Cruising has restarted

[voljeep]

7 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

 

Just trying to convince  the public to begin cruising once again will be a major accomplishment.

From what I see many people here in Florida are afraid to venture out in public without a mask to go shopping, no less be confined on a cruise ship. 😕

I'm projecting out to mid-April 2021, not mid September 2020

[voljeep]

2 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

Re crewing has another big problem.  Many of the most experienced crew members do not want to go back to work on ships.  Consider that some crew members have been literally imprisoned on ships for months as the cruise lines try to find ways to repatriate them home.  This has not only led to moral issues but has resulted in quite a few crew suicides and other mental health issues.  So, when you say that re-crewing is the "least" of the problems it is actually one of the main problems.  Without a sufficient crew (there are minimum crew requirements for safety) you cannot have any cruise.

agree to disagree - of course there will be risks associated and collateral damage 🥃

[Hlitner]

6 minutes ago, voljeep said:

agree to disagree - of course there will be risks associated and collateral damage 🥃

I guess you would say the same about the world economy.  Why not just open everything and let things go back to normal.  All the death, comorbidity, and sickness would be just "collateral damage?"  Surely you don't want to live in such a world.

 

Hank

[suzyed]

1 hour ago, Hlitner said:

One of the hallmarks of "living intelligently with COVID" is accepting the fact that you do not have control over other people's actions or governmental decisions.  But you do have control over yourself!  This is called "personal responsibility" which is a term lost to many these days.  But rather then constantly blaming the actions of others one can do their best to work with the existing system and concentrate on the factors that are within your own control.  So for example, if I go to the Supermarket and there is a person who is not wearing a mask I can do my best to social distance from that person.  When we went to the beach we walked until we found a relatively empty area where we could easily social distance.  And when we went in ocean we swam in areas that were not crowded with others.    Another example is restaurants.  If DW and I go out to a restaurant we expect them to meet our own standards (which are tough) regarding social distancing and mask wearing.  If we go to a place that is obviously not up to our standards we simply leave!   No need to make a scene, confront others, etc.  Just leave!  In one such case we later telephoned that restaurant and spoke to the manager explaining that we left his facility because we did not feel safe.  

 

You mention the Far East and although the comparisons are interesting it is nothing within our own control.  If folks simply handled issues within their direct control and did not stress out about everyone else's actions they would quickly find their own stress level is reduced.

 

Hank

Agree.  I talked to a manager in a restaurant where none of the servers were wearing masks...he told me he couldn't make them wear them!  I asked if he can make them wear the logo shirts with the restaurant name on it and he said yes....so I said you can tell them no mask-no work.  I followed up and called their corporate office.  They are all wearing masks now!

[suzyed]

25 minutes ago, voljeep said:

I'm projecting out to mid-April 2021, not mid September 2020

Most stores and restaurants, at least in our area of Florida, require masks.  It's not optional.  Some even take your temperature before entering.

[suzyed]

15 hours ago, Hlitner said:

It will certainly impact other cruise lines.  Hurtigruten is a well run cruise line which has now lost the trust of the Norwegian government and people.  Add to that issues with positive test on both Aida and TUI and Europe is looking at the major failure of most start-ups.  You can be certain that the CDC is carefully watching and keep in mind that these cruise lines were following pretty strict protocols that were approved by the EU and their own governments.  

 

Trying to restart cruises in South Florida present huge problems...even if the CDC lifts their "no cruise" order.  How do the cruise lines get thousands of crew, from all over the world, to south Florida and ensure they are in good health.  I guess there could be a program to put all the crew members into isolation for at least two weeks, but keep in mind we are talking about thousands of people.   And even if we had a way to ensure that all the crew members were OK, you then have the same problem with many more thousands of passengers.  These passengers must travel to south Florida (which is a COVID hot zone) and get to the ship with zero infections.  How can this be guaranteed when there is currently no test to detect recent exposure?

