CDC releases Conditional Sailing Order

[mrlevin]

7 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Think you might have equal or more worries that first CDC is allowing cruises longer than 7 nites by May and second that Regent is able to have Contracts with hospitals and lodging locations in the remote areas you will be traveling in on that cruise.

 

I understand; I can read English and it has been a long time since I fell off that turnip truck.  

[greykitty]

The requirement?  Who knows....may depend on the virulence and spread of the virus over the next year or two (or more, I hope not!), the availability of useful vaccines or other treatment protocols, and data derived from all the test cruises, here and overseas (yes, I look at some of the European, in particular, sailings as beta cruises).  

 

That said, heck, I'm checking to see when my physicians will be ok with my going to gyms, etc. - right now it's not on the 'advised' list.  I'd certainly be asking them before taking a cruise.  But I'm in a risk group, so.....

[Pcardad]

53 minutes ago, mrlevin said:

 

For Regent yes; not for the rest of the industry.  I really think Regent will start up with seven day Mariner cruises with one day turnaround between each of the itineraries.  Once they are successful, I think they will do the same with Splendor and then with Navigator.  I am sure hopeful Navigator is up and operating by beginning of April so that my Arctic cruise commencing on 31 May from NYC has a chance of operating.

 

I am going with Splendor...less updates to infrastructure required.

[SusieQft]

46 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Think you might have equal or more worries that first CDC is allowing cruises longer than 7 nites by May and second that Regent is able to have Contracts with hospitals and lodging locations in the remote areas you will be traveling in on that cruise.

After the embarkation in NYC, the Grand Arctic Adventure has only the next 3 days in US ports, and then will no longer be in "US waters" until it returns after 94 days to disembark in NYC.  Of course, it is much longer than 7 days but not while it is in US waters.  And of course it is comprised of multiple shorter segments, still all well over 7 days.

 

Of course, nearly all cruises that are longer than 7 days do not spend that long actually in US waters.  But I doubt that the CDC would interpret this as "less than 7 days in US waters," since they say it cannot be "an itinerary longer than 7 days."  Does that mean a maximum of 6 nights?  It might.  There is a disconnect between conventional cruise nomenclature and the CDC document.  Cruising from or to the US for most of 2021 might be limited to 6 night itineraries.

 

As I understand it, the conditional sailing requirement must be met separately for each individual ship, not each cruise line.  Obviously some of the work could apply to all the line's ships, such as the required agreements with ports and medical facilities.

[rallydave]

13 minutes ago, SusieQft said:

Of course, nearly all cruises that are longer than 7 days do not spend that long actually in US waters.  But I doubt that the CDC would interpret this as "less than 7 days in US waters," since they say it cannot be "an itinerary longer than 7 days."  Does that mean a maximum of 6 nights?  It might.  There is a disconnect between conventional cruise nomenclature and the CDC document.  Cruising from or to the US for most of 2021 might be limited to 6 night itineraries.

Great post Suzie.  I am confused also about requirements like the Arctic Cruise that starts and ends in US waters. just like my earlier example about a TA that starts in say Europe and ends in US waters.   Don't believe the CDC has considered all the eventualities like Artic Cruise, T/A's and since the PVSA requires cruises starting and/or ending in the US to visit a foreign port.

 

Also your thought about cruises are generally 7 nites not 7 days is another thing they need to fix and change it to 7 nites which is the norm for weekly 7 nite 8 day cruises to the Caribbean, Alaska, etc.   Think this is just an error in understanding how cruises work and glad they were very clear that this order can be modified.   Pretty sure the cruise lines will bring up issues lke these and probably more and corrections will have to be made.   Good thoughts..

[tert333]

Here is a good summary of the CDC requirements.  One thing I did not realize that all crew have to have their own rooms.   I am not sure that will be an issue as the ships will be sailing at lower concentrations.

 

Also, the issue that in the case where a cruise ship has identified covid, the cruiseline is responsible to send all of the passengers home in a non-commercial transport, will be a huge problem.  I am glad I am not the person who has to think through how this will be done....

 

 

 

 

 

[Bellaggio Cruisers]

Questions that need answers that none of us have today:

1- No one knows if RSSC has already begun so many items on the CDC list?
2- No one knows which ship will sail, how many will be out there and when.

3- No one knows when the CDC will revise the number of nights to sail .

4- No one knows which ports, if any, will be available. 
5- Most importantly.... no one knows when the vaccines will be available to seniors, who are the majority of regular cruisers on RSSC. 
Everyone is just guessing. 

[SusieQft]

1 hour ago, rallydave said:

Also your thought about cruises are generally 7 nites not 7 days is another thing they need to fix and change it to 7 nites which is the norm for weekly 7 nite 8 day cruises to the Caribbean, Alaska, etc.

