me that it is ok to just "be." 

[JanDom]

Greets from Germany.
Here everything is fine and we are waiting tourism and shops will start business again.
We have to wear masks now when going to any shop or supermarket, even we were told it won‘t help anybody.

Our Alaska cruise with the Maadam is cancelled this year and we are waiting for our FCC to book two new cruises - Maasdam Alaska next year and we want to go to Australia - New Zealand with the Oosterdam in December... but we have to wait until getting money from the Lufthansa back for our Alaska flights and what will happen in Australia / New Zealand and Open borders for tourists from Germany....

Because we won‘t be able to go to the USA or Canada this year, I have a question: we buy Tide Pods every year on holiday. Now they are getting empty :(
Can maybe anybody help and can send it to us ?
Please just Wright an email to j.d.80 at web.de
We can send money via PayPal for example.
Thank you :)

Greets from Germany,
Stay healthy and looking forward to meet you on a next holland America cruise 🥰


Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[sambamama]

Well, the trial courts are closed, but work still goes on. Closed means no one can go in. But criminal work does not stop. People who are not held-their cases get postponed. But there are people in jail and new arrests and people whoses families or doctors are trying to have them civilly committed as they have alcohol or drug problems. So court goes on, but it is either by video conference or by teleconference. It is more challenging this way, but better than doing nothing. Governor Baker made a law where you must wear a mask if it isn't possible to be socially distant. A few businesses have been allowed to reopen, but MA is still in bad shape. Over 3500 people have died, and there is still very active outbreaks. We have been hit very hard with nursing home outbreaks. The nursing home near me, the Soldiers Home in Holyoke had 83 veterans die so far. Crime, at least, is down, although there has been a rash of homicides--mostly gang related. So I am still working-I just don't meet clients face to face any more. 

[ski ww]

This is what it looked like here this morning after a couple of weeks of sun shine, green grass, we're under a polar vortex.

 

[sylvermyst]

In Mid-Missouri here.  Thankfully we weren't hit too badly by the virus.  Our state is no longer under a shut down order, and restaurants are starting to allow people to eat in the restaurants again, but we must maintain distance.  Other than there being small amounts of bathroom tissue still on shelves and restrictions on purchasing meat, we are all doing okay.  The malls have reopened, but they are still mostly empty of stores, much less shoppers.

[WeRockChalkKU]

7 hours ago, sambamama said:

Well, the trial courts are closed, but work still goes on. Closed means no one can go in. But criminal work does not stop. People who are not held-their cases get postponed. But there are people in jail and new arrests and people whoses families or doctors are trying to have them civilly committed as they have alcohol or drug problems. So court goes on, but it is either by video conference or by teleconference. It is more challenging this way, but better than doing nothing. Governor Baker made a law where you must wear a mask if it isn't possible to be socially distant. A few businesses have been allowed to reopen, but MA is still in bad shape. Over 3500 people have died, and there is still very active outbreaks. We have been hit very hard with nursing home outbreaks. The nursing home near me, the Soldiers Home in Holyoke had 83 veterans die so far. Crime, at least, is down, although there has been a rash of homicides--mostly gang related. So I am still working-I just don't meet clients face to face any more. 

Hi Stephanie, a couple of us from the October 3rd Rotterdam roll call have been trying to get ahold of you. Glad to see that are doing as well as can be given this pandemic. You have various deposits for tours you organized and since cruise is cancelled, we were wondering when we could expect those returned to us.  What is your current contact info? The ones we have either haven’t worked or were incorrect.   Thanks, Les and Terri

[sambamama]

Here is the situation.  I just got ahold of the tour company.  I have not been refunded the money on the Ronda tour yet, and I had to put in another 20% of  my own money to him. I don't know if he will refund that or not.  The Rabat tour operator made a mistake on the date, so there is no refund-I have a credit with the company. I am not thrilled about that-and don't know if I can get that covered with travel insurance or not.  I will send out checks for the Rabat tour, but if you booked on both, I will wait until I see what is going to happen. I don't know if I booked with my credit card company that gives me travel insurance or not, and I don't think it fair that I take a hit of another 20% just because I organized this.  I was supposed to go away for 7 weeks to Africa, and that fell apart right before I was supposed to leave. MA is in the top 5 of states with COVID, and I have been swamped trying to get guys out of jail.  I don't think I ever want to host tours that the money is not paid directly to the company again as it was a nightmare and even more now that the cruise is cancelled.  The email contacts are good-but I have been buried with court work and trying to recover for my Africa trip.  I am planning to refund people-but I need to wait for my refund and check on trip insurance.  