 

Some have accused me (and others) of being too negative here on CC.  I love cruising and have had 3 cruises (2 on Princess and 1 HAL) cancelled in the last 4 months by the cruise line.  We have another cruise (MSC) booked for December and doubt it will happen.  We have two cruises (HAL and Oceania) booked in 2021 and would not take bets that either will happen.  At this point I would not take a bet on any mass market cruise happening in the next year!

 

I know this is very negative but we have not heard anyone come up with a reasonable plan to resume cruising with the current situation.  If there is a 100% safe/effective vaccine in the next few months which can somehow be dispensed to billion we are all home free.  What is more likely is that if (a big if) there is a vaccine it will have limited efficacy (perhaps 50%) and will involve multiple shots assuming you can find the vaccine and a place that is dispensing.    The Europeans are desperately trying to resume cruising without a vaccine and without a reliable last minute COVID test.  So far they are failing!  I seriously doubt that the CDC is going to allow a similar situation in the USA.  I believe it is back to the drawing boards for the cruise industry.

 

Hank

And safe cruising is not the only issue....many countries will not allow Americans to enter their countries.  In other words, we may be able to start cruising at some point but we have to be allowed to port in other countries.

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by suzyed

[npcl]

9 hours ago, caribill said:

 

 

Most of the ships are in the area where many of the crew come from. New crew could be brought to the ships before the ships reposition to the embarkation port. Of course the crew will need to be quarantined an appropriate amount of time before getting on the ships.

 

 

 

Definitely a problem no matter which embarkation port is used. Traveling to the port will expose passengers to others who might be carriers. Port employees could be carriers.

 

 

With all the political pressure to have a vaccine available this year, I have no doubt one or more will gain emergency approval from the same folk who gave conditional approval to unproved and faulty virus test kits, to unproved and faulty anti-body tests and to medicines that are ineffective but can cause heart damage.

 

A normal Phase 3 trial takes more than three months and has the participants go about normal daily life. Well, normal daily life does not exists for the participants in the current Phase 3 trials. Many will spend much of the time in their homes, not go to crowded restaurants, movie theaters, religious services, etc. and thus not catching the virus will not prove a vaccine is truly effective even if the numbers for those with the vaccine are slightly better than those with a placebo.

 

A good number of those who have had the virus, with or without symptoms, are learning that there is long term damage to various organs. Will the Phase 3 trials be long enough and thorough enough to make sure that the vaccines do not cause these type of long term damage that the virus can cause?

 

“But other patients are affected without apparent risk factors: A paper this week in JAMA Cardiology found that 78 of 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 had cardiac abnormalities when their heart was imaged on average 10 weeks later, most often inflammation in heart muscle. Many of the participants in that study were previously healthy, and some even caught the virus while on ski trips, according to the authors.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine-efficacy-trials.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20200804

Actually a trial takes as long as as the treatment time plus the time it takes to set up the trial and recruit the patients. The most time is usually patient recruitment.

 

With these trials these delays are not a problem.  Lots of medical facilities willing to run the trial, many more patients volunteered than needed. as someone who has overseen clinical trials I see nothing unusual or concerning with the timing of the Moderna trial or the others for which public information has been released.

 

 

[caribill]

10 minutes ago, npcl said:

Actually a trial takes as long as as the treatment time plus the time it takes to set up the trial and recruit the patients. The most time is usually patient recruitment.

 

With these trials these delays are not a problem.  Lots of medical facilities willing to run the trial, many more patients volunteered than needed. as someone who has overseen clinical trials I see nothing unusual or concerning with the timing of the Moderna trial or the others for which public information has been released.

 

 

 

So you see no problem with a three month trial proving a woman can get pregnant and give birth to a child with no adverse affects to either?

[PrincessLuver]

9 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

What is one person's idea of living intelligent with SARs-CoV-2 is another's denial and living irresponsible.

 

That is the fundamental problem in the US the Federal and State government lost credibility with the early sacrifices, and even in places like Germany and rest of Europe they are struggling, for some interesting reason the Far East is doing better with the those who can't follow rules/make sacrifices.

