Trial cruises

[KirkNC]

Has anyone heard anything about HAL planning for the trial cruises required by the CDC.  Doesn’t it seem strange as the trial process will probably take a month or more to complete and that doesn’t even include getting crews trained and back on ships.  Are the cruise lines hoping that vaccines may somehow change what the CDC will require?

[aliaschief]

Who knows? All speculation at this point. Out of our control so will wait and see.

[Himself]

I have not heard when they are going to happen.. I heard that when it happens the PAX nust quawerinteen two weeks before the sale and two weeks on the return,

Good lock if those are the gtound rules!  Leave it to bureaucrates.

[kennystwin]

I certainly wouldn't be jumping through hoops to comply with CDC rules. They will have a new director in a couple of weeks there will likely be a lot of changes (if only for the sake of change). I hope/trust that Carnival Corp. or at least HAL are working on plans to vaccinate and redeploy their crews but they are likely far from setting any dates.

[Hlitner]

At this point I just figure that CCL (and most other cruise lines) will keep pushing back their start date until they are able to implement a mandatory vaccination policy.   When the CDC Guidelines were announced a careful reading made it obvious that the CDC was not binding itself to approving any ship.  The procedure is onerous with other attempted startups around the world resulting in COVID cases (or in one case a false positive test that also prematurely ended a cruise).

 

Hank

[iancal]

I believe that cruising is a long way off.  Nothing whatsoever to do with the CDC.

 

Take a look at the covid crisis in NA and in parts of Europe.  It is continuing, it is getting worse, and health authorities are forecasting that it will become even worse over the next 60 days. 

 

 What is transpiring in parts of North America today is essentially what responsible health authorities forecasted months ago.  No one should be surprised.  The surprise was the lack of preparation and the lack of enforcement of preventative measures.

 

Covid vaccinations are moving at a snails pace...even in the industrialized western world.  I cannot see a resumption in cruising until a much larger percentage of the various populations have been vaccinated.  Months from now.  Perhaps late Q3.  I think that we need to be realistic about this and not impose our wants and desires on the reality of the situation.

 

Really, who on earth would be desperate enough to sign up for a premature 'test' cruise????   Our health and well being is worth far more to us than a substandard  cruise on a mass market cruise line.

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by iancal

[KirkNC]

49 minutes ago, iancal said:

 

Really, who on earth would be desperate enough to sign up for a premature 'test' cruise????   Our health and well being is worth far more to us than a substandard  cruise on a mass market cruise line.

 

 

While I agree with you, remember over 100,000 people signed up with RCI to do test cruises.

[iancal]

Remember the old adage......you only get what you pay for.

[Mary229]

Here is the CDC public status page.   It is very generalized but there appears to be activity outside of the public spotlight 

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/crew-disembarkations-commercial-travel.html

[Djptcp]

DH and I would sign up for a trial cruise. We had our first vaccine shot last week and the second in 3 weeks. So we would be all set to go if vaccinations are required which we hope they are not only for trial cruises but when regular cruising starts again.

[KirkNC]

I am not sure trial cruises will be required or not.  Given the current pace of vaccinations, it maybe hard to find enough volunteers that have been vaccinated.

[Roz]

I was told my 4-day Jan. 27 cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam was potentially a trial cruise but HAL canceled it last month.

[Sue from Canada]

2 hours ago, KirkNC said:

I am not sure trial cruises will be required or not.  Given the current pace of vaccinations, it maybe hard to find enough volunteers that have been vaccinated.

I guess we Canadians are going to have to sign up for trial cruises as our vaccination rate is at a snails pace as we don't have any vaccine.  Where do I sign up

[Hlitner]

Will Trial Cruises ever happen?  Consider the Guidelines.  Cruise lines will need to invest a lot of money to get full crews to the USA, keep them in quarantine, get their ships back up to operational standards, etc.  At that point they would have to conduct a Trial Cruise (which costs them a lot more money) after which they have no guarantee that they will get the necessary permit from the CDC.  And after all this financial investment they will only be allowed to partially fill (with passengers) their ship.  And after all this time and expense if there is even a single case of COVID all bets are off.  If I were the CEO of a cruise line this scenario would not give me a warm fuzzy feeling and I would likely bide my time until a mandatory vaccination policy might cause the CDC to back off of some of their onerous requirements.

 

Hank

[Mary229]

I think a lot is likely going on with test trial cruises with crew only.  I do think it is a good idea for the cruise lines not to release any information because the simplest fault seems to generate an immense amount of negative media coverage.  

