I think the cruise addiction is losing its grip on me

[tserface]

I'm still hopelessly addicted and hope things can return to some normalcy as soon as possible.  However, to be pragmatic we're hoping to be able to cruise early next Summer.  Even with a virus, it will take some months to convince people to take it and work out the kinks.  I wish I had magic genie wishes though.

 

Tom

[John&LaLa]

7 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

I wouldn't say that we are addicted (honestly, I can quit anytime!) since we only cruise once or sometimes twice a year.  We intermingle cruises and land trips.  I am recently retired and the plan WAS to take more land trips.  My job enabled me to travel all over the world and I want to go back to many places with my wife and spend more time.  We'll still do a cruise or 2 a year but there are SO many places in Europe and Asia that we want to spend weeks visiting.  We plan to move to Northeast Florida so maybe our cruises will increase once we are in driving distance of a port.  Assuming that cruising actually starts again.

 

Stop by Cocoa Beach if you move here

[CanadaRob]

Yeah, my addiction is loosening, just did a lift and shift to Dec21 and looking at other style of vacations and feeling a fair bit of disappointment as my addiction abates.  Looking at coach tours of Atlantic Canada, Ireland among others. Really not sure about a couple of future bookings that were earmarked for the Med 2022 

[SamInWa]

I fell into cruising early (relatively) and in my 30s and early 40s went on ~15 cruises. Only a couple of those were destinations types (Austrailia/New Zealand in 2007 and Panama Canal transit in 2014). Oh and also a Hawaii to Vancouver repositioning cruise in 2012. The rest were one week out of Florida or California. All of them were on Royal.

 

That Hawaii cruise gave me a taste for the state and so I decided to go back. I live in the greater Seattle area and discovered Hawaii (while not really cheap) is actually pretty easy to get to by airplane. Easier than Florida when you get right down to it. I booked a series of vacations over the last ~6 years there using VRBO to find a place to stay.

 

Anyway, I still have a list of places I would like to visit and until recently a cruise looked like a good way to get to see them.

 

Now, I honestly don't see how the industry survives in its current form. I think of cruises and the physical proximity (especially on the bigger ships) to other people and think there is no way.  I mean, I don't want to stand next to 3 people in the line at the grocery store.

 

The world changed and it isn't going back to the way it was before even if a vaccine and therapies made COVID-19 as easy to manage as the influenza (just to pick one random disease not to compare the two in any way). And such a vaccine, if it ever happens, is a long way off.  The USA hasn't figured out how to get PPE to its hospitals in 5+ months... there is no way we can get our act together to actually produce and manufacture a vaccine... something that still doesn't exist. 

[APDMOM]

I thought I had lost my addiction until all my refunds hit at once and I found myself booked on 2 more cruises 😂⛴💃

[poffles]

The fact that I am still here reading CC shows that I still feel the pull, the addiction is real!  That said, I do feel myself letting go of any reality of a cruise for me personally for a very long time.  2022 or beyond.  The obstacles of the cruise industry itself and the adapting that will have to happen to sail, in the absence of a vaccine, are not attractive to me.  Add to that, having to fly internationally to any cruise port just adds more to the mix.

 

I certainly don't rule out future cruising but it is not appealing to me at all right now.  Crossing borders adds another layer that makes it an even less of a consideration than for some living near a cruise port.   As some have mentioned, however, this is not just a cruising challenge, this is travel in general.  An all inclusive resort or even an AirBNB somewhere, will face the same reality having to isolate and be 6 feet apart, there is no escaping the current hold COVID has on us all. 

 

Cruising (travel) is just too expensive when one has to fly, do pre-hotels, etc (CAD to US ouch) to even consider for the near future.  I imagine a very regimented experience with me constantly thinking about 6 feet, sounds like fun.  And wearing a mask on a cruise is not happening for me.

[bobmacliberty]

15 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Stop by Cocoa Beach if you move here

Thanks for the invite.  We're looking at Amelia Island.  It's a compromise.  I'd like to be further south looking for year round warmth.  My wife wants to have some sort of cooler winter.  Amelia Island meets these needs and is basically Georgia with no state income tax.  The only downside is that I'll need to wear long pants for part of the year.  🥶

 

Will be interesting to see how living 3 hours from Port C will affect my addiction.  I don't count Carnival out of Jax.  😁

Edited July 20, 2020 by bobmacliberty

[Rocket3D]

18 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

Unfortunately I think you hit the nail on the head with this comment. 

 

>>>>>>> "The 'golden age of cruising' (before March 2020) is finished."<<<<<<<

 

Sad but true. 

 

I was on Independence, March 12, 2020, which may have been my last Royal cruise.

 

I hope to be proven wrong!

 

We were temperature scanned entering the terminal, but did not need masks then.

The ship seemed half full.  The SL and DL were ominously very empty every evening.

Grecia, and Ooma were wonderful as always, hope they are doing OK.

 

The flu was in the news and causing great consternation at Royal.  In fact Royal banned

people over 70 following that cruise, the panic was starting to cause official reaction.

 

Turns out that they cancelled all following cruises after that one... on Indy anyway.

 

IMHO, it was not very fun, although the crew were terrific.

 

We do not want to cruise like that again.

 

Royal's conundrum....... is 'How to make us want to cruise again?'

[CruisingJoe09]

My cruising addiction has kinda died off as well and has been for around 2 years now.

 

I wasn't too bummed not to cruise this year (first time in over a decade). I think that with everything in life, things have a shelf life and we eventually just go in different directions to before.

 

I just think that I've ran out of things to do and see on the average Europe or Caribbean cruise and I was also getting to the dilemma of getting bored with doing Oasis Class every cruise but equally being underwhelmed on a smaller ship.

 

I say bring on Icon - hopefully that being a new class of ship will bring my passion back.

[BirdTravels]

Still addicted to cruising. Every cancelled cruise gets rebooked. Now some of the rebooked cruises are probably on the chopping block. And we'll rebook again.