 

Agree......we know what happens when the Covid-19 deniers say let's open up things and get on with life.....just more deaths and more deaths and we have plenty of examples in the US to show what a bogus approach to dealing with Covid-19 that is.  No matter how Covid-19 deniers try to spin it they want us to deny the dangerous position we are in as a country health wise.

[npcl]

37 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

So you see no problem with a three month trial proving a woman can get pregnant and give birth to a child with no adverse affects to either?

You and I have discussed the process before. If a population cannot be tested they will be excluded from the population that can receive the drug until such test have been conducted.

 

So pregnant women may not be able to receive the drug when it is first approved, but millions of non pregnant individuals could.

 

That might require a later or longer trial. Though genotox is usually determined by intensive preclinical work. You usually do not do clinical work on pregnant women without extensive proof that it is safe. Been that way since thaliamide.

 

 

[caribill]

17 minutes ago, npcl said:

 If a population cannot be tested they will be excluded from the population that can receive the drug until such test have been conducted.

 

 

I know that at least one of the trials does include people up to age 85.

 

What I have not seen is whether any of the trials include people with underlying conditions that make Covid-19 worse. Do you know if any of the current trials include people with underlying conditions or do all the trials only include healthy people without any of those conditions?

[npcl]

39 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

I know that at least one of the trials does include people up to age 85.

 

What I have not seen is whether any of the trials include people with underlying conditions that make Covid-19 worse. Do you know if any of the current trials include people with underlying conditions or do all the trials only include healthy people without any of those conditions?

Well you could always go to the FDA clinical trial site and read the brief instead of throwing out criticisms in the dark.  If you note the trial runs 24 months for all data, though their will be a point at which the blinds are broken to evaluate efficacy.  Probably once they have passed the safety criteria and enough cases have been identified in the population to power the analysis for efficacy.

 

The details about the Moderna trial is here

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427?term=moderna&cond=Covid19&draw=2&rank=1

 

Here is the data on their phase 2a trial

 

If one is really interested the following is one of the guidance documents on FDA clinical trials dealing with pregnant women.

 

Pregnant Women: Scientific and Ethical Considerations for Inclusion in Clinical Trials Guidance for Industry

 

https://www.fda.gov/media/112195/download

Edited August 5, 2020 by npcl

[caribill]

12 minutes ago, npcl said:

Well you could always go to the FDA clinical trial site and read the brief.  If you note the trial runs 24 months for all data, though their will be a point at which the blinds are broken to evaluate efficacy.  Probably once they have passed the safety criteria and enough cases have been identified in the population to power the analysis for efficacy.

 

The details about the Moderna trial is here

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427?term=moderna&cond=Covid19&draw=2&rank=1

 

 

 

Thanks for the link. I had not been able to find this info so far. Although it looks like those with pre-existing conditions will be accepted, I do not see any obvious info about being sure there are an adequate number of these individuals.

 

With the trial looking for results starting 14 days after the second dose, it will be late November before three months of data will be available for analysis. So the earliest even emergency approval of this vaccine could be made by the FDA would be in December.

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants who are at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, defined as adults whose locations or circumstances put them at appreciable risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19.
• Understands and agrees to comply with the study procedures and provides written informed consent.
• Able to comply with study procedures based on the assessment of the Investigator.
• Female participants of non-childbearing potential may be enrolled in the study. Non-childbearing potential is defined as surgically sterile (history of bilateral tubal ligation, bilateral oophorectomy, hysterectomy) or postmenopausal (defined as amenorrhea for ≥12 consecutive months prior to Screening without an alternative medical cause). A follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) level may be measured at the discretion of the Investigator to confirm postmenopausal status.

