Are cruises really going out again starting mid-May?

[gammite]

14 minutes ago, rimmit said:

The chance of any cruises cruising out of the US until there is a vaccine is pretty much zero.  The chance of a cruise over the summer is zero.

 

From a scientific standpoint, can you explain to me how you believe that COVID will be contained enough In 3 months so that the CDC can confidently allow people onto a cruise ship.  What scenario other than COVID miraculously disappearing would allow the CDC to overlook the Diamond princess, grand princess, zaandam, coral princess, ruby princess, celebrity eclipse, Oasis of the seas, Celebrity infinity, Disney wonder and all the other ships that have outbreaks.  The US govt is tired of dealing with this as are other foreign nations.   
 

Cruising is done until COVID is not a threat.  That is the sad reality.

 

As someone working in an EOC how would you formulate your argument to convince the CDC that cruising does not pose an unnecessary And unneeded threat to those that board the cruise ship?

 

I would love to cruise, but I just don’t think sticking our heads in the sand is going to make this go away.

 

Thank you for saving me from having to type this out. 

[firefly333]

Some have said there could be a vaccine by year end. I'm not holding my breath but not ruling it out 100% either. I think it's too soon to say absolutely no cruising for the rest of the year. .. maybe I'm a optimist. 

[rimmit]

15 minutes ago, gammite said:

 

Thank you for saving me from having to type this out. 

 

Anytime. 🙂

I have been cancelling plans due to this stupid virus since Jan as we had a trip to Go to all the Asian Disney’s this March.
 

Back then I am exactly where many people are now.  I was telling myself “There is no way they can close Shanghai Disneyland for more than a week.  Just not gone happen.”  Oh it happened.  It’s still closed almost three months later.
 

I have cancelled several land vacations and 6 cruises at this point as I have underestimated this stupid virus every step of the way.  Everytime I cancelled something I rebooked something thinking this would just get better magically.

 

Well guess what.  It didn’t and it’s not gonna start magically getting better now.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news people, but this just isn’t going to go away.

 

For those still in the Denial stage of grief, my advice to you is to skip to Acceptance,  I would have saved a lot of money if I had just skipped to Acceptance and stopped trying to book ahead of this  I would have a lot more money in my pockets.  Instead I have had to continually cancel and either take some penalties or wait endlessly on the refunds that never come or got stuck with a bunch of flight vouchers that I are not sure if I can ever use.  
 

I am still waiting on an Air Canada flight refund for a flight to Shanghai That was cancelled from the beginning of Feb. It’s been 70+ days since the flight was cancelled and I still have no refund.  So my advice is skip to Acceptance and save some money.

Edited April 16, 2020 by rimmit

[BillieJeanKaraokeKing]

Why would any sane person actually wish to go on a cruise ship in May?! 

[Cruise a holic]

Just heard on the news this morning- still thousands of cruise employees from all cruise lines, are still quarantined on the ships- Seems to me- no cruising for the rest of the year-at least.

[bouhunter]

8 minutes ago, Cruise a holic said:

Just heard on the news this morning- still thousands of cruise employees from all cruise lines, are still quarantined on the ships- Seems to me- no cruising for the rest of the year-at least.

Yeah, they're dealing with that, trying to get thousands more off the ships and home.  Laying off 26% of shore side employees.  And people think they'll be cruising later this summer...………...

[island lady]

12 hours ago, OnTheJourney said:

Are you certain about that? I would have thought so, but here is from their website...updated today:  

 

Our goal is to resume operations for most of our ships on May 12^th, 2020. Because of announced port closures, there are other itineraries we will be suspending.

• Ships sailing out of Singapore, and ships sailing through Canada have all been impacted differently due to port closures.

◦ Canadian ports will remain closed until July 1^st, 2020.

◦ The Port of Singapore will remain closed through May 2020.

 

That "update" has been stated the same for weeks now.  RCI simply changing the date of the update to look current.  Check back in a few days for the actual new update.  

Edited April 16, 2020 by island lady

[lurkmaster]

9 hours ago, rimmit said:

The chance of any cruises cruising out of the US until there is a vaccine is pretty much zero.  The chance of a cruise over the summer is zero.

 

From a scientific standpoint, can you explain to me how you believe that COVID will be contained enough In 3 months so that the CDC can confidently allow people onto a cruise ship.  What scenario other than COVID miraculously disappearing would allow the CDC to overlook the Diamond princess, grand princess, zaandam, coral princess, ruby princess, celebrity eclipse, Oasis of the seas, Celebrity infinity, Disney wonder and all the other ships that have outbreaks.  The US govt is tired of dealing with this as are other foreign nations.   
 