[WeRockChalkKU]

23 minutes ago, sambamama said:

Here is the situation.  I just got ahold of the tour company.  I have not been refunded the money on the Ronda tour yet, and I had to put in another 20% of  my own money to him. I don't know if he will refund that or not.  The Rabat tour operator made a mistake on the date, so there is no refund-I have a credit with the company. I am not thrilled about that-and don't know if I can get that covered with travel insurance or not.  I will send out checks for the Rabat tour, but if you booked on both, I will wait until I see what is going to happen. I don't know if I booked with my credit card company that gives me travel insurance or not, and I don't think it fair that I take a hit of another 20% just because I organized this.  I was supposed to go away for 7 weeks to Africa, and that fell apart right before I was supposed to leave. MA is in the top 5 of states with COVID, and I have been swamped trying to get guys out of jail.  I don't think I ever want to host tours that the money is not paid directly to the company again as it was a nightmare and even more now that the cruise is cancelled.  The email contacts are good-but I have been buried with court work and trying to recover for my Africa trip.  I am planning to refund people-but I need to wait for my refund and check on trip insurance.  

Yes, this all sounds like some of the issues we are dealing with from various other recent cancellations. I guess in our case we had canceled the cruise in January and you had said at that time you would refund our money. That coupled with having emails bounce and no contact from you after the January post here on CC just had us concerned. No one could have ever predicted everything COVID that happened right after that. Yes, having to prepay foreign companies adds to the difficulties.  Will watch for additional updates from you. Good luck. 

[Sonora5]

If you made payments using credit cards you might want to dispute on the card.

[ajstahle]

18 hours ago, sambamama said:

Here is the situation.  I just got ahold of the tour company.  I have not been refunded the money on the Ronda tour yet, and I had to put in another 20% of  my own money to him. I don't know if he will refund that or not.  The Rabat tour operator made a mistake on the date, so there is no refund-I have a credit with the company. I am not thrilled about that-and don't know if I can get that covered with travel insurance or not.  I will send out checks for the Rabat tour, but if you booked on both, I will wait until I see what is going to happen. I don't know if I booked with my credit card company that gives me travel insurance or not, and I don't think it fair that I take a hit of another 20% just because I organized this.  I was supposed to go away for 7 weeks to Africa, and that fell apart right before I was supposed to leave. MA is in the top 5 of states with COVID, and I have been swamped trying to get guys out of jail.  I don't think I ever want to host tours that the money is not paid directly to the company again as it was a nightmare and even more now that the cruise is cancelled.  The email contacts are good-but I have been buried with court work and trying to recover for my Africa trip.  I am planning to refund people-but I need to wait for my refund and check on trip insurance.  

Understand that you are busy and all things are not under your control, but those of us who sent you a deposit directly would appreciate an email directly rather than this post which everyone may not be looking at.  Things are frustrating for all of us and we'd like to kept abreast of your progress.  Thanks  ajstahle87 at gmail.com   Cadiz(Ronda)  Spain Day Tours Oct 19

Edited May 10, 2020 by ajstahle

[sail7seas]

On 5/9/2020 at 9:49 AM, sambamama said:

Well, the trial courts are closed, but work still goes on. Closed means no one can go in. But criminal work does not stop. People who are not held-their cases get postponed. But there are people in jail and new arrests and people whoses families or doctors are trying to have them civilly committed as they have alcohol or drug problems. So court goes on, but it is either by video conference or by teleconference. It is more challenging this way, but better than doing nothing. Governor Baker made a law where you must wear a mask if it isn't possible to be socially distant. A few businesses have been allowed to reopen, but MA is still in bad shape. Over 3500 people have died, and there is still very active outbreaks. We have been hit very hard with nursing home outbreaks. The nursing home near me, the Soldiers Home in Holyoke had 83 veterans die so far. Crime, at least, is down, although there has been a rash of homicides--mostly gang related. So I am still working-I just don't meet clients face to face any more. 