• Female participants of childbearing potential may be enrolled in the study if the participant fulfills all the following criteria:

  • Has a negative pregnancy test at Screening and on the day of the first dose (Day 1).
  • Has practiced adequate contraception or has abstained from all activities that could result in pregnancy for at least 28 days prior to the first dose (Day 1).
  • Has agreed to continue adequate contraception through 3 months following the second dose on Day 29.
  • Is not currently breastfeeding.
• Male participants engaging in activity that could result in pregnancy of sexual partners must agree to practice adequate contraception and refrain from sperm donation from the time of the first dose and through 3 months after the second dose.
• Healthy adults or adults with pre-existing medical conditions who are in stable condition. A stable medical condition is defined as disease not requiring significant change in therapy or hospitalization for worsening disease during the 3 months before enrollment.

[MissP22]

3 hours ago, voljeep said:

I'm projecting out to mid-April 2021, not mid September 2020

I'm hopeful that spring 2021 might be an option to begin putting ships sailing again (provided that they have a vaccine). 

At least we can see what happens on the initial cruises to determine if we'll be booking anytime during the year. 

[Shaver John]

14 hours ago, suzyed said:

I guess it was I who you met (Susan).  We had already sent our luggage to the airport earlier that day and were lucky enough to get it back at some point.  When the captain announce at 10PM that their president was "closing" Argentina and that we had to leave the port by midnight...we got really worried and knew that the rest of the cruise was going to, Um, have "problems".  
So many of those who had their flights cancelled or they missed their flights, then came back to the ship. If there was a point in time that I felt Princess made a mistake was when they made the decision NOT to quarantine those folks. They stayed in their cabins that night but that was it. Up until that point we did not have the virus onboard (at least that we knew of).    I said to Chuck...we're going to have a problem in 10-14 days.  12 days later we heard of the first cases of Corona.  Pretty much all downhill from that point. 
I have to concede that Princess took very good care of us when we finally were confined to our cabins on March 31st. and yes, we have finally gotten the FCCs (our choice) and a few other monies from mistakes made on our folio.  
What kind of refund are you waiting for? Airfare? Cruise charges?  
Wishing you good luck with your refund and I hope it comes very soon!
 

Hey Susan,

 

So nice to hear from you, yes we are still waiting for the $7000. The second part of the cruise, we had paid to go all the way to Fort Lauderdale, and then the plane flight from Argentina. We subtracted the amount of the ticket it would have cost us from Fort Lauderdale home and only asked for the difference. We had insurance and they only paid us 10% of the ticket, so now Princess says it will pay us the difference, but still have not see the dollars. We choose to stay on board the day the Coral went to The Falklands, we had been told at the 40 Most Traveled Luncheon that the ship would NOT go to Fort Lauderdale so we made 5 different tickets to get out of Argentina doing several tickets for a couple of days just in case. We have been paid back for 5 of the tickets from United, but still waiting for the last one from Princess. So that is where the money is owned to us. We had a nice part of the trip for the first 8 days, but I will admit that the last 6 days were not akin to "Coming Back NEW". I do not blame this all on Princess, but Jan had first said that the cruise would stop on the 15th, if that had happened maybe we could have all been off and home before this became the mess and deadly as it did. I have no idea, maybe it was not possible, but lack of information seems vital to me.  Oh, well, guess we will never know why we needed to stop at The Falklands instead of going into a port where we could disembark while it would have been a lot safer. Even 5 days may have helped.  I hope you and your husband are well and enjoying being back home.

[chipmaster]

2 hours ago, MissP22 said:

I'm hopeful that spring 2021 might be an option to begin putting ships sailing again (provided that they have a vaccine). 

At least we can see what happens on the initial cruises to determine if we'll be booking anytime during the year. 

 

Spring 2021 is very optimistic, I'll wager we'll see another surge as the first round Vaccine is in play and people will again be indiscriminate with safety and it'll explode again, each outbreak will be lower than the last because the most weak will already been culled from the herd.

