Caribbean cruises

[ozzysdad]

Anybody know what explorer 2 will be doing this winter then?

[squink]

3 hours ago, MAC_1867 said:

Well, thats our been cancelled.

Do you mean, you have now cancelled and lost the deposite?

[MAC_1867]

1 hour ago, squink said:

Do you mean, you have now cancelled and lost the deposite?

No, they have cancelled the first 2 weeks of a 2 week + 1 week cruise.

 

On the phone now, they don't really know whats happening. They have cancelled our cruise 11th Jan - 25th Jan but kept the 3rd 1 week cruise on which is 25th Jan - 3rd Feb. Not really fancying a 7 day cruise with a 8-9 hour flight either side.

 

Waiting for alternative offers on the 5th October, not even sure if they will be using Jamaica as a home port early next year. 

 

The Mrs wants me to get the money out of Marella and book 10 days in Dubai.

Edited October 1, 2021 by MAC_1867

[MAC_1867]

They say the cut off date was the 17th January, anything before then is cancelled, anything after is still on. 

[Pensioncruiser]

14 minutes ago, MAC_1867 said:

The Mrs wants me to get the money out of Marella and book 10 days in Dubai.

Think she has the best idea, you can always rebook later 👌

[squink]

1 hour ago, Pensioncruiser said:

Think she has the best idea, you can always rebook later 👌

Looks like Jamaica is at risk , and Barbados is still on. All subject to change.

Yeh looks like full cancellation is the better option if possible .

[Pensioncruiser]

Only advice I can give is don't accept vouchers, I still have ours from March 2020 which are running out 😣

[MAC_1867]

Marella called me again and are trying to get us on the Barbados cruise which is around the same time, visiting a load of Caribbean islands.

 

Still have the Original cruise's for same but just at a later date by a few weeks.

 

Was really wanting to go to Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica ect

 

Not sure whether to try and get on a later cruise to same destinations, swap to Barbados or take money out.

 

 

[MAC_1867]

Options are 

 

Tropical Delights 

Paradise Islands 

Taste of Tropics 

 

Or 

 

Pride of Panama

Flavours of the Caribbean

Exotic Explorer 

 

All for mid-late Jan / early Feb

 

Or a weekend in Skeggy

[nancyneptune]

19 hours ago, MAC_1867 said:

Marella called me again and are trying to get us on the Barbados cruise which is around the same time, visiting a load of Caribbean islands.

 

Still have the Original cruise's for same but just at a later date by a few weeks.

 

Was really wanting to go to Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica ect

 

Not sure whether to try and get on a later cruise to same destinations, swap to Barbados or take money out.

 

 

 

Will there be a later cruise to the same destinations ?  If the ship can't re-position to the Caribbean all the cruises for this season will be cancelled. 

Marella would have to arrange a re-positioning cruise to Jamaica sometime in January / February to continue with those cruises. Can't see that happening.

 

When our cruise was cancelled in April last year we opted for the refund. So glad we did. It was obvious that this pandemic wasn't going to be over quickly. Still so much uncertainty so we will wait and do a late booking when things get back to as near as normal as possible. Probably be a while yet.

 

Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[Sheila49]

On 10/1/2021 at 6:59 PM, Pensioncruiser said:

Only advice I can give is don't accept vouchers, I still have ours from March 2020 which are running out 😣

We have had a call from TUI offering to extend our voucher to September 2022 which we have accepted.

[Pensioncruiser]

Unfortunately ours are the ones they issued at the very start and cannot be extended they can only be used for anything Tui. 🙄

[Sheila49]

33 minutes ago, Pensioncruiser said:

Unfortunately ours are the ones they issued at the very start and cannot be extended they can only be used for anything Tui. 🙄

That's a shame. Our cruise was cancelled in April 2020 but we didn't receive the voucher till June. They just called out of the blue to extend it otherwise it would have run out this month. I guess they just wanted to keep our money a bit longer!🤔

[bishop84]

On 10/1/2021 at 4:11 PM, MAC_1867 said:

Waiting for alternative offers on the 5th October, not even sure if they will be using Jamaica as a home port early next year. 

At the moment Marella Discovery 2 is scheduled to do the cruises from Montego Bay for Winter 22/23.

 

[squink]

On 10/1/2021 at 6:10 PM, squink said:

Looks like Jamaica is at risk , and Barbados is still on. All subject to change.

Yeh looks like full cancellation is the better option if possible .

I got to thinking , are Barbados based cruises at risk as well. I'm beginning to worry I've made a mistake booking a cruise and should have waited.

[Brummijam]

On 10/1/2021 at 7:16 PM, MAC_1867 said:

Options are 

 

Tropical Delights 

Paradise Islands 

Taste of Tropics 

 

Or 

 

Pride of Panama

Flavours of the Caribbean

Exotic Explorer 

 

All for mid-late Jan / early Feb

 

Or a weekend in Skeggy

Nothing wrong with Skeggy in late January.🥶🤒⛄️🌊

[squink]

3 hours ago, squink said:

I got to thinking , are Barbados based cruises at risk as well. I'm beginning to worry I've made a mistake booking a cruise and should have waited.

Just found this document on the visitbarbados web site;

COVID-19 TRAVEL GUIDELINES 2021 - Visit Barbados

The doc seems to explain exactly what embarkation/disembarkation processes an operator shall adopt incl cruise stay holidays. The biggest issue would appear to be provision of testing facilities either on the boat or at the port for the 'stay ' part of the holiday to comply with the negative test result within 3 days of entry requirement.  

[Cliffholl55]

16 minutes ago, squink said:

Just found this document on the visitbarbados web site;

COVID-19 TRAVEL GUIDELINES 2021 - Visit Barbados

The doc seems to explain exactly what embarkation/disembarkation processes an operator shall adopt incl cruise stay holidays. The biggest issue would appear to be provision of testing facilities either on the boat or at the port for the 'stay ' part of the holiday to comply with the negative test result within 3 days of entry requirement.  

Go look at all the islands Marella  stop at , I think your find they all want a PCR test or did when I looked last week.

[squink]

13 hours ago, Cliffholl55 said:

Go look at all the islands Marella  stop at , I think your find they all want a PCR test or did when I looked last week.

Yeh I thought I might do , just for my own knowledge , plus its all subject to change , but maybe I should be committing to a cruise/stay in the first place 🙁 . As of today we still need a 2 day test for return to the UK though on the upside almost all the islands are now off the red list.

Edited October 4, 2021 by squink

[GOQ]

On 10/3/2021 at 10:01 PM, Cliffholl55 said:

Go look at all the islands Marella  stop at , I think your find they all want a PCR test or did when I looked last week.

Yes this is a big concern. To get my winter "Cruise Fix" I booked a Canaries cruise for November and shifted my January Caribbean cruise to the Aegean/ Adriatic for next summer. Marella were quite helpful with this.   

[squink]

On 10/4/2021 at 11:07 AM, squink said:

Yeh I thought I might do , just for my own knowledge , plus its all subject to change , but maybe I should be committing to a cruise/stay in the first place 🙁 . As of today we still need a 2 day test for return to the UK though on the upside almost all the islands are now off the red list.

I've decided to wait until the death when the final payment is required in Dec'21. Options at that point will be continue as booked as a cruise / stay out of Barbados or change to a 14n hotel stay in Barbados.  So at this point we're going either way.

 

Key for me is how the risk of quarantine post cruise at disembarkation is handled for the stay portion of the holiday.