New technical instructions - Phase 2a

[BSocial]

Also, 

Additional Port Components of a Cruise Ship Operator’s Agreement with Port and Local Health Authorities, part 7 :

 

• The agreement must specify procedures:
  • to avoid congregating of embarking and disembarking travelers,
  • to ensure disembarking and embarking passengers do not occupy the same enclosed or semi-enclosed areas (e.g., gangways, terminal waiting spaces, check-in areas) within the same 12-hour period,  ...

can’t disembark and embark from same gangway within 12 hours ??

Edited April 3, 2021 by BSocial
Typo

[Jeremiah1212]

4 minutes ago, BSocial said:

Also, 

Additional Port Components of a Cruise Ship Operator’s Agreement with Port and Local Health Authorities, part 7 :

 

• The agreement must specify procedures:
  • to avoid congregating of embarking and disembarking travelers,
  • to ensure disembarking and embarking passengers do not occupy the same enclosed or semi-enclosed areas (e.g., gangways, terminal waiting spaces, check-in areas) within the same 12-hour period, and

can’t disembark and embark from same gangway within 12 hours ??

 

This one doesn’t make a lot of sense to me but you could disembark aft and board forward to work around that issue. 

[wrk2cruise]

It goes to show how far they want to go to segregate the passengers from the 2 sailings.   Probably a bad sign for B2B sailings for quite awhile.  

 

I do understand it though as we did a sailing out of San Diego where we were sharing the pier (2 ships on alternate sides of the pier) where the luggage was going in/out of the same tent on the pier.  The inbound sailing on the other Holland ship had a Noro outbreak.   Guess what, we had one on our outbound Celebrity sailing.   Coincidence?  Maybe.......

[C-Dragons]

1 hour ago, paulh84 said:

 

They've known about port service agreements for a while. Next step is a simulated sailing. The service agreements have been posted about here for quite a while. If cruiselines are more in the dark than CC nuts, that's a big problem!

 

 

This portion does not include all of the elements for test cruises based on #17. The initial CSO document mentions the 7 day rule which still applies. 

 

#17 A copy of the signed and executed agreement (including all attachments, exhibits, and annexes) must also be provided to CDC as part of a cruise ship operator’s application to conduct one or more simulated voyages. CDC will provide additional information about simulated voyages in future technical instructions and orders.

Agreed.
And that last sentence shows, Imo, that the CDC is still attempting to delay cruise ships returning to service. All the new guidelines published yesterday weren’t written the day before. They've had plenty of time to consider and complete their instructions and orders.

[deliver42]

More B.S. from the incompetent CDC

[mnocket]

4 hours ago, Hlitner said:

I notice some key issues missing (or purposely excluded) from the latest documents.  There does not seem to be any mention of a 7 day cruise maximum and very little additional information regarding the so-called "test cruises."  There is no additional mention of a ship by ship certification (by the CDC) process although they do mention that agreements with ports must list all the ships covered by the agreement.  

 

It seems like the CDC might be slowly moving towards something that is actually workable (we can hope).  Their guidance on vaccines is very carefully worded to allow the cruise lines lots of flexibility in that it says everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated but it does not use language that would make it a mandate (I am guessing that most cruise lines will make mandatory adult vaccination part of their plan).    I would think that one or more cruise lines will now submit restart proposals which would force the CDC to actually make a decision.

 

Hank

Instead of "test cruises" I see they refer to "simulated voyages or restricted passenger voyages".  I know what "simulated" means, but would like to know what exactly a "simulated voyage" is. 

 

It's interesting that the requirements for international air travel have been straight forward and clearly communicated for many months, but the requirements for cruising remain clear as mud.

[Jeremiah1212]

4 hours ago, C-Dragons said:

Agreed.
And that last sentence shows, Imo, that the CDC is still attempting to delay cruise ships returning to service. All the new guidelines published yesterday weren’t written the day before. They've had plenty of time to consider and complete their instructions and orders.

 I think the big consideration here is that it gives them a path to apply to conduct  simulated sailings. I may be assuming too much, but this could possibly be a simulated cruise experience where they load a ship and operate a full cruise, dinners, entertainment, etc but the ship never leaves the dock. 
 

After reading a little more the entire process seems pretty open ended and gives cruise lines the authority to make a lot of decisions with local authorities rather than very specific terms provided by the CDC. The changes regarding crew aren’t that substantial. They’ve known this was coming for a while so a lack of pre-planning would be an utter failure from the cruise line’s perspective. 

[middlehaitch]

My thoughts of the wording difference between 'test cruise' and 'simulated voyage', unless of course just a change of descriptor for the same thing. 

 

'Test cruise', this means an actual sea voyage. for this to happen within the USA laws and regulations the ship would have to dock at a  foreign port and allow passengers off. This could muddy the waters regarding the shipboard transmission rates etc, though make it a more true estimate of cruise conditions.

 

'Simulated voyage', this could mean that passengers (staff, volunteers) are boarded on the ship but never leave the  dock, just run through all required procedures. Not sure if the USA laws and regs would allow this. It would be a cost saving for the cruise lines though as there would be little fuel costs and no docking fees etc.