Maybe they are thinking a full 24 hour cleaning cycle is needed, not just 3-4 hours.  They may very well have intended it to be 6 nights, regardless of past cruising schedules.

[Anchorbuoy]

1 hour ago, rallydave said:

I am confused also about requirements like the Arctic Cruise that starts and ends in US waters. just like my earlier example about a TA that starts in say Europe and ends in US waters.   Don't believe the CDC has considered all the eventualities like Artic Cruise, T/A's...

 

Dave:

I think this covers your question.  From page 30 of the Order:

 

(  f) As a condition of obtaining or retaining a COVID-19 Conditional Sailing Certificate, cruise ship operators must comply with the requirements of this framework. These requirements apply to any cruise ship operating in U.S. waters and to cruise ships operating outside of U.S. waters if the cruise ship operator intends for the ship to return to operating in U.S. waters at any time while Order remains in effect.

 

   At present, the order will be in effect for one year.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Anchorbuoy

[rallydave]

22 minutes ago, Anchorbuoy said:

As a condition of obtaining or retaining a COVID-19 Conditional Sailing Certificate, cruise ship operators must comply with the requirements of this framework. These requirements apply to any cruise ship operating in U.S. waters and to cruise ships operating outside of U.S. waters if the cruise ship operator intends for the ship to return to operating in U.S. waters at any time while Order remains in effect.

While this is an interesting interpretation of the situation.  I was award of this statement and appears to me that this was written to cover ships currently outside of US waters who will be returning to US waters before the order expires.  After thinking about your thoughts, believe your thoughts are as valid as mine are which creates an ambiguity which as a matter of law is construed against the writer.

 

Believe as I said earlier this requires a clarification from the CDC and am sure the cruise lines will ask for that clarification.  Don't believe the CDC has any authority to require ships to follow CDC orders when not in US waters which is were the issue arises.

 

This issue is actually applicable to all cruises starting and ending in US waters due to the PVSA which requires ships to call at a distant foreign port except for closed loop cruises.  As far as I know all cruises from US ports do stop at foreign ports so the question is can this CDC order apply to TA's, cruises like the Arctic and other cruises stopping at non US ports.  This is extremely important as the cruise lines have to know if they are required to enter into Contracts in foreign ports for medical and housing that the CDC is requiring.  This could be a show stopper in some of the smaller ports with minimal medical facilities.

 

Thanks for making me think Anchorbuoy.  .

[rallydave]

1 hour ago, SusieQft said:

Maybe they are thinking a full 24 hour cleaning cycle is needed, not just 3-4 hours.  They may very well have intended it to be 6 nights, regardless of past cruising schedules.

You may be correct but, I have another viable thought.   Even though cruise lines advertise cruises as 8 days, 7 nites, in actually they are actually less than 7 full 24 hour days so in reality week long cruises do fit the CDC requirement.   Believe the 8 day 7 nite way cruises are advertised is to make people feel like they are actually getting 8 days when in reality they are less than 7 full days 

[jhenry1]

It might be the time to look into private land tours once there is a vacine . As much as we enjoy cruising it appears that 2021 cruising might be very limited.

 

 

 

[flossie009]

On page 32 of the CDC document there is this phrase:

(2) The cruise ship operator must not sail or offer to sail on an itinerary longer than 7 days.

 

Does this mean that Regent (and other cruise lines) must remove from their marketing material & website any cruises over 7 days duration that include US ports from now until November 2021? Will guests already booked on affected cruises be offered a full refund and compensation as a result?

 

As others have said this latest CDC document is full of apparent anomalies and raises more questions than answers for prospective cruise passengers.

 

 

 

[fudgbug]

On 10/31/2020 at 8:18 PM, ronrick1943 said:

In reading it, it seems like no cruise over 7 days until Nov 2021.  That kind of stops all are cruise in 2021.  

Taking in to consideration the time and money getting to a port, a seven day cruise is just not worth it.

[flossie009]

On 11/1/2020 at 6:26 PM, Pcardad said:

I don't consider non-paying "volunteers" to be passengers as we have referred to them in the past

I assume that the cruise line can use employees (officers, staff & crew) as the "passengers" for the simulated cruises; as long as they volunteer and the company does not make their continued employment conditional on them volunteering.

[Pcardad]

1 minute ago, flossie009 said:

I assume that the cruise line can use employees (officers, staff & crew) as the "passengers" for the simulated cruises; as long as they volunteer and the company does not make their continued employment conditional on them volunteering.

 

Yes, they can. My point was that I was differentiating between normal paying passengers these "special" passengers...they are not the same so I was trying to clarify who I meant.