[KirkNC]

38 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

Will Trial Cruises ever happen?  Consider the Guidelines.  Cruise lines will need to invest a lot of money to get full crews to the USA, keep them in quarantine, get their ships back up to operational standards, etc.  At that point they would have to conduct a Trial Cruise (which costs them a lot more money) after which they have no guarantee that they will get the necessary permit from the CDC.  And after all this financial investment they will only be allowed to partially fill (with passengers) their ship.  And after all this time and expense if there is even a single case of COVID all bets are off.  If I were the CEO of a cruise line this scenario would not give me a warm fuzzy feeling and I would likely bide my time until a mandatory vaccination policy might cause the CDC to back off of some of their onerous requirements.

 

Hank

I agree, I think at this point it makes more sense to wait for vaccinations.  Of course that may take longer then they thought.  I assume the lines will have to get their hands on some vaccines for the crew.

[Sea42]

I wonder why there is not a status listed for Eurodam or Oosterdam. Or are the ships listed the ones that are in US waters at this time?

[Hlitner]

29 minutes ago, Sea42 said:

I wonder why there is not a status listed for Eurodam or Oosterdam. Or are the ships listed the ones that are in US waters at this time?

What do you mean by status?  Apparently most cruise ships are in some semblance of warm layup.  I imagine that when HAL decides it is time to resume operations they will use some of their ships to collect crew members from certain parts of the world (i.e. Philippines and Indonesia) which will be a financial trade off from using the airlines.  Picking up crew in the Pacific will give them time to get through a quarantine period as they reposition vessels to their embarkation ports.  The logistics of recrewing ships will be complicated as is getting any ship back up to the necessary standards to resume cruising with passengers.   Consider that this will be unprecedented (as was the shut down) and we would assume a lot of thought has already gone into the process to ramp up the company.

 

All of us should be cognizant that money does not grow on trees and all cruise lines have already burned through much of their emergency financing.   As cruisers/customers we would expect to simply board a ship and it is back to the normal standards.  From the point of view of the cruise companies this is a huge challenge.  Crews are teams and it normally takes some time for them to learn how to work together as a seamless team.   This is one reason why we prefer to avoid new builds for the first few months.  After COVID, every cruise ship will be akin to a new build with crews needing time to get back up  to speed and work with their supervisors.  It is a huge task and will be a real challenge.  Also consider that many experienced crew members (at all levels) will have likely moved on to other options.   Even a galley operation takes time to get back up to the quality and smoothness that we all take for granted.   The galley on a ship is an amazing operation involving lots of teamwork, skill, and experience.  How will this work with a worldwide restart?   I have no idea other then you can be sure there will be lots of challenges.

 

Hank

[Mary229]

42 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

What do you mean by status

They are referring to the CDC status page I gave above which lists the ships in some stage of the program

[Hlitner]

1 minute ago, Mary229 said:

They are referring to the CDC status page I gave above which lists the ships in some stage of the program

Thanks.  Makes sense.  But I do think you are going to find that many ships are not going to get involved in the CDC game.  In the case of lines like HAL there is no need to play that game for vessels that they may decide to keep out of the US Port market.  The thing about the 2021 Alaskan cruise market is that it is now dependent on Canada opening Vancouver and Victoria and that is not likely to happen by next summer.  If not, the Alaskan cruise season is doomed unless Congress steps in an changes the PVSA rules.   

 

While the CDC is really important to the cruise industry we need to remember that they only have power over ships that embark or call at US ports.

 

Hank

[chengkp75]

10 hours ago, Mary229 said:

They are referring to the CDC status page I gave above which lists the ships in some stage of the program

That "color coded status" only applies to whether ships are allowed to crew change via commercial transportation.  And, while it is a requisite for the ship to have and maintain "green" status, it really has nothing to indicate what is happening with the further requirements needed for the Conditional Sailing Certificate.

[KirkNC]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

That "color coded status" only applies to whether ships are allowed to crew change via commercial transportation.  And, while it is a requisite for the ship to have and maintain "green" status, it really has nothing to indicate what is happening with the further requirements needed for the Conditional Sailing Certificate.

Thanks for keeping it real.

[Mary229]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

That "color coded status" only applies to whether ships are allowed to crew change via commercial transportation.  And, while it is a requisite for the ship to have and maintain "green" status, it really has nothing to indicate what is happening with the further requirements needed for the Conditional Sailing Certificate.

That is all we have, so we know at least which ships have chosen to enter the program.  I don't imagine we are going to get a lot of details, if you publish success then you have to publish faults