 

just my ruminations, 

Cheers, h.

Ha!  @Jeremiah1212 our thoughts crossed paths 😎

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by middlehaitch

[ExArkie]

Well, heck, I was hoping someone had built a cruise simulator - like the flight simulators used in pilot training. I wanted to get one for the back bedroom.

[deliver42]

If the cruise lines require passenger and crew to be vaccinated, then all the test or simulated cruises are al lot of nothing, but another stall tactic by the CDC.

[Arizona Wildcat]

5 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 I think the big consideration here is that it gives them a path to apply to conduct  simulated sailings. I may be assuming too much, but this could possibly be a simulated cruise experience where they load a ship and operate a full cruise, dinners, entertainment, etc but the ship never leaves the dock. 
 

After reading a little more the entire process seems pretty open ended and gives cruise lines the authority to make a lot of decisions with local authorities rather than very specific terms provided by the CDC. The changes regarding crew aren’t that substantial. They’ve known this was coming for a while so a lack of pre-planning would be an utter failure from the cruise line’s perspective. 

A simulated voyage is a lot easier.

[Ken the cruiser]

As far as an "guesstimated" timetable for cruises to start sailing out of Ft Lauderdale, I'm hoping Celebrity will complete the following tasks by:

 

Phase 2A - Voyage Preparation - by the end of April

Phase 2B - Simulated (trial) Passenger Voyages - by the end of May

Phase 3 - Conditional Sailing Certification - by the end of June

Phase 4 - Restricted Passenger Voyages - starting the beginning of July

 

Do these seem like reasonable estimates or is it just wishful thinking on my part since we have multiple cruises booked on the Edge and the Equinox in July? 🤔

 

BTW I just love this image @paulh84posted regarding the different phases as it really helped me understand the process better.

 

[Oldsweets]

I don’t think your timeline is outside the boundaries of being a reasonable guess.  Of course this comes from someone that still has June and July Cruises still booked so I am probably just wishing my life away.  But heck all I have is planning, memories, and daydreaming to fill my days.  

[grandgeezer]

I haven’t read, or heard, any comments from the cruise lines on these guidelines. Either they don’t any problems with them, or they are going to stay in character and ignore them, hoping they will go away.

[TeeRick]

6 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

As far as an "guesstimated" timetable for cruises to start sailing out of Ft Lauderdale, I'm hoping Celebrity will complete the following tasks by:

 

Phase 2A - Voyage Preparation - by the end of April

Phase 2B - Simulated (trial) Passenger Voyages - by the end of May

Phase 3 - Conditional Sailing Certification - by the end of June

Phase 4 - Restricted Passenger Voyages - starting the beginning of July

 

Do these seem like reasonable estimates or is it just wishful thinking on my part since we have multiple cruises booked on the Edge and the Equinox in July? 🤔

 

BTW I just love this image @paulh84posted regarding the different phases as it really helped me understand the process better.

 

Ken- Reasonable approach to the time lines.  For us anyway.  But assume maybe that Phase 4 is in November.  So they do not change the current No Sail Order.  So each phase might last two months.  

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Ken- Reasonable approach to the time lines.  For us anyway.  But assume maybe that Phase 4 is in November.  So they do not change the current No Sail Order.  So each phase might last two months.  

I sure hope that's not the case, but as with everything else these days, time will tell. 

[TeeRick]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I sure hope that's not the case, but as with everything else these days, time will tell. 

Honestly it should not be the case.  I like your time line much better.  And I am happy that the CDC is trying to finally issue reasonable guidelines to move forward.  So hopefully they will overturn the current No Sail Order much sooner than November.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 minute ago, TeeRick said:

Honestly it should not be the case.  I like your time line much better.  And I am happy that the CDC is trying to finally issue reasonable guidelines to move forward.  So hopefully they will overturn the current No Sail Order much sooner than November.

With the early startup cruises, especially those out of St Maarten, I'm hoping Celebrity will be applying the various "shipboard" Phase 2 requirements on these startup cruises. I'm also hoping Celebrity had already started to coordinate the port side requirements, especially when in comes to Phase 4 applicable cruise ships sailing out of Ft Lauderdale, months ago as most of these requirements have been identified long ago. The operative word here is, of course, is "hoping". 😁

[Jeremiah1212]

I would expect a comment or two from the cruise lines coming tomorrow. From that point forward, we may see weeks (months?) of radio silence. All cruise lines presumably will not be working at the same speed and hitting these next phases at the same time. It's totally possible even when test/simulated cruises occur, no one will really know. From there it's essentially a paperwork path forward until something tangible to customers is announced or until we stalk social media enough to piece together bits of info.

 

NCL has suspended bookings until September until they figure things out. Carnival appears to be willing to wait until November when things blow over (also a big risk since there is no magic guarantee this goes away in November). I hope we know quite quickly if RCG in particular has been working proactively behind the scenes or if they have been starring out the window for the past 10-11 months. As much as I hope it's not true I feel like they haven't done a lot but I hope they do prove me wrong. 