Cruising is done until COVID is not a threat.  That is the sad reality.

 

As someone working in an EOC how would you formulate your argument to convince the CDC that cruising does not pose an unnecessary And unneeded threat to those that board the cruise ship?

 

I would love to cruise, but I just don’t think sticking our heads in the sand is going to make this go away.

The only way i see it even possible is some form of "instant" and widescale testing prior to a vaccine. Literally everyone, all crew and passengers tested at embarkation (both at the onset of the cruise and after every port) to screen for the virus. Combine this with antibody testing that those who have already had the virus and developed "immunity" get some kind of card, wristband, etc. 

 

Other alternative is if there is reliable and effective medical treatment (similar to a tamiflu) that make the risks of hospitalization and/or deadly outcome reduced to negligible % that people feel comfortable gathering in large social environments.

 

Neither of these scenarios I can see playing out well enough in 3 months, but who knows.

[EscapeFromConnecticut]

9 hours ago, rimmit said:

The chance of any cruises cruising out of the US until there is a vaccine is pretty much zero.  The chance of a cruise over the summer is zero.

 

From a scientific standpoint, can you explain to me how you believe that COVID will be contained enough In 3 months so that the CDC can confidently allow people onto a cruise ship.  What scenario other than COVID miraculously disappearing would allow the CDC to overlook the Diamond princess, grand princess, zaandam, coral princess, ruby princess, celebrity eclipse, Oasis of the seas, Celebrity infinity, Disney wonder and all the other ships that have outbreaks.  The US govt is tired of dealing with this as are other foreign nations.   
 

Cruising is done until COVID is not a threat.  That is the sad reality.

 

As someone working in an EOC how would you formulate your argument to convince the CDC that cruising does not pose an unnecessary And unneeded threat to those that board the cruise ship?

 

I would love to cruise, but I just don’t think sticking our heads in the sand is going to make this go away.

 

You, my friend, deserve two votes in November. (Regardless of who you vote for, I'm confident you'll have done honest research and given it some genuine, intelligent analysis ... wish we had more people like that).

This post is brilliant. 

Sad to hear from your subsequent post about the ordeal of cancellations - but you learned from it. You were self honest, you were big enough to cut your losses and accept reality.

So many folks here simply refuse to grasp that there's a world beyond the tip of their nose. 
 

Perhaps they'll accept it from one of cruising's biggest cheerleaders, Donald Arnold. Hear what he's saying folks - it's NOT optimistic:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/04/14/carnival-ceo-on-the-cruise-industry-in-the-age-of-pandemics.html

 

 

 

[Iamcruzin]

9 hours ago, rimmit said:

 

Anytime. 🙂

I have been cancelling plans due to this stupid virus since Jan as we had a trip to Go to all the Asian Disney’s this March.
 

Back then I am exactly where many people are now.  I was telling myself “There is no way they can close Shanghai Disneyland for more than a week.  Just not gone happen.”  Oh it happened.  It’s still closed almost three months later.
 

I have cancelled several land vacations and 6 cruises at this point as I have underestimated this stupid virus every step of the way.  Everytime I cancelled something I rebooked something thinking this would just get better magically.

 

Well guess what.  It didn’t and it’s not gonna start magically getting better now.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news people, but this just isn’t going to go away.

 

For those still in the Denial stage of grief, my advice to you is to skip to Acceptance,  I would have saved a lot of money if I had just skipped to Acceptance and stopped trying to book ahead of this  I would have a lot more money in my pockets.  Instead I have had to continually cancel and either take some penalties or wait endlessly on the refunds that never come or got stuck with a bunch of flight vouchers that I are not sure if I can ever use.  
 

I am still waiting on an Air Canada flight refund for a flight to Shanghai That was cancelled from the beginning of Feb. It’s been 70+ days since the flight was cancelled and I still have no refund.  So my advice is skip to Acceptance and save some money.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope others will learn from it. 

[Williamsburgcruiser]

I am curious here.... the CDC - do their mandates just apply to US ports?  So, if the cruise line industry was to sail from foreign ports that are open - can they?

Edited April 16, 2020 by Williamsburgcruiser

[Biker19]

Just now, Williamsburgcruiser said:

So, if the cruise line industry was to sail from foreign ports that are open - can they?

Yes.

[tzbeach]

14 hours ago, OnTheJourney said:

Are you certain about that? I would have thought so, but here is from their website...updated today:  

 

Our goal is to resume operations for most of our ships on May 12^th, 2020. Because of announced port closures, there are other itineraries we will be suspending.