[chipmaster]

6 hours ago, suzyed said:

Agree.  I talked to a manager in a restaurant where none of the servers were wearing masks...he told me he couldn't make them wear them!  I asked if he can make them wear the logo shirts with the restaurant name on it and he said yes....so I said you can tell them no mask-no work.  I followed up and called their corporate office.  They are all wearing masks now!

 

Amazing isn't it,  no shirt / no shoes no service, get them to wear logo shirt, or etc... but something that keeps their livelyhood going, might safe their life, etc. etc.   Nope,  are we stupid or stubborn, or too proud and arrogant to our ideaology?

[suzyed]

4 hours ago, Shaver John said:

Hey Susan,

 

So nice to hear from you, yes we are still waiting for the $7000. The second part of the cruise, we had paid to go all the way to Fort Lauderdale, and then the plane flight from Argentina. We subtracted the amount of the ticket it would have cost us from Fort Lauderdale home and only asked for the difference. We had insurance and they only paid us 10% of the ticket, so now Princess says it will pay us the difference, but still have not see the dollars. We choose to stay on board the day the Coral went to The Falklands, we had been told at the 40 Most Traveled Luncheon that the ship would NOT go to Fort Lauderdale so we made 5 different tickets to get out of Argentina doing several tickets for a couple of days just in case. We have been paid back for 5 of the tickets from United, but still waiting for the last one from Princess. So that is where the money is owned to us. We had a nice part of the trip for the first 8 days, but I will admit that the last 6 days were not akin to "Coming Back NEW". I do not blame this all on Princess, but Jan had first said that the cruise would stop on the 15th, if that had happened maybe we could have all been off and home before this became the mess and deadly as it did. I have no idea, maybe it was not possible, but lack of information seems vital to me.  Oh, well, guess we will never know why we needed to stop at The Falklands instead of going into a port where we could disembark while it would have been a lot safer. Even 5 days may have helped.  I hope you and your husband are well and enjoying being back home.

We bought two different plane tickets from Argentina and even booked a hotel for 5 nights in Argentina after American cancelled our flight the day after we made it.  We figured it might take a few days to get a flight out and that we at least had a place to stay.  That cost us about $2000.  On the website  where we booked, that had a notice saying they would follow "Covid-19 rules" for cancellation...it took quite a few phone calls (thanks to Princess' free phone calls) to finally get to the right person to get our refund.  Then Delta (our other reservation) wanted to give us a credit rather than the cash.  Chuck talked to someone at Delta detailing our situation and she finally agreed to give us the money back on our credit card...took a while but we did get it.  
We are well (now) and really enjoying being home thought it took a month or so before we could see our family.
Hope you are ok as well.
(Have you tried "going to the top" to get your refund?)
As far as the Falklands...I would have been very sad to have missed that port.  It was the high light and the part of the cruise I looked most forward to.  Loved the Penguins!  Also, I'm not even sure at that point that there was any corona on the ship. We felt safe going to the Falklands.  BTW that day, March 13th was the last day that we set foot on terra firma until we left the ship on the evening of April 4th...very strange feeling.

Edited August 5, 2020 by suzyed

[Shaver John]

2 minutes ago, suzyed said:

We bought two different plane tickets from Argentina and even booked a hotel for 5 nights in Argentina after American cancelled our flight the day after we made it.  We figured it might take a few days to get a flight out and that we at least had a place to stay.  That cost us about $2000.  On the website  where we booked, that had a notice saying they would follow "Covid-19 rules" for cancellation...it took quite a few phone calls (thanks to Princess' free phone calls) to finally get to the right person to get our refund.  Then Delta (our other reservation) wanted to give us a credit rather than the cash.  Chuck talked to someone at Delta detailing our situation and she finally agreed to give us the money back on our credit card...took a while but we did get it.  
We are well (now) and really enjoying being home thought it took a month or so before we could see our family.
Hope you are ok as well.
(Have you tried "going to the top" to get your refund?)