[flossie009]

With the surge in Covid cases worldwide it seems an odd time for the CDC to change tack from its previous stance of banning cruises in US waters.

 

I note that almost half the 40 page document is devoted to justifying the previous 8 months of no-sail orders 🙄 

 

Although a welcome change I am not sure how it helps the beleaguered cruise industry; it will involve a lot of expense to get each ship certified for conditional sailing with little prospect of significant income in the short or medium term.

[rallydave]

2 hours ago, flossie009 said:

I assume that the cruise line can use employees (officers, staff & crew) as the "passengers" for the simulated cruises; as long as they volunteer and the company does not make their continued employment conditional on them volunteering.

Really don't believe the CDC will allow employees, friends or relatives to make up most of the passengers on the simulated cruises.  These simulated cruises are meant to simulate real cruises and for that have to have real passengers from experienced cruisers to newbies.  A full normal crew will also be required to simulate actual cruising.  Not sure what percentage of simulated passengers will be aboard.

 

Using employees/crew are biased toward their employer and not the typical customer so simply not a good fit and strongly doubt the CDC will allow only employees.  

[Wendy The Wanderer]

55 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Really don't believe the CDC will allow employees, friends or relatives to make up most of the passengers on the simulated cruises.  These simulated cruises are meant to simulate real cruises and for that have to have real passengers from experienced cruisers to newbies.  A full normal crew will also be required to simulate actual cruising.  Not sure what percentage of simulated passengers will be aboard.

 

Using employees/crew are biased toward their employer and not the typical customer so simply not a good fit and strongly doubt the CDC will allow only employees.  

 

You're probably right.

[flossie009]

8 hours ago, rallydave said:

These simulated cruises are meant to simulate real cruises and for that have to have real passengers from experienced cruisers to newbies. 

The stated purpose of the simulated cruise(s) is to demonstrate “the cruise ship operator’s ability to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 onboard its cruise ship”; i.e. simply to test its Covid 19 protocols in practice.

The requirements for the simulated voyage and its “passengers” are listed on pages 24 to 27  of the CDC Order.

I see nothing to exclude employees, as long as they are volunteers and their employment is not conditional on “volunteering”.

There is no requirement for “real”,  “experienced” or “typical” customers. In fact the average demographic of a Regent cruiser would  exclude them from being accepted as a volunteer passenger on a simulated cruise; on the basis of them being considered “high risk”.

Edited November 3, 2020 by flossie009

[mrlevin]

Does collecting final payment on the 2 April 2021 25 night Miami to Miami Navigator Amazon cruise violate the CDC Conditional Order?  After all, cruise lines are not allowed to offer for sale any cruise longer than seven nights from USA ports.

[cwn]

I have the same question for the Feb 5 - 10 day Miami to Miami cruise. Final payment is coming soon.

 

Regent needs to bite the bullet and at least put all final payments on hold through the conditional sail date. Also cancel the cruises they know that do not meet the current CDC standards for first couple of months of 2021. It is going to take some time to work through the CDC requirements for their five ships.
 

[flossie009]

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5704/

 

 

[Will Work for Tiramisu]

Happy Election Day, me hearties!  

I'd love to get back to cruising as much as the next guy.  However, ASSUMING an efficacious vaccine is developed (still an if, but a few hopeful signs to date), it will take a while for the distribution and for the shots to trickle down to not only us geezers who like to cruise, but also to younger people (from all over the world) who staff the ships.  And, once vaccinated, it takes your body a while to react and put in place the immune defenses that will (we hope) stop or control the virus in your system.  Also, some vaccines will require two doses, spaced some months apart, to achieve the desired result.  So, some time involved in all of that. 

 

Equally important almost for my wife and I, we won't fly out of country and get on a cruise ship without travel insurance, to cover all those unpleasant circumstances that can happen if one gets sick or dies overseas, or on the high seas.  Medicare stops at the water's edge, you know.  So, while I watch the restart of sailing with interest, and am fanatically following development of vaccines (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center is a good source of unbiased info), we ain't signing up for something until the Insurance people are ready to issue a policy; we'll watch that with great interest.  Sort of where the rubber meets the road. 

[Dolebludger]

Tiramisu,

 

I rather agree with you. In fact, we are more concerned about catching the virus in airports, on airplanes, and in ports than on Regent ships. And we have to endure several airports and airplanes to get to and from a Regent ship -- even one from and back to the US. The CC analysis of the new CDC order mentions that while cruise ships are being regulated vigorously due to the pandemic, airports and airlines aren't really being regulated at all. There will have to be an available vaccine before we set foot in an airport or an airplane -- thus we can't book a Regent cruise until then.