Is this true....Hawaii cruises on hold..

[Kelownabccan]

Hawaii cruises remain on hold too.

As we’ve mentioned previously, the state is not prepared to welcome the return of cruise ships to Hawaii ports for the time being. They could return early in 2022, although that is not certain. The Safe Travels program has never been adapted to cruise passengers, as will be required before ships can return.

 

But I see they are still available for booking????

[HAL4NOW]

16 minutes ago, Kelownabccan said:

Hawaii cruises remain on hold too.

As we’ve mentioned previously, the state is not prepared to welcome the return of cruise ships to Hawaii ports for the time being. They could return early in 2022, although that is not certain. The Safe Travels program has never been adapted to cruise passengers, as will be required before ships can return.

 

But I see they are still available for booking????

We are booked for October 2022 on the Koningsdam. Hope all is good to go by then.

[CruiserBruce]

You might want to look on the Hawaii board, where this is being discussed.

 

The Hawaii Safe Travels site won't be adapted until they are ready to resume cruising. Why would they do it before?

[visagrunt]

There are a lot of moving pieces here.

The CDC conditional sailing order is due to expire January 15.  Not clear whether this will be extended, but I would not be surprised in the least.  If the order is extended then executed port agreements are a necessary precondition to resumption of sailing.  I have no doubt that ports are working with cruise lines on these--but a decision to execute them will be a political decision at the state level.

Existing cruises (including my own on Koningsdam on January 15) will likely turn into cruises-to-nowhere with some Mexican calls in the event that Hawai'i is not yet prepared for resumption.

[lazey1]

I am booked for the Jan. 16, 2022 on Koningsdam. We have not been told that it is cancelled but...getting conflicting information from Hawaii DOT and Go Hawaii.

[dobiemom]

52 minutes ago, Kelownabccan said:

But I see they are still available for booking????

I’m sure HAL is HOPING Hawaii cruises are a go, and are waiting until the last possible minute to cancel. (That’s just my feeling, nothing official.) 

[cate54]

34 minutes ago, visagrunt said:

There are a lot of moving pieces here.

The CDC conditional sailing order is due to expire January 15.  Not clear whether this will be extended, but I would not be surprised in the least.  If the order is extended then executed port agreements are a necessary precondition to resumption of sailing.  I have no doubt that ports are working with cruise lines on these--but a decision to execute them will be a political decision at the state level.

Existing cruises (including my own on Koningsdam on January 15) will likely turn into cruises-to-nowhere with some Mexican calls in the event that Hawai'i is not yet prepared for resumption.

I think they will cancel the cruise if Hawaii is not ready to welcome us. I can't imagine people will be happy with a cruise to nowhere for 18 days. 

[visagrunt]

That's a huge hit on revenue with very little recovery on cost.  I don't see that being a sound financial decision when they can offer some incentives on a modified itinerary.

If the bean counters really are in charge at HAL, they won't want to give back a few million in unearned revenue.

[Florida_gal_50]

I'll be shocked if they will be going.  I could see replacing them with Mexico cruises.

[nocl]

As of this time no port agreements have been made.  Not sure how likely it is that agreements will be put in place in December.  I expect that Hawaii will have some special requirements that other ports in the US do not have, including how any positive cases might be handled.  That could make a cruise with 5 at sea days in a row a bit complex. Then there is the question on how Hawaii Safe Travel would apply to cruise ships (passengers having to get approval on the Hawaii web site?  Additional testing prior to arriving in Hawaii?  etc) unfortunately until there are agreements and protocols are released who knows.  

[crusinbanjo]

2 hours ago, cate54 said:

I think they will cancel the cruise if Hawaii is not ready to welcome us. I can't imagine people will be happy with a cruise to nowhere for 18 days. 

A similar discussion is ongoing on the Viking cruise line board as well.  Apparently Viking is not canceling the Hawaii cruises, but substituting SoCal and the Mexican coast.  As I understand it, they are offering pax OBC or allowing them to rebook, or cancel with refund.  The contract says the cruise line can alter the IT at their discretion, so technically they are not canceling!  Should be interesting to see if HAL tries something similar.