[bEwAbG]

My theory: the cruise lines knew last week that these updated instructions were about to be published, and they launched that campaign to try and stop this phased approach altogether knowing it was their last shot at getting out of meeting the requirements.

[Ken the cruiser]

Wow, I just finished reading the Housing Components of a Cruise Ship Operator’s Agreement with Port and Local Health Authorities section, which is at the end of the Phase 2A Technical Instructions.

 

As required by the terms of CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing, a cruise ship operator’s agreement with all U.S. port and local health authorities where the ship intends to dock or make port during one or more simulated voyages or restricted passenger voyages must incorporate housing agreements between the cruise ship operator and one or more shoreside facilities for isolation and quarantine of persons with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and close contacts, respectively, identified from the day of embarkation through disembarkation for each voyage, in accordance with CDC technical instructions and orders.

 

Hopefully, this section, to include its 7 subsections detailing very specific requirements, is only applicable "during one or more simulated voyages or restricted passenger voyages"; otherwise it sounds like a cruise line is going to have to maintain a sizeable apartment complex on the remote outside chance there is a large COVID outbreak on one of their ships in port, even though a vast majority of the passengers will be vaccinated. If I'm not misreading this section, I can understand why the cruise lines are so upset.

 

Technical Instructions for a Cruise Ship Operator’s Agreement with Port and Local Health Authorities under CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing Order | Quarantine | CDC

Edited April 13, 2021 by Ken the cruiser

[wrk2cruise]

Yes but on the other hand what happens if this is not in place and there is an outbreak onboard.  Probably wouldn't have to be a large qty of people testing positive but if you include the number of people who could be contact traced the numbers who need to be quarantined can grow quickly.

[nocl]

9 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Wow, I just finished reading the Housing Components of a Cruise Ship Operator’s Agreement with Port and Local Health Authorities section, which is at the end of the Phase 2A Technical Instructions.

 

As required by the terms of CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing, a cruise ship operator’s agreement with all U.S. port and local health authorities where the ship intends to dock or make port during one or more simulated voyages or restricted passenger voyages must incorporate housing agreements between the cruise ship operator and one or more shoreside facilities for isolation and quarantine of persons with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and close contacts, respectively, identified from the day of embarkation through disembarkation for each voyage, in accordance with CDC technical instructions and orders.

 

Hopefully, this section, to include its 7 subsections detailing very specific requirements, is only applicable "during one or more simulated voyages or restricted passenger voyages"; otherwise it sounds like a cruise line is going to have to maintain a sizeable apartment complex on the remote outside chance there is a large COVID outbreak on one of their ships in port, even though a vast majority of the passengers will be vaccinated. If I'm not misreading this section, I can understand why the cruise lines are so upset.

 

Technical Instructions for a Cruise Ship Operator’s Agreement with Port and Local Health Authorities under CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing Order | Quarantine | CDC

Keep in mind that the scope of the housing needed for quarantine/treatment is determined by the anticipated need as agreed upon by the port and the cruise line.  If risk is as low as people indicate, especially if they require vaccinations, then the number of housing units would be pretty low.

 

Though there would need to have a contingency plan for expansion if a worse case scenario were to occur. But the guidance specifically says that the worse case is a contingency plan, compared to the actual housing agreement which is based upon estimated cases.

[nocl]

On 4/4/2021 at 6:50 PM, bEwAbG said:

My theory: the cruise lines knew last week that these updated instructions were about to be published, and they launched that campaign to try and stop this phased approach altogether knowing it was their last shot at getting out of meeting the requirements.

The cruise lines certainly are acting like their goal is to not have anymore oversight from CDC when they start sailing again than they had prior to COVID.

[markeb]

1 minute ago, nocl said:

Keep in mind that the scope of the housing needed for quarantine/treatment is determined by the anticipated need as agreed upon by the port and the cruise line.  If risk is as low as people indicate, especially if they require vaccinations, then the number of housing units would be pretty low.

 

Though there would need to have a contingency plan for expansion if a worse case scenario were to occur. But the guidance specifically says that the worse case is a contingency plan, compared to the actual housing agreement which is based upon estimated cases.

 

I've stayed out of this thread, but was about to say something similar.

 

If there's no firm requirement in law or the CFR, pretty much every regulated industry does this sort of thing all the time. You assess your risks, evaluate your mitigations, document your assumptions, and propose your control plan. And if your industry is inspected or audited by a government agency, you're inspected or audited against your plan.

 

If the cruise lines put forward a proposal based on a vaccinated population against current CDC isolation and quarantine guidance, for instance, they could probably propose a 1-5% population requiring a housing agreement, and even that may be high; you make and document your assumptions and do the math. Part of that depends on how they interpret the group setting guidance; that appears to apply to where you are after a potential exposure (arguably might apply if you were getting on a second cruise within 14 days, but not sure if you're going home to a single family setting); that would seem to most directly apply to the crew.

 

Now, the lines might not want to propose a plan that's based on a verified vaccinated population, Even if that's what they're planning for. I think they'd all be much happier if a handful of key Caribbean destinations started requiring vaccines. Then they'd just be meeting the requirements of their port calls...