Cyclone Harold

[SWFLAOK]

If not for Covid-19 which caused our PG Fiji to Bali cruise to be cancelled, we would have been scheduled to land early this morning at Nadi in Fiji for 3 nights before boarding the Paul Gauguin. From what I could see on Flight Aware, our flight was cancelled and did not leave LAX, and may have been one of the Fiji Air planes that was sent to a safe airport for avoid the storm. There was much damage reported in the tourist area of Fiji, south of Lautoka which is we where supposed to stay. The storm already hit the Solomon Islands a few days ago and sank a ferry in high seas, and caused serious damage on the Northern Island of Vanuatu, which is where the PG was scheduled to stop on our cruise. Harold is now devastating Tonga before continuing on to the SE where it will hopefully miss the rest of the South Pacific Islands. This is very late in the cyclone season, and when I booked the Fiji to Bali cruise over a year ago, I didn't anticipate a major cyclone in that area, let alone a global pandemic.

It looks like the PG took a sanitary cruise out to open water today and returned to the dock in Papeete. It will be interesting to see if they head for Singapore for dry dock or not, since they will have to avoid Harold by taking a route to the north rather than the route they would take otherwise if they want to avoid stormy conditions.

[Friscorays]

Your flight into Nadi was not cancelled due to weather. 

 

On March 20 Fiji Airways announced suspension of all international flights until at least the end of May, with the exception of twice-weekly services between Singapore and Nadi due to COVID 19.  On March 24, they announced suspension of the Singapore flights as well.

 

A few days later, Nadi Airport was completely shut down, again at least until the end of May, except for a few repatriation flights.

 

https://www.fijiairways.com/en-us/flight-information/travel-alerts/?utm_source=browser

 

https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/412658/fiji-s-airport-closes-and-authorities-investigate-covid-19-breaches

 

 

 

 

[SWFLAOK]

16 hours ago, Friscorays said:

Your flight into Nadi was not cancelled due to weather. 

 

On March 20 Fiji Airways announced suspension of all international flights until at least the end of May, with the exception of twice-weekly services between Singapore and Nadi due to COVID 19.  On March 24, they announced suspension of the Singapore flights as well.

 

A few days later, Nadi Airport was completely shut down, again at least until the end of May, except for a few repatriation flights.

 

https://www.fijiairways.com/en-us/flight-information/travel-alerts/?utm_source=browser

 

https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/412658/fiji-s-airport-closes-and-authorities-investigate-covid-19-breaches

 

 

 

 

You might have noticed that I started my post with "If not for Covid-19".  So I was saying that if Covid-19 had never occurred, our flight would not have occurred. They did not have a repatriation flight from LAX that night, and waited until the storm passed for that flight. Why there are enough Fijians in the US at this point that they need flights home, I don't know. I wouldn't still be in the US if I were them.

I also saw that flights from Hong Kong were arriving until the end of March, and flights from Singapore were arriving until the arrival of the cyclone. Maybe no one was onboard, or maybe it was Fijians that returning home after traveling to places with Covid-19.

We lost a lot of money on this cruise, and we will not be able to replace it with the same itinerary on the PG. I was trying to point out that if this cruise had gone off as scheduled, it would not have gone well because of the cyclone. And we still would have wasted a lot of money because we would not have had the cruise we wanted, with Fiji hotels being damaged, and storm damage at our stops in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. I'm confident that our "insurance" would not have covered anything because it was caused by bad weather, just as it covers nothing for a pandemic.

And Nadi airport is not closed down at all since there have been many international arrivals, as well as domestic arrivals and departures.

[Friscorays]

1 hour ago, SWFLAOK said:

....And Nadi airport is not closed down at all since there have been many international arrivals, as well as domestic arrivals and departures.

 

Source?  I gave one link to Nadi Airport closure above and I'll give another below where one can hear clips of Fiji PM speaking to the issue directly.

 

Fiji Prime Minister:  "From tomorrow, Nadi Airport will be officially shut down to all scheduled passenger travel. There are currently three flights inbound to Fiji carrying Fijians returning home from overseas, these passengers will all be required to self-quarantine for 14 days upon the arrival....We’re exploring safe, low-risk evacuation measures to get these folks home. We’re also working closely with embassies here in Fiji to repatriate foreign nationals still on our shores and get them home as well....From this Sunday, the 29th of March, all passenger travel to our outer islands will cease.... Anyone who regularly travels these routes should decide over the next four days where they’d prefer to spend the next few months.”

 

https://www.fbcnews.com.fj/news/covid-19/nadi-airport-to-close-shipping-services-end-sunday/

 

At the beginning of your post you speculated that the hypothetical flight in question did not occur due to weather.  I was simply pointing out as a matter of general information for those that might not know that absolutely no leisure travel to or from Fiji is occurring through at least the end of May.

[SWFLAOK]

The flight was not hypothetical since we did have e-tickets for it issued to us through our reservations made by PG cruises. I was actually trying to make other cruise critic readers on our cancelled cruise feel a little because the weather would likely have had a large effect on our enjoyment of it.

 

Our cruise was cancelled back in March, around the time that the CDC said that no one should be taking cruises. We don't know when our flights were cancelled. They were definitely not cancelled at the time that our cruise was cancelled since PG cruises had to wait  a while to hear from Fiji Airways on the cancellation reimbursement  before they could tell us what our FCC was based on the flight they had included in the cruise, and our business class upgrade to it. And we still have only a ballpark figure for our FCC from PG cruises.

 

I agree with you that no one should be doing any leisure travel to Fiji, or almost anywhere else at this point, especially places with few cases and limited hospital beds. There's no way I would have wanted to fly from LAX to Fiji, board the PG, and stop at Vanuatu where there were no cases of Covid-19, as well as other ports beyond that. We've been staying at home except for essentials since March 13, and have had no symptoms during that time, but flying from FLL to Fiji through LAX would have exposed us to the risk of bringing it to all of the areas beyond that. I would not have wanted to do that even if they hadn't closed their borders. I just wish Florida could do the same to protect its residents.