[KirkNC]

We are on the Zuiderdam 2-27-22 cruise to Hawaii and the South Pacific so we have been watching this closely for a while.  In our case Bora Bora will be a no go as well as they are limiting cruise passengers to 1,200 per day and we have two additional ships in port that add over 600 to our potential 1,964. We have had multiple people cancel recently due to the combined uncertainty.

[Lido deck main]

Princess cancelled all Hawaii cruises last week to the end of March 2022.  We are on Koningsdam in April to Hawaii, I give it a 25% chance of going.

[nocl]

19 minutes ago, KirkNC said:

We are on the Zuiderdam 2-27-22 cruise to Hawaii and the South Pacific so we have been watching this closely for a while.  In our case Bora Bora will be a no go as well as they are limiting cruise passengers to 1,200 per day and we have two additional ships in port that add over 600 to our potential 1,964. We have had multiple people cancel recently due to the combined uncertainty.

We just decided to fly to Tahiti and Bora Bora for 10 days in January.

[nocl]

11 minutes ago, Lido deck main said:

Princess cancelled all Hawaii cruises last week to the end of March 2022.  We are on Koningsdam in April to Hawaii, I give it a 25% chance of going.

They did not cancel all Hawaii cruises.  They cancelled the cruises on the Crown Princess, but not those on the Ruby or Grand.  Basically they decided not to start up the Crown and the Coral until April.  So they canceled all of the cruises on those two ships.

[Kelownabccan]

Thanks for the news.....we were thinking of one but not now until the dust or Omicron clear up now...what crap when a few days ago we thought things were getting better......

[KirkNC]

1 hour ago, Lido deck main said:

Princess cancelled all Hawaii cruises last week to the end of March 2022.  We are on Koningsdam in April to Hawaii, I give it a 25% chance of going.

Yikes, doesn’t look good for us….

[KirkNC]

1 hour ago, nocl said:

We just decided to fly to Tahiti and Bora Bora for 10 days in January.

That will work, enjoy your trip.

[nocl]

1 hour ago, KirkNC said:

Yikes, doesn’t look good for us….

Except Princess did not cancel all of its Hawaiian cruises.  It did make the decision to delay the return to service of the Crown which was scheduled to do some Hawaiian cruises. So those were canceled.  Princess also delayed the return to service of the Island Princess.

 

The Hawaiian cruises scheduled from the Grand and the Ruby are still scheduled.

[Caribbean Chris]

We’re booked on the January 26 2022 Konigsdam 17-day Circle Hawaii. The limbo of “wait & see what happens with Covid next” is deja vu all over again after March 2020 when we waiting anxiously the final weeks for a go/no-go decision on our March 18 Hawaii cruise.

 

With the new variant already in California, I’ll be very surprised if Hawaii lets cruise ships resume in January. I just wish they would fish or cut bait and announce something so we can get on with our lives and make other plans while there’s still availability.

 

 

 

[FlaMariner]

Not understanding why cruise ships are not welcome in Hawaii?

[visagrunt]

4 hours ago, FlaMariner said:

Not understanding why cruise ships are not welcome in Hawaii?

Hawai'i, as an insular state, has unique public health challenges and it is not unreasonable for public health authorities to want visitors to arrive in a way in which they can continue to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.  A state like Florida or California can't effectively stop visitors entering, or effectively screen visitors.  Hawai'i can and does.

Cruise ships represent several risks over arrivals by air:  passengers and crew are in proximity to each other in circumstances in which outbreaks are possible; passengers in aircraft are more confined, but for a shorter period (and in an environment that is not conducive to aerosols).  Testing data gathered at embarkation is still within useful validity for air passengers but will be out of date for cruise passengers.  Cruise passengers arrive in large enough numbers that screening on arrival may be impractical.  Finally, cruise passengers will call at multiple islands--arrivals by air tend to land at one island and remain there (and can be screened prior to flying to other islands).