• Ships sailing out of Singapore, and ships sailing through Canada have all been impacted differently due to port closures.

◦ Canadian ports will remain closed until July 1^st, 2020.

◦ The Port of Singapore will remain closed through May 2020.

I absolutely hate how it always shows UPDATED ON XXX and it is always TODAY'S DATE.  The retired IT person in me thinks the person that designed the webpage just put current date there.  Because I check it everyday and don't see anything changing but then it is current as of TODAY but it was not UPDATED ON TODAY.   Very misleading.

[rimmit]

1 hour ago, EscapeFromConnecticut said:

 

You, my friend, deserve two votes in November. (Regardless of who you vote for, I'm confident you'll have done honest research and given it some genuine, intelligent analysis ... wish we had more people like that).

This post is brilliant. 

Sad to hear from your subsequent post about the ordeal of cancellations - but you learned from it. You were self honest, you were big enough to cut your losses and accept reality.

So many folks here simply refuse to grasp that there's a world beyond the tip of their nose. 
 

Perhaps they'll accept it from one of cruising's biggest cheerleaders, Donald Arnold. Hear what he's saying folks - it's NOT optimistic:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/04/14/carnival-ceo-on-the-cruise-industry-in-the-age-of-pandemics.html

 

 

 

Thanks.  It took a while for me to come to terms with this and I now have flight vouchers with United, Air France and a refund pending with Air Canada and a bunch of miles on Delta.  It took Hong Kong Air 60 days to get me my refund.  The hotels have been very efficient as has Disney in refunding.  I have travel vouchers with several tour companies as they REFUSE to give refunds because despite them cancelling, not me.  I have been tempted to try a chargeback.  I could flat lose quite a bit with an Airbnb as it is 15 days from their adjusted cancellation policy and it was totally Nonrefundable, but I am hoping they adjust their COVID policy dates in the next two weeks.   I have more FCCs than I care to admit because I was even cancelling cruises using CWC and getting the FCC and rebooking at lower prices when the prices started dropping on the close in sailings.  The cruises that got cancelled By the cruise lines I will HOPEFULLY get a refund.  
 

At the beginning of this in Jan when we started having to cancel vacation plans, I was giving the “this is just the flu argument.”  My wife was stating (and to let you know I am a medical professional that deals exclusively in ICU care) “Are you so arrogant to think you know more than the experts?”  This was back in my Denial stage, and how I couldn’t believe that they could shut down Disney, or an entire country of China for that matter. 
 

I will be the first to admit I was slow to acceptance and should have listened to my wife sooner than later. Either way here we are, and sadly the genie’s out of the bottle at this point.  

Edited April 16, 2020 by rimmit

[rimmit]

29 minutes ago, Williamsburgcruiser said:

I am curious here.... the CDC - do their mandates just apply to US ports?  So, if the cruise line industry was to sail from foreign ports that are open - can they?

If the US isn’t willing to take a chance on cruise ships, and they have as much skin in the game as anyone, and the worlds largest navy, and more resources outside of any country not named China, do you think other countries are going to be eager to let them sail?   
 

Most other countries shut down their countries to cruise ships well before the US.

 

But to answer your question, yes, the CDC only has jurisdiction in the US. 

[beerman2]

2 hours ago, rimmit said:

Thanks.  It took a while for me to come to terms with this and I now have flight vouchers with United, Air France and a refund pending with Air Canada and a bunch of miles on Delta.  It took Hong Kong Air 60 days to get me my refund.  The hotels have been very efficient as has Disney in refunding.  I have travel vouchers with several tour companies as they REFUSE to give refunds because despite them cancelling, not me.  I have been tempted to try a chargeback.  I could flat lose quite a bit with an Airbnb as it is 15 days from their adjusted cancellation policy and it was totally Nonrefundable, but I am hoping they adjust their COVID policy dates in the next two weeks.   I have more FCCs than I care to admit because I was even cancelling cruises using CWC and getting the FCC and rebooking at lower prices when the prices started dropping on the close in sailings.  The cruises that got cancelled By the cruise lines I will HOPEFULLY get a refund.  
 

At the beginning of this in Jan when we started having to cancel vacation plans, I was giving the “this is just the flu argument.”  My wife was stating (and to let you know I am a medical professional that deals exclusively in ICU care) “Are you so arrogant to think you know more than the experts?”  This was back in my Denial stage, and how I couldn’t believe that they could shut down Disney, or an entire country of China for that matter. 
 