Thanks for asking, we have spent hours on the phone on HOLD and talking to agents and as of the 22th of July things have been approved per the last agent, but still no money. Not sure why, but we will see. I am still not sure that the virus came on the Coral  in Argentina. I wonder if someone could have picked it up at The Falkland? Oh well, guess we will all never know. We have a cruise booked on the Regal in March 2021 to Australia but we are almost sure it will not happen. Have already had the November 2020 cruise to Mexico canceled. Have lots of FCC but not sure when or if it will ever be used. So unsure and not willing to be left in another country again. Nancy...

[suzyed]

4 minutes ago, Shaver John said:

Thanks for asking, we have spent hours on the phone on HOLD and talking to agents and as of the 22th of July things have been approved per the last agent, but still no money. Not sure why, but we will see. I am still not sure that the virus came on the Coral  in Argentina. I wonder if someone could have picked it up at The Falkland? Oh well, guess we will all never know. We have a cruise booked on the Regal in March 2021 to Australia but we are almost sure it will not happen. Have already had the November 2020 cruise to Mexico canceled. Have lots of FCC but not sure when or if it will ever be used. So unsure and not willing to be left in another country again. Nancy...

We were told by numerous people that live in the Falklands that they had no cases there. So if they do now..."we" probably brought it there.
We are booked for May 2021 but of course even that is still iffy.  Time will tell.

[caribill]

Another restart has come to an end:

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5512/?

 

And there were only 37 passengers on board!

 

So even in a small group there is likely to be a case of Covid-19 and it may be very hard to know about it before embarkation.

[caribill]

Celebrity (which has 14 ships) and one of their TAs had a Zoom meeting today and some of what they presented involved their plans for starting cruising again.

 

o They will start “near home” which means doing Caribbean cruises from Miami.

 

o They will start with their newest ships.

 

o When they do begin cruising again, they will do it in with a “staggered” start. They will do a cruise from Miami and then do another one a couple of weeks later. These will not be sailings currently on their scheduled. Unknown is if “regular” passengers will be on board or just employees and travel industry reps.

 

o Their ships will be “the cleanest places on Earth after hospitals.”

 

o They hope to “be back in the water” this year.

 

o Asia cruises may be the last Celebrity ones to resume.

 

o Onboard experience will be as touch-less as possible. Once they are handed their cruise card, passengers will be the only ones touching it.

 

o It is easy to completely make their buffets completely having staff doing the placing of food on plates.

 

o All cruise lines are looking at rapid testing of passengers before embarkation, but the needed testing technology is not there yet.

 

o Ports of call experience will be very safe. Small group tours with a tested guide and no interaction with others.

 

o Limited capacity on initial sailings.

 

Other info

 

o Clients cannot view FCCs on the Celebrity web site. Need to ask your TA (or Celebrity rep) for that information.

 

o With their “lift and shift” program, passengers can move cancelled cruises to the same cruise next year with no increase in pricing and transferring all perks the original booking had. Must be for same number of days.

 

o Celebrity expects in January 2021 that 2021 bookings will be at least as many and probably more than than 2020 bookings were in January 2020. There is a big built up demand for cruising.

 

o Newly issued FCCs from cancelled cruises must be used by May, 2022. When asked if this date could be extended (because some passengers have so much in FCCs from cancelled cruises they cannot use them all by then), the response was that the cruise schedule currently only goes to May 2022. --- (Note that the newly issued Princess FCCs also must be used by May 1, 2022 which is also as far as current Princess schedules go.)

[Oulton Jim]

Quite a comprehensive list. I think what would be the 'killer' for us is the concept of being herded around the ports of call in small groups with no local interaction. 

[wowzz]

Until you can guarantee that no passenger embarks with CV19,  none of the protocols are of any use whatsoever.

Edited August 6, 2020 by wowzz

[c-boy]

... "  No matter how Covid-19 deniers try to spin it they want us to deny the dangerous position we are in as a country health wise."

 

.this statement reminds me of this scene

 

.

 

Edited August 6, 2020 by c-boy