On the flip side, since the resumption of cruising, cruise lines have demonstrated a commitment to the effective detection of and control of covid on board, and the vaccination, testing, social distancing and masking requirements all mitigate the risks.

The question for policy makers becomes, "Is the risk mitigation established by cruise lines sufficient to reduce the risk profile for the economic benefit represented by cruise ship arrivals."  It's quite open for policy makers to decide that cruise passengers simply aren't as economically valuable as visitors staying on land, and that the risk/benefit analysis doesn't merit easing restrictions, yet.

Edited December 2, 2021 by visagrunt

[nocl]

11 minutes ago, visagrunt said:

Hawai'i, as an insular state, has unique public health challenges and it is not unreasonable for public health authorities to want visitors to arrive in a way in which they can continue to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.  A state like Florida or California can't effectively stop visitors entering, or effectively screen visitors.  Hawai'i can and does.

Cruise ships represent several risks over arrivals by air:  passengers and crew are in proximity to each other in circumstances in which outbreaks are possible; passengers in aircraft are more confined, but for a shorter period (and in an environment that is not conducive to aerosols).  Testing data gathered at embarkation is still within useful validity for air passengers but will be out of date for cruise passengers.  Cruise passengers arrive in large enough numbers that screening on arrival may be impractical.  Finally, cruise passengers will call at multiple islands--arrivals by air tend to land at one island and remain there (and can be screened prior to flying to other islands).

On the flip side, since the resumption of cruising, cruise lines have demonstrated a commitment to the effective detection of and control of covid on board, and the vaccination, testing, social distancing and masking requirements all mitigate the risks.

The question for policy makers becomes, "Is the risk mitigation established by cruise lines sufficient to reduce the risk profile for the economic benefit represented by cruise ship arrivals."  It's quite open for policy makers to decide that cruise passengers simply aren't as economically valuable as visitors staying on land, and that the risk/benefit analysis doesn't merit easing restrictions, yet.

Add to that - The various islands have very limited health capacity.  So they will have some pretty specific requirements in their port agreements concerning any passengers that might be found to have Covid either before the ships arrive or while the ships are in Hawaii.  Not too sure that Hawaii would want such passengers to be offloaded in Hawaii.

 

Also keep in mind Hawaii's history in the early days of the pandemic with the Grand Princess and with ships wanting to dock on their way back from Asia and Australia.

[martinprof]

I started to question HAL in October about the Hawaii Safe Travels program.  Just got a response about an hour ago.  Here is first paragraph:

 

"In accordance with CDC guidelines, our cruises departing from U.S. ports through March 31, 2022, are available for guests who have received their final dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine at least 14 days prior to the beginning of the cruise and produce a negative viral COVID-19 test (PCR or antigen) result taken within 2 days of their embarkation. This guideline allows our guest to travel to Hawaii. Inter-Island travel does not require testing at this time, therefor our guest are currently free to travel to Hawaii onboard our vessels."

They don't seem have a clue about Hawaii Safe Travels, port agreements, etc. and that it applies to all travelers from the mainland to Hawaii.  Then again I guess they could be right and everyone else wrong.

[KirkNC]

16 minutes ago, martinprof said:

I started to question HAL in October about the Hawaii Safe Travels program.  Just got a response about an hour ago.  Here is first paragraph:

 

"In accordance with CDC guidelines, our cruises departing from U.S. ports through March 31, 2022, are available for guests who have received their final dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine at least 14 days prior to the beginning of the cruise and produce a negative viral COVID-19 test (PCR or antigen) result taken within 2 days of their embarkation. This guideline allows our guest to travel to Hawaii. Inter-Island travel does not require testing at this time, therefor our guest are currently free to travel to Hawaii onboard our vessels."

They don't seem have a clue about Hawaii Safe Travels, port agreements, etc. and that it applies to all travelers from the mainland to Hawaii.  Then again I guess they could be right and everyone else wrong.

They also use the phrase “at this time”.