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Interim guidance for restarting cruise operations


Aspidestra99
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Our next trip is a round trip sailing on the QM2, New York to Southampton and back.   We will deal with whatever the guidelines/rules are at the time.   We are in a new world and we have been wearing masks for over 90 days going on 120.   Infection rate is way down in our state and non existent in our county but we still have the precautions and closures.    The pandemic will change our travel but as soon as the QM2 sails we will be ready.   Neither of us have any pre existing conditions and are quite healthy.   If we had health issues our decision would be “no” to any travel.

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12 hours ago, BlueRiband said:

For those who like to dine, as opposed to just getting fed, the restrictions could possibly mean three rushed sittings for dinner. (Cunard is actually considering this option.)   The guidelines also recommend expanded room service with delivery only to the cabin door.  And....wait for it...when finished the trays should be left in the hall.  Perhaps trays in the hall at every other door no longer present obstacles for those who use mobility assistance devices.  Pasengers who need them might now be considered unfit to sail.

 

In an earlier thread in another forum somebody predicted that a food take-out window would become a "must" for all ships.  Maybe he wasn't too far off.   That poster didn't speculate on where the take out food would be consumed and how one gets rid of the dirty containers, plates, and utinsels when finished.  

Take out window on Cunard ?  OMG, degenerating to Maccas or Burger King style of dining.  I could not see the Cunarders being happy with that.   No problems with disposal of plates, cutlery, paper plates and eat it with ones fingers, sanitised ones of course.  Paper plate into the nearest garbage bin or use it as a frisbee, just make sure it misses the rich folk sunbathing on the 'Grills sun deck.🤣

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Dining space could be supplemented by using the Verandah as a venue. I know it will sacrifice an additional revenue stream but if it makes for a better passenger experience it might be worth it. Perhaps shuffle up, releasing the club dining room as a britannia overflow. Moving club into grills dining room and some of grills into Verandah.

 

Club have open dining so that would fit with grills, only the menu would be different. I know some grills passengers may miss the grills lounge for pre and post dinner drinks but some may prefer the more central location of the Verandah. Just a thought.

 

Also QE will be back in Southampton this month. If the Australian and Canadian season is delayed until summer 2021 and cruising can restart late 20/early 21, it would make sense to use QE's capacity to try out. the new procedures with a controlled number of guests. Perhaps introduce some short cruises or a couple of round britain voyages with additional inducements perhaps. Cunard need to be a bit imaginative. 

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42 minutes ago, Aspidestra99 said:

Not the same dining experience. I wouldn't want to take dinner in the buffet.

 

I have always enjoyed the pop ups in the buffet. I think with a little rearrangement it could certainly be made elegant enough for it to be preferable to a rushed sitting, when one of three. And judging by frequent posts on here, complaining about the formal atmosphere, there may be some who would actually prefer it.

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29 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

As I wouldn't want to be moved from the grills [QG] restaurant to the Verandah. 

 

No, I certainly wouldn't either. On the Vistas, at any rate, the view from the Grills, even for those not adjacent to the windows, is excellent, while I always find the Verandah rather gloomy and miserable, even when near a window.

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1 hour ago, exlondoner said:

 

No, I certainly wouldn't either. On the Vistas, at any rate, the view from the Grills, even for those not adjacent to the windows, is excellent, while I always find the Verandah rather gloomy and miserable, even when near a window.

We have sat at window tables in QG. However if there was an enforced choice between fixed dining in QG and anytime dining in the Verandah I'd  choose the latter. This is a hypothetical anyway at present.

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Hi!

 

No way will I spend $$$$$ to sail on world cruise segments and put up with those restrictions.  Masks!  Social distancing!  Segregation by age!  Reduced capacity in public rooms!  No sharing large tables with any strangers.  These policies if implemented  would also no doubt very much eliminate ballroom dancing, Captain's parties, and World Club parties.   In addition, who wants to be on a ship where there is widespread paranoia among crew and passengers.  No thank you.  Too many alternatives.  

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I have read to page 30 of the EU guidelines on Cruise travel during the Covid 19 era and that was enough. A few comments to state, 

less passengers so prices will increase, repatriation - who will pay? isolation so no inside cabins if have to quarantine,  peoples mental health stuck inside will deteriorate, therefore the ship will have less occupancy and costs will increase?

If at boarding you are excluded from boarding who pays? Laboratory testing  at boarding who pays and how long will this take?

Natural ventilation of spaces, doors and windows to be opened daily so no inside cabins as only 1 door?