I will be the first to admit I was slow to acceptance and should have listened to my wife sooner than later. Either way here we are, and sadly the genie’s out of the bottle at this point.  

At the very beginning where stay at home, no social gathering and before Florida started closing things , I was surprised how AirBnB stepped up with cancellation policy. 

 

Within 5 days of cancelling my CC was already credited and the owner completely understood. 

 

Hopefully it works out for you. I have one airfare FC I'm holding now with another one coming up. I will more than likely eat one of those also. 

[time4u2go]

12 hours ago, rimmit said:

The chance of any cruises cruising out of the US until there is a vaccine is pretty much zero.  

...

 

Even if and when a vaccine is developed, there will then be a line of 7 billion or so people wanting to get it.  I could see it taking a while before there is widespread distribution of it.

[rimmit]

29 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Even if and when a vaccine is developed, there will then be a line of 7 billion or so people wanting to get it.  I could see it taking a while before there is widespread distribution of it.

I apologize.  That was kind of implied when stating there is a vaccine.  Obviously if the vaccine just sits in a lab it does absolutely no good for the world population.  As a total guess with no scientific backing I am betting it would take at least 6 months to get to herd immunity.
 

Thankfully vaccines are relatively cheap, quick to produce and easy to distribute.  That is exactly why vaccination is such a popular measure. It is incredibly affordable (Especially compared to other medical therapies. That’s how we eliminated small pox. We pretty much vaccinated the whole world and to this day remains one of the greatest medical triumphs ever), can be quickly mass produced (there are over 160 million Flu vaccines produced just for the US per year), and easily transported to any country in the world via an airplane as they are lightweight and compact typically only needing refrigeration at most and that can often be accomplished with dry ice. While every vaccine may have different challenges in production and creation, R&D is typically the biggest hurdle for vaccines (and the FDA in the US).

Once you get past that hurdle it’s relatively smooth sailing. Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of modern medicine despite what anti-vaxxers may say.

 

Random note.  Are you from New Orleans.  Looks like St. Charles Ave I your profile pic.  My wife is from there and my mother in law lives one house off St Charles Ave.

Edited April 16, 2020 by rimmit

[zonacruiser25]

To stay on topic for this, mid-May no way!  Vaccine and instant or quick tests will need to be available before sailing successfully restarts.   In the US only about 45% or so get a flu shot.  Being in a high risk group, over 65, I will likely get a vaccine when it is proven safe.  I hope cruise lines will require some sort of a requirement to prove a vaccine and then have a quick/instant test at boarding.  Impossible, no.  Practical, I would believe it would be.  But even with this at boarding, what happens at each port?  The world has changed.  I do not pretend to have any answers just these thoughts.  I hope I can cruise again before I am 70 and may have to have a Dr note! 

Edited April 16, 2020 by zonacruiser25
spelling

[drafterdw]

17 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

To where?

Bermuda....we are scheduled on June 6 but don't think will happen. Forget the 100 days from April 15 the governor from MD is still issuing restrictions on all kinds of stuff.

[island lady]

12 minutes ago, drafterdw said:

Bermuda....we are scheduled on June 6 but don't think will happen. Forget the 100 days from April 15 the governor from MD is still issuing restrictions on all kinds of stuff.

 

Bermuda is still closed to cruise ships.    My 9 night leaving just after your cruise on 6/11 took a drastic change in itinerary...was NE/Canada changed to Florida/Bahamas.  RCI gave me choice to cancel with 125%, get refund, or still take the cruise with extra OBC.  I took the 125%, which I will apply to one of my already booked cruises for next year.  

 

I seriously doubt your cruise...or my original one...will cruise at all.  

[NanciRDH]

Club Royale thinks they will be cruising this summer.  Got a free cruise offer, first time ever!  It's for a Bahamas or Caribbean from mid July thru August, on Liberty, Symphony, Mariner, Independence, or Navigator.

[OnTheJourney]

rimmit....good post. All makes sense to me. 

[OnTheJourney]

1 hour ago, rimmit said:

 

 despite what anti-vaxxers may say.

 

 

...which brings up a whole other ball of wax as to how that group might continue to cruise or travel in general, since I can foresee the land tour companies also applying whatever new guidelines and policies are sure to come along. 

Edited April 16, 2020 by OnTheJourney

[Milwaukee Eight]

16 minutes ago, NanciRDH said:

Club Royale thinks they will be cruising this summer.  Got a free cruise offer, first time ever!  It's for a Bahamas or Caribbean from mid July thru August, on Liberty, Symphony, Mariner, Independence, or Navigator.

Got those last week.