 

 

Samba mama

 

 I live in Massachusetts and Gov Bakers' rules apply to me as well

 

I also am quite familiar  with the criminal justice  system  in  Ma.   🙂

Edited May 12, 2020 by sail7seas

[sail7seas]

On 5/9/2020 at 10:50 AM, ski ww said:

This is what it looked like here this morning after a couple of weeks of sun shine, green grass, we're under a polar vortex.

 

Wow,

We had flurries here, near Boston, but nothing like that.

 

In  what city,  state, country were those photos taken?   

 

thanks  in advance

 

  Aha, I looked at the photo again and think I saw  a Canadian flag though it is not fully open

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by sail7seas

[ski ww]

This was taken in Victoria Harbour Ontario Canada about 1 1/2 hour north of Toronto on the southern tip of Georgian Bay. 

[Carvell]

Has anyone received their ‘cash’ back from a HAL Cruise.   We were to sail in March .. and still waiting for refund, 

 

 

[ski ww]

Received an email from HAL informing us that our ship excursion has been credited back to our card.

[kazu]

14 hours ago, Carvell said:

Has anyone received their ‘cash’ back from a HAL Cruise.   We were to sail in March .. and still waiting for refund, 

 

 

 

Several people have posted on the refund thread that they have now received their refunds from their mid March cruises.

[Norseh2o]

In North San Diego County, CA, the birds are singing and the grass is green.  New to the cruise critic boards, I am enjoying following the different threads, thank you all.  DH retired in 2019 and we travelled the world, HAL and Oceania.  Aside from our cancelled NCL Jade trip this month (no refund yet, no Delta airfare refund, either 😷), we were happy to be home, especially after a quick trip to Seattle in early March.  We returned home from Seattle feeling that Covid-19 would change our lives,  bought some groceries, yes some toilet paper, and stayed home. We have clean and sorted our little house, donated a truck bed full of household goods, bought and installed a new dishwasher, improved the entire yard irrigation system (DH has the green thumb!), set up our patio for company  (can't wait to visit with folks again!) and are please with the Guv's plan to reopen. Looking forward to our HAL trip11/2020 and Oceania in 2021. 

[cheone]

We are still in the shut down mode in our county, Chelan WA., only can do essential travel.  Our Gov Inslee did not follow the Federal Govt guideline, but made his more restrictive policies before we can open.   In our county, we have to have 14  straight days without a positive coronavirus.   This 14 day requirement will not and cannot be achieved, therefore we will be shut down through the whole tourist season.  We are the Number one tourist destination in the State of Washington.  Our Washington State Gov. Inslee  last week did allow members of the family to be in the car instead of only the driver when we have to do essential travel.  Gov Inslee did allow landscapers and paid dog walkers to go back to work.  

[Marigold252]

We are in the Sierra Foothills of Central California. It's rural and we don't know of any Covid-19 in our area. The restaurants are starting to open with limited seating and my DH is excited our haircut shop opened today. I trimmed  his hair once but he badly needs it again.! Will wear a mask and only one client in shop at a time.

We were supposed to be in Crete today on the Nieuw Amsterdam. Maybe next year?

Edited May 28, 2020 by Marigold252
Addition

[grest]

• In Florida our numbers are steadily and rapidly rising, and Disney World is going to open in a few weeks.  Add to that the Republican convention later this summer and we have a recipe for disaster.
•  

[Barkevko]

Here in Tasmania we have no new cases for the past 34 days. We have moved into our Stage 3 restrictions which allows us to get about, stay in accommodation over night anywhere in the state. Our border is still closed. Alot of businesses have reopened as long as they can abide by the 1.5m social distancing requirements. My husband and I only did grocery shopping and checking the post box during the height of the coronavirus outbreak although we were able to continue with doctor visits and trips to the large hardware store as we were doing jobs around the house. We have been able to sit and have a cuppa in a local cafe as long as we adhere to the 1.5m rule and are looking forward to spending some nights down in Hobart in August. Just waiting now to see what happens with a potential AU-NZ travel bubble and how that might affect our HAL cruise set for December 2020.