High risk groups to see GP and have the GP say you are ok to travel, not a GP but this sounds if the cruise companies and travel insurers want to pass the blame to your GP if something goes wrong! If any GP on cruise critic sailing Cunard I would be interested in your opinion regards signing passengers to go on a cruise. Looking at the last few Cunard cruises were on many people many were old - some very fit and active,  some were distinctly frail, are they all to be banned from cruising due to age? Reflecting about cruising it may never recover for many years until this pandemic dies down and is just in the background like many viral and bacterial infections or a vaccine is developed and the World becomes inoculated except the anti vaxers who hopefully do not cruise.  

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18 hours ago, North West Newbie said:

Thanks for the link.  It will be interesting to see if the recommendations will differ significantly from that the EU has outlined.  The cruise industry has probably been monitoring the social media responses to the EU draft and they are overwhelmingly negative. 

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2 hours ago, Photo Andy said:

I have read to page 30 of the EU guidelines on Cruise travel during the Covid 19 era and that was enough. A few comments to state, 

less passengers so prices will increase, repatriation - who will pay? isolation so no inside cabins if have to quarantine,  peoples mental health stuck inside will deteriorate, therefore the ship will have less occupancy and costs will increase?

If at boarding you are excluded from boarding who pays? Laboratory testing  at boarding who pays and how long will this take?

Natural ventilation of spaces, doors and windows to be opened daily so no inside cabins as only 1 door?

High risk groups to see GP and have the GP say you are ok to travel, not a GP but this sounds if the cruise companies and travel insurers want to pass the blame to your GP if something goes wrong! If any GP on cruise critic sailing Cunard I would be interested in your opinion regards signing passengers to go on a cruise. Looking at the last few Cunard cruises were on many people many were old - some very fit and active,  some were distinctly frail, are they all to be banned from cruising due to age? Reflecting about cruising it may never recover for many years until this pandemic dies down and is just in the background like many viral and bacterial infections or a vaccine is developed and the World becomes inoculated except the anti vaxers who hopefully do not cruise.  

Spoke to a doctor friend yesterday and she said she would NEVER advise anyone over 65 to go cruising at the present time and certainly not until an effective vaccine is widely available. Nor would she sign any document giving the OK to travel. And I suspect the travel insurance companies will take a similar line by jacking up premiums sky-high.

 

My cruising is a HOLIDAY not an endurance course to get to the end without catching a bug that might kill me.

Masks?

Social Distancing?

Queues?

 

If I wanted to experience those I'd just go to my local supermarket. I don't need to spend £thousands floating around worrying if this cruise will be a repeat of the Diamond Princess horror.

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21 hours ago, deck chair said:

Hi!

 

No way will I spend $$$$$ to sail on world cruise segments and put up with those restrictions.  Masks!  Social distancing!  Segregation by age!  Reduced capacity in public rooms!  No sharing large tables with any strangers.  These policies if implemented  would also no doubt very much eliminate ballroom dancing, Captain's parties, and World Club parties.   In addition, who wants to be on a ship where there is widespread paranoia among crew and passengers.  No thank you.  Too many alternatives.  

 

deck chair - well said.

 

There are too many other vacation options available that can be utilized once borders open.

 

Cruising is dead other than for those addicted to it - indeed put your $ down to book an unknown product.

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3 hours ago, Doubt It said:

 

 

Cruising is dead other than for those addicted to it - indeed put your $ down to book an unknown product.

 

I suspect that there may be quite a lot of addicts. Didn't about 70% of the respondents to the questionnaire on here say they were intending to cruise again soon, at least next year?

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On 7/2/2020 at 2:55 PM, bluemarble said:

Thanks for posting. Here's a link I found to that EU Healthy Gateways document for those who would like to read it.

Interim advice for restarting cruise ship operations after lifting restrictive measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

 

I'm a little confuse by this document and by who Healthy Gateways is. It appears to me, and I could be completely wrong, that Healthy Gateways is not an EU agency but is only receives some grant money from the EU. In fact the first paragraph of he document says:

* The EU HEALTHY GATEWAYS Joint Action has received funding from the European Union, in the framework of the Third Health Programme (2014-2020). The content of this document represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.

From this paragraph I get the impression that this document only represent the "views" of the author and is not necessarily the view of the EU or any of its formal agencies. However, not being familiar with the EU and how it works, I'm not sure what weight this document carries.

 

Jack

 

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6 hours ago, exlondoner said:

 

I suspect that there may be quite a lot of addicts. Didn't about 70% of the respondents to the questionnaire on here say they were intending to cruise again soon, at least next year?

 

I have been on close to 50 cruises but at the moment I am scared to even go into the local supermarket.

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6 hours ago, exlondoner said:

 

I suspect that there may be quite a lot of addicts. Didn't about 70% of the respondents to the questionnaire on here say they were intending to cruise again soon, at least next year?

You are right - a lot of us did so.  We were however working on the assumption the virus would fade and that that life on board would be back to what it have been.  The EU draft recommendations change that by rendering impossible all of the events and rituals we once enjoyed on Cunard.  Afternoon tea?  No way can that happen under those guidelines. 

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On 7/6/2020 at 10:08 AM, deck chair said:

Hi!

 

No way will I spend $$$$$ to sail on world cruise segments and put up with those restrictions.  Masks!  Social distancing!  Segregation by age!  Reduced capacity in public rooms!  No sharing large tables with any strangers.  These policies if implemented  would also no doubt very much eliminate ballroom dancing, Captain's parties, and World Club parties.   In addition, who wants to be on a ship where there is widespread paranoia among crew and passengers.  No thank you.  Too many alternatives.  

Agreed - but it’s not only the $$$$$:  there are many better ways to spend my time than on an ersatz cruise.  

 

The restrictions, while arguably necessary to make spending time on a ship safe, would simultaneously remove much of what makes spending time on a ship worthwhile.

 

We can come up with more enjoyable ways to spend a week (or six).  I suspect that one’s fellow passengers on such a cruise would be a dreary, dull lot - if they are so fixated upon the notion of cruising that they would fail to see that what they were booking was an empty shadow of what they sought.

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Interim report by a foundation which might or might not carry enormous weight about cruise ship operations which are suspended because of a virus no one knows much about and which could follow past Sars virus routes and either fade away or become part of daily life, and some of you have the whole industry damned.

 

I found this comment particularly interesting

 

'We can come up with more enjoyable ways to spend a week (or six).  I suspect that one’s fellow passengers on such a cruise would be a dreary, dull lot - if they are so fixated upon the notion of cruising that they would fail to see that what they were booking was an empty shadow of what they sought.'

 

because it implies those of us who have booked and are prepared to wait until our favourite mode of vacation recommences  are a sad lot who don't know what we're doing. I like to think we will have a head start on  life at sea and the dull lot will be those who can't book their favourite cabins as they will be sold out to the dreary lot who had faith.

The new normal will possibly be different, I don't know but I have faith Cunard will not start operations up again under all the interim proposals laid out in the named document. If the ships are sailing again one day, we will hopefully be aboard.

 

 

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18 hours ago, Jack E Dawson said:

 

I'm a little confuse by this document and by who Healthy Gateways is. It appears to me, and I could be completely wrong, that Healthy Gateways is not an EU agency but is only receives some grant money from the EU. In fact the first paragraph of he document says:

* The EU HEALTHY GATEWAYS Joint Action has received funding from the European Union, in the framework of the Third Health Programme (2014-2020). The content of this document represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.

From this paragraph I get the impression that this document only represent the "views" of the author and is not necessarily the view of the EU or any of its formal agencies. However, not being familiar with the EU and how it works, I'm not sure what weight this document carries.

 

Jack

 

 

Given all this, and the words Interim and Version 1, it seems pretty unlikely that what finally emerges as guidance, let alone regulation, will necessarily bear much resemblance to this, particularly once it's been picked apart by various lobby groups.

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22 hours ago, Roger Ackroyd said:

Spoke to a doctor friend yesterday and she said she would NEVER advise anyone over 65 to go cruising at the present time and certainly not until an effective vaccine is widely available. Nor would she sign any document giving the OK to travel. And I suspect the travel insurance companies will take a similar line by jacking up premiums sky-high.

 

 

Are there activities which your doctor friend would endorse? And why draw the line at the same age for both sexes?

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On 7/2/2020 at 4:26 PM, carlmm said:

Let's hope the cruise lines and the cruising public will not accept this destruction of cruising,

Short of a magical vaccine (that almost everyone agrees to take) the "turn back the clock to November 2019" scenario seems pretty improbable at the moment.   This was just tried at scale in Florida and Arizona.  I'm not sure it went very well.  

 

I'm not impressed by the work of the lines so far.   Nor it seems are the governments.  

 

The bad news to guests- like wearing masks -will come from a commission.  That way, like a firing squad issued some blanks, exactly who exactly delivered the suggestion will remain